AVR Hardware Kit
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Introduction
If you're just getting started with AVR programming, of you'd like to know how to get started, you should take a look at the page Your First AVR Order, which lists the minimum set of things you'll need to start doing simple AVR programming. The rest of this page is a general list of things that I've found useful in the past.
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AVR Chips & Development Boards
- An STK500 AVR development board, which both directly programs DIP chips, and can program AVRs on another board (with a 6/10 pin connector). There are many clones and DIY plans that can also do one or the other.
- A selection of AVR devices of different sizes. If its your first time, try out the AtMega8, AtMega16/32, and the AtTiny25/45/85(if you can find it!). Get them in both the high speed and low voltage (V) varieties. Stay away from the "Specialized" parts (such as Lighting and CAN), and start with these generic ones.
- A PC with a serial connection so you can program the STK500. A USB->Serial adapter is acceptable.
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Workbench Essentials
I've collected quite a workbench over the years, and here's what I'd recommend to someone just starting off:
- A Fluke Digital Multimeter. I like the 110 models for their combination of good price, size, and features.
- A Solderless Breadbord (or 2 or 3) from http://digikey.com.
- A Thermally controlled soldering iron with replacable tips. Get the smallest "screwdriver" tip you can find. Thermally controlled models can be identified by an analog or digital temperature dial. A good cheap one is the Weller WES50 or WES51 by Cooper Tools.
- Thin solder, and a bottle of Rosin Flux for soldering. This will improve your solders by 1000%.
- A 5V/12V Power Supply (an old PC power supply can be easily modified for this purpose, and costs about $20).
- A Panavise with circuit board assembly attachment.
- A Plano plastic case to hold all your small parts.
- Several spools of wire of different colors. 22 Gauge is good. Make sure you have Black & Red at the very least. 30 Gauge (sometimes referred to as "Kynar Wire" or wire-wrapping wire) is great for running signals, reworking manufactured PCB, and working with SMT components, once you find a stripper small enough for it.
- Wire cutters/strippers.
- Xcelite Cutters for trimming wires and parts you've just soldered.
- A nice X-Acto knife and a bunch of spare blades. Always useful.
- A set of small philips and flathead screwdrivers, for disassembling your favorite stuff.
- A Dremel tool with a saw blade. Great for carving a PCB, and manipulating salvaged plastic parts.
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Electronic Parts
- Resistors from 10 Ohm to 1M Ohm. See Your First AVR Order for the Radio Shack part numbers for their "variety pack" of resistors.
- Oscillators that match the speeds of the chips you want to work with, generally 6-20 MHz for most AVRs. Note that for serial interfaces, there are "magic multiple" speeds. Those special speeds are dead accurate multiples of major serial speeds, and the most resiliant against error.
- LEDs of many colors and sizes, including some tricolors. See also Your First AVR Order
- Small switches. See also Your First AVR Order.
- PCB Headers, ribbon cable, and ribbon cable connectors. See also Your First AVR Order.
- A ceramic capacitor, say about 0.1uf. Protection against power usage by other devices. Remember, the capacitor must have the shortest connection possible!
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Other useful, but somewhat expensive items
- A set of Mitutoyo Digital Calipers. These come in really handy when you're doing circuit board layout of existing parts, or trying to fit new stuff with old stuff accurately. You can order a set from McMaster-Carr.
- Before that, get to know a cheap caliper. Harbor Freight has a no-name electronic caliper for ~$8.
- An analog or digital Oscilloscope, rated >10MHz. These can be found through places like http://govliquidation.com and http://ebay.com and will be one of your "must have" debugging tools after no time at all. I use a Tektronix TDS 320, and had a Tektronix 465 in the past, but it broke. You should be able to get a 465 or similar for about $250-$350. There are also digital oscilloscopes that will work with windows, mac, or linux. Bitscope sells one for $500 that has two analog and eight digital inputs and plugs into a usb port.
- A Set of good 100Mhz oscilloscope probes, with different tips for latching on to different types of pins & wires. http://probemaster.com has a good selection. Make sure to get 10x and 1x probes, or a switchable one. Make sure they match your scope's needs.
- A JTAG in-system debugger. The Official Atmel JTAGICE II runs $299 US, and the Olimex clone runs $45. The Olimex model lacks DebugWire support for smaller devices, but works fine on models like the Atmega16. Atmel also has their new Dragon debugger, it runs $50 and does handle DebugWire parts, it is limited to parts <= 32K flash.
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