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Expertise: Arduino, .NET Gadgeteer, IOIO, embedded computing, open source hardware

About Simon: Simon is an author, writing books for TAB/McGraw-Hill and O'Reilly. He is best known for his Arduino books: 'Programming Arduino' and '30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius'.

Simon has a BSc. in Cybernetics and Computer Science and a PhD. in Software Engineering. He spent several years as an academic before he returned to industry, co-founding the mobile software company Momote Ltd.

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Former Member over 13 years ago

is the arduino uno rev 3 better than arduino leonardo??
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simon.monk over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

It depends what you want to do with it.

The Leonardo is cheaper and opens up the possibility of making your Arduino act like a USB keyboard and other neat tricks. The only down side is that the processor is SMD. So unlike the Uno where you can just plug in another ATmega328 if you accidentally kill the processor on a Leonardo, you will probably need to get a whole new board.

I'm keen to try the Leonardo - personally I like the approach of USB built into the main processor rather than a separate USB processor as on the Uno. It just seems more elegant.
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Former Member over 13 years ago

What would be some simple projects that only require wires, a breadboard, an Arduino, a button, and a LED?
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simon.monk over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

Well, a good really simple start is to take the blinking LED example and use an external LED on some bredboard in series with a 270Ω resistor in series with it. Then just work your way up, so maybe add a switch to turn the LED on and off, or 2 switches to increase and decrease the rate of flashing.

I ca't really pass up the opportunity to plug my '30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius' book. This is a breadboard-based project book. It starts simple and gradually builds up to more complex projects. The book's website conatins pictures of all the completed projects as well as all the Arduino source code which you are free to take and do with what you will.

http://www.adruinoevilgenius.com
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Former Member over 13 years ago

Does anyone make an opto isolator shield for rs232 communication on an arduino?
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Former Member over 13 years ago

how to use a non boot loaded atmega328 ic in arduino?
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Former Member over 13 years ago

i have a uno r3 and i want to program the 16u2 chip to act like a keyboard(HID).but i cant found the dfu mode so how can i make uno r3 dfu mode?
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simon.monk over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

You can use the ICSP header with a programmer like the USBTiny ISP to programe the ATMega directly, but if you are doing that, you may as well burn the bootloader using the programmer.
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simon.monk over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

Have you seen this thread about about turning an Uno into a USB HID?

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php?topic=99.0

Alternatively,get a Leonardo
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simon.monk over 13 years ago in reply to Former Member

I have not come across an isolating RS232 shield,
but you could use an external one like this: http://www.usconverters.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=187

with a regular RS232 shield like this one: http://www.cutedigi.com/arduino-shields/rs232-shield-for-arduino.html
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