Is TinyDuino appropriate for beginners?

[Justind000]

Hello,

I stumbled on this website while researching arduino boards. I'm completely new to arduino and micro controllers in general. I have years of experience in programming however. Would this be appropriate for me, or should I get myself a regular sized Arduino Due? I have a specific project in mind and the smaller the better, that's what has kept my interest in this rather than a larger board.

[TinyCircuits]

Hi Justin,

Thanks for your interest!  As a complete beginner, realistically an Arduino Uno or Due is probably a better bet, just because there easier to play around with things and get a feel for electronics and the Arduino platform.  That being said, it's not that hard to jump straight to a TinyDuino, but it is a slight bit more advanced than a standard Arduno.  Most people with a little Arduino experience can pick it up in no time, but for someone completely new to it, it may be easier to start with a standard Arduino then transition to a Tiny later.

Thanks!

Ken
TinyCircuits

[KeithJRome]

It also depends a lot on what kind of programming you have been doing. If you use C/C++ a lot already, then you will find it very easy and might outgrow a standard Arduino in just a day or two. On the other hand, if you're not very familiar with C or have never done bitwise arithmetic, then you might benefit from spending some time with a standard Arduino first while you go through the tutorials on arduino.cc and get a feel for the language and how to interface with the hardware.

Of course standard Arduino UNO are pretty cheap and it doesn't really hurt to have one around anyway.

[Justind000]

Thanks for the replies. My programming experience runs from x86 ASM to Windows NET framework.

The thing that had me a bit confused when looking at sketches designed for a regular arduino board was the pin names didn't match. As a quick example:
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogReadSerial
connects to the A0 and reads a value. Looking at the TinyDuino proto boards, there is no A0. I'm guessing the equivalent would be AD0? Working from my very limited knowledge base, it seems the only real difference is the naming convention.

[KeithJRome]

Ken has another post on the forum that explains the pin layout in a pretty straightforward way: http://forum.tiny-circuits.com/index.php?topic=126.0

I also have a wide range of programming language background, with most of my time over the last decade entrenched in .NET. Writing Arduino or native AVR code (I prefer the latter since the Arduino IDE is atrocious) is a nice break from that. Plus I've really been enjoying learning Verilog HDL for my fpga board, which is entirely unlike any software programming that I have ever done.

You'll probably find it very easy to ramp up on the Arduino platform - it was designed to be approachable by non-programmers, so those of us with a programming background have a bit of a leg up already.

[Justind000]

That forum post explained most everything.

[darksheep]

My friend is new to arduino and I gave him a TinyDuino, TinyShield USB & ICP and a TinyShield Proto Board 1.
I then soldered some female headers on the TinyShield Proto Board 1 and he has done  a lot of examples form the net using this setup.
For the pin question I pointed him to the forum post that explains the pins and he has worked it out for himself.

May be someone can make a table or something to make it easier for new people to work it out ,I don’t have a pc where I am now so it’s a but hard.

TinyDuino : http://tiny-circuits.com/shop/tinyduino-processor-board/
TinyShield USB & ICP : http://tiny-circuits.com/shop/usb_icp_tinyshield/
TinyShield Proto Board 1: http://tiny-circuits.com/shop/tinyshield-proto-board-1/

Female headers :http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Pcs-2mm-Pitch-20-Pin-Female-Single-Row-Straight-Pin-Header-Strip-/181118896067?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a2b8707c3

You can use any headers you like with 2mm spacing,I just go these and then cut them in to 4 rows of 8

[EKMallon]

Re: Tiny Duino for beginners?

After putting full headers on two protoboards (which was a bit challenging...), I would add one thing about the tiny duinos that while obvious, but might not be apparent to a real beginner: You need to be pretty darned good at soldering to work on boards this small (Especially on protoboard 1). If you haven't had much practice there, then I would recommend you buy a few protoboards and just try to solder ten wires to each one, in holes right beside each other.  If you get through that without bridging any contacts, then you know you are good to go, at least on the physical side of things.  Otherwise it might be good to start on a bigger board with bigger contacts pads.