Microcontrollers

Choosing a Development Board for Your Project

Choosing a development board for your projects can be a daunting task. Given the large number of development boards available today, it’s no wonder.

For those who don’t already know this, let’s first come up with a definition for development board.

A development board is a small circuit board containing either a microcontroller, microprocessor (or both) which supplies the necessary components and software for design and programming.

Most of us are familiar with boards like the various incarnations of Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and even BeagleBone. These are some of the most popular options among hobbyists and makers.

Some of us are familiar with other, lesser known boards like Intel’s Galileo or Texas Instrument’s TI LaunchPad. [Read more…] about Choosing a Development Board for Your Project

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Programming Arduino & Other Microcontrollers

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For the electronics enthusiast, programming languages have become a tool almost as ubiquitous as the soldering iron. Just as there’s the old trusty iron on most workbenches, not far away lies some sort of compiler or IDE.

Sure, there are useful and cool things that you can produce without the use of a microcontroller, but there’s also a lot of useful and cool things that would be very difficult or impossible to make without a microcontroller.

One problem is — for those new to electronics at least — that learning to program can be daunting, just like learning to solder for can be daunting some.

Getting Naked: Working With Naked Microcontrollers vs Trainers Like Arduino

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Open source electronics “trainer” boards like the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, the BeagleBone and others have been an enormous boon to introducing more people to electronics and science.

This is because they make working with microcontrollers and programming easier by way of abstraction.

The popularity of these boards has exploded over the past 8-10 years or so.

In the past, using a microcontroller in your projects meant working directly with the micro and supporting hardware, programming in C, and a host of other things.

Be that as it may, there are reasons why the hobbyist should consider learning to work directly with the “naked” or stand-alone microcontroller. We’ll talk about some of those reasons in the words that follow, but first we’ll talk about the difference between a trainer and a microcontroller.