0 comments

Overview:

Arduino is the world ‘s largest open source hardware platform and offers endless possibilities for what you can achieve with its simple microcontroller based products. New hardware's designed and presented on the market everyday, but the basics will always be the same, so the best way to start is to learn the basics with an Arduino Basic Kit. That way, you will be able to work with any Arduino-based board in the market.

So in this tutorial, we will be doing 7 projects. Simply click on the link:

1.) Blinking LED

2.) Multiple LED

3.) Button Pressing

4.) Light

5.) Colorful Light

6.) Music

7.) Twisting Potentiometer

The Arduino Starter Kit

Uno R3 ATmega328

UNO R3 CH340G/ATmega328 – compatible with Arduino UNO R3 board. Built on the Atmel ATmega328 microcontroller and USB-UART interface chip CH340G. Board for functionality similar to the Arduino UNO (ATmega 28). It is a budget, but the same stable, and uses the original chips Atmel ATmega328 (16 MHz)
The board used the chip CH340G as converter UART-USB. Chip CH340G – is a budget solution. When you work in the frequency 12Mhz, giving a stable result of data exchange (need install drivers to computer). UNO R3 CH340G/ATmega328 – connects to the computer via micro USB cable (used for almost all Android smartphones).

You can supply power to board through the MicroUSB connector or DC-jack. The voltage regulator (LDO) can deal with incoming voltage from 6V to 12V DC. Output current for 5V – about 800mA, for 3.3V – about 180mA (Please note that the higher the input voltage the lower the outgoing current). That will provide a reliable power most of your initial projects.

Resistors

A resistor is an electrical component that limits or regulates the flow of electrical current in an electronic circuit. Resistors can also be used to provide a specific voltage for an active device such as a transistor.

Resistors can be fabricated in a variety of ways. The most common type in electronic devices and systems is the carbon-composition resistor. Fine granulated carbon (graphite) is mixed with clay and hardened. The resistance depends on the proportion of carbon to clay; the higher this ratio, the lower the resistance.

To Read a Resistor:

The color bands on a resistor allow you to calculate its resistance. The resistor bands are read in a left-to-right fashion with the tolerance band (usually offset from the other bands and a gold/silver color) on the right. To read a resistor’s color code, start with the band furthest to the left; this will be the first, most significant digit. The next band to the right is the second, least significant digit. The third band is the multiplier, and the fourth band is the manufacturing tolerance level.

The true value of a resistor can then be read using a multimeter or an ohmmeter. Note that while there are small-value resistors (lower than 100 ohms), extremely large value resistors (greater than 100 Megaohms) and low tolerance resistors (as low as +-1%), most resistors fall within 100 to 1,000,000 ohms (1 million ohms is 1 megaohm, or 1Mohm) and have a tolerance value of +-5% or +-10%.

http://education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/content/electronics/common/resistors/1.html

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/resistors

Pushbuttons

Push Button Switches consist of a simple electric switch mechanism which controls some aspect of a machine or a process. Buttons are typically made out of hard material such as plastic or metal. The surface is usually shaped to accommodate the human finger or hand, so the electronic switch can be easily depressed or pushed.

Pushbutton usually comes with four legs. Anyway, as you can see from the picture below, legs are always connected in groups of two. When the pushbutton is pressed all the 4 legs are connected.

http://www.varesano.net/blog/fabio/pushbuttons%20and%20tilt%20sensorsswitches%20how%20they%20work%20and%20some%20arduino%20usage%20examples

Buzzer

A piezo electric element is a crystal or ceramic that deforms slightly when a voltage is applied to it. So if you supply an AC voltage at a few kilohertz, it deforms back and forth at the same speed as the AC signal, and produces sound based on reverse of the piezoelectric effect. The generation of pressure variation or strain by the application of electric potential across a piezoelectric material is the underlying principle. These buzzers can be used alert a user of an event corresponding to a switching action, counter signal or sensor input. They are also used in alarm circuits.

The buzzer produces a same noisy sound irrespective of the voltage variation applied to it. It consists of piezo crystals between two conductors. When a potential is applied across these crystals, they push on one conductor and pull on the other. This, push and pull action, results in a sound wave. Most buzzers produce sound in the range of 2 to 4 kHz.

Potentiometer

A potentiometer is a manually adjustable variable resistor with 3 terminals. Two terminals are connected to both ends of a resistive element, and the third terminal connects to a sliding contact, called a wiper, moving over the resistive element. The position of the wiper determines the output voltage of the potentiometer. The potentiometer essentially functions as a variable voltage divider. The resistive element can be seen as two resistors in series(potentiometer resistance), where the wiper position determines the resistance ratio of the first resistor to the second resistor.

A potentiometer is also commonly known as a potmeter or pot. The most common form of potmeter is the single turn rotary potmeter. This type of pot is often used in audio volume control (logarithmic taper) as well as many other applications. Different materials are used to construct potentiometers, including carbon composition, cermet, wirewound, conductive plastic or metal film.

http://www.resistorguide.com/potentiometer/

Application Description:

1.) Blinking LED

In this activity, we are going to do a on off Led. Change the delay time depending on what you want. Also we will try to do Fading.

2.) Multiple LED

In this activity, it is the same with Blinking Led but this time we will going to use 5 Leds with different transitions and timings.

3.) Button Pressing

In this activity, we are going to make the buttons as the switch the Led on and Led off.

4.) Light

In this activity, we are going to test how LDR works.

5.) Colorful Light

This activity will be cool because of different colors that will glow in one LED.

6.) Music

We are going to make a music form a buzzer.

7.) Twisting Potentiometer

In this activity, we are going know how the analog works.

You can buy all this Hardware at Createlabz.

Conclusion:

As we had our journey to the 7 activities of the starter’s guide, I could say that the arduino is indeed a beginner friendly!! It is because Arduino is one of the most use microcontroller now a days, and you can search all projects in the internet depending on what you want, with given instructions and explained step by step. You can also integrate all this experiment we made, it depends in you, on how you will mix these projects. I could also say that the basic techniques in Arduino are very important, because if you go to the complex projects,the basic techniques will always be present.