ATtiny Breakout/Programmer

Introducing the eeZee Tiny

To make it easier to prototype ATtiny-based circuits like my lost model alarm I made a breakout / programmer board for ATtiny13 pin-compatible chips. I call it the eeZee Tiny. It's a surface mount version of an existing open source project.

(The list of compatible chips includes the ATtiny11, ATtiny12, ATtiny13, ATtiny13A, ATtiny25, ATtiny45, ATtiny85)

The board has a 6-pin AVRISP header so I don't have to keep looking up pinouts, a reset switch and breadboard friendly header pins. Supply power to pins 4 and 8 and you're set.

I can either use the board to prototype the next project or embed them in projects permanently.

LED flashy test using ATtiny13A

I made a few extras in hopes that it'll help out others. They're on sale at Tindie at the moment and for Cyber Monday you can use coupon code 8F7CD17 to get 25% off the regular price.

Features:

• Works with ATtiny13,13A, ATtiny25,45,85, ATtiny11, ATtiny12
• Tiny 1-square-inch board
• Perfect for breadboarding
• 0.1uF and 10uF filtering capacitors pre-soldered
• Compact AVRISP connector for easy programming
• All 8 pins exposed for breadboarding
• Reset switch and pull-up resistor included

Source

Here are the Eagle files and example code so you can make your own. I had my boards done by oshpark.com and they turned out great as always.

• Google Code Repository
• Eagle Files
• Example Code
• Example Hex

Parts list includes a standard 6mm square tactile switch with 4 pins, one 0603 0.1uF ceramic cap, a 1206 10uF tantalum, a 0603 1K resistor, an 8PDIP socket, a 2x3 pin header, and a 1x8 (or two 1x4) pin header.

Additional details here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

RoboTurkey says
"Happy Thanksgiving to
robots and humans alike!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wanted to let you now Pololu is doing their Black Friday sale again. Here's the details.

Pololu Robotics and Electronics is having its biggest Black Friday sale yet, starting this Thursday.  You can get up to $30 off your entire order in addition to saving up to 60% on dozens of selected products, including the Pololu 3pi Robot, our new Zumo Robot Kit for Arduino, Wixel wireless modules, Maestro Servo Controllers, Simple Motor Controllers, MinIMU-9 9-channel IMU, sensors, chassis, actuators, and more!  For details, visit:
http://www.pololu.com/blackfriday 

Windows, OS X, Linux for the Roboticist

Call me a luddite, my main geek system is running XP despite being an OS X fanboy. The Windows upgrade path looks torturous. Windows 7 is a train wreck of confusion and delay. Trying to find My Documents and navigate around is like running in a pool. Windows 8 sounds like a nightmare, too. Swell.

I can't stay with XP forever. If I ditch Windows, what's the replacement? OS X? Linux? Everything runs on Windows but not everything runs on the other two. Here's a sample of some of my favorite tools.

Software	Win	OS X	Linux
NetBeans	Y	Y	Y
LTSpice IV	Y	Wine?	Wine
CadSoft Eagle	Y	Y	Y
LPCXpresso	Y		Y
MPLAB 8.xx	Y
MPLAB X	Y	Y	Y
AVR Studio	Y
Gimp	Y	Y	Y
Arduino IDE	Y	Y	Y
Processing IDE	Y	Y	Y
Google Earth	Y	Y	Y
Octave	Y	Y	Y
GnuPlot	Y	Y	Y
IAR Embedded Workbench	Y
Flash Magic	Y
Propeller Tool	Y	BST	BST
Google SketchUp	Y	Y	Wine?

AVR Studio and LTSpice are tools I really like and use often. Ugh.

Picasa is my go-to image manager/editor for this blog. Going without it may suck.

One can use Wine or VirtualBox to run Windows stuff. Since I first wrote this I've actually done it and both are looking promising.

Replacement tools are possible for some of these. Maybe I'd rather use TurboCAD or Blender.