Your First AVR Order
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Your first AVR hardware pack
Here's a quick list of what you'll need to get started using AVR microcontrollers for simple projects. I've tried to keep this list as short as possible, but to also include the things that I personally consider "necessary" for doing some fun initial projects.
You should order this stuff from your favorite electronics part supplier. I highly recommend Digi-Key, so I've listed their prices (current as of 2006-07-24) and part numbers below.
Parts
| Part | Description | Digi-Key Part No. & Link | Price ($USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| STK500 | The development board, used to program the AVRs | ATSTK500-ND | $83.79 |
| ATMega32 | Get 3 or 4 of these, in case you burn them up or you want to solder them to something. | ATMEGA32-16PU-ND | $8.28 ea. |
| Solderless Breadboard | Small or Large, I prefer the ~8"x~10" kind, for maximum space, but the smaller ones are cheaper, and useful for "portable" projects too. | 922327-ND | $73.51 |
| 36-pin 0.1" Headers | These are extremely useful for plugging in to the breadboard, and soldering leads on to. Buy 4 or 5. | 929400-01-36-ND | $1.80 ea. |
| 10-pin Ribbon Cable DIP .100" Socket (female) | Use these with Ribbon cable to create a socket that can plug into the STK500, and has wires, header, socket, etc., on the other end. If you have some old IDE or Floppy Disk cables hanging around, you could cut those up, too. | ASC10H-ND | $1.32 ea. |
| Crystal (16Mhz) | You'll need this to plug into the STK500 and directly clock your AVR from it. This allows you to clock at the full 16MHz rate, not just at the chip's internal oscillator speed. The STK500 has the crystal's supporting capacitors on board, but an external board will need 20pF capacitors (see AVR data sheets). | CTX415-ND | $0.80 ea. |
| 20pF capacitors | Through-hole style, Radio Shack or Digi-Key. You need 2 of these per crystal. | 490-3703-ND | $0.30 ea. |
| 10 or more conductor Ribbon Cable | Use with DIP Socket from above to make cables. You can also scavenge old IDE or floppy disk cables, as long as they're not the "high density" style. | MC24G-5-ND | |
| Misc. LEDs | I recommend going to Radio Shack and just getting one of their assorted LED bags. They're actually not so bad, and pretty cheap. Its just not worth buying these from Digi-Key unless you know exactly what you want, or you need something special. | Radio Shack Link | $2.99 |
| Misc. Switches | I like the "Lever" style "Snap Action" switches for buttons and stuff. Just get some, because you'll want buttons eventually | Search Digi-Key for "Snap Action" | |
| Resistor bag | Nice to have an assortment, 1Ohm to 1MOhm. Make sure to get some 47kOHm and 470kOHm, which are both useful for working with LEDs. Radio Shack sells a good "Assortment" bag | Radio Shack Link | $12.99 |
| 22AWG solid wire in 2 or more colors. | You'll use this on your breadboard to connect components. This can be ordered from Digi-Key in 100 foot lengths. I suggest buying from Radio Shack for shorter lengths and more colors. | Radio Shack Link | $5.99 |
| .1uf ceramic Capacitors | You should get in the habit of ensuring power to every chip in a system. | PutOrderLinkHere | $price |
Other things you'll need
See the AVR Hardware Kit page for more details. The essentials are:
Wire stripper/cutter
Soldering Iron
Solder
Multimeter
USB Serial Dongle, if your PC does not have a 9-pin Serial connection
Thats It!
Total cost should be around $150, depending on how much you spend on a breadboard. You may check Radio Shack, or if you have a local surplus electronics supplier, like Halted Specialties, then you can go there for a lot of this stuff. You should only have to order the STK500 and the AVR's. If you'd like, you can choose some other alternate AVRs to experiment with. I'd recommend some of the smaller 22-pin and 16-pin package varieties. They can come in useful for really small projects. Once you get the feel for AVR programming, then you'll know what kinds of other parts you'll need, which LEDs, which resistors, which switches you like, and you can work up to soldering on to some prototyping boards later. For now, just stick to the breadboard!
But can't I just build a simple programmer myself?
Yes, you can build an AVR programmer yourself, following instructions you can find on the web. The biggest disadvantage of doing this is that whatever programmer you build will either not have a chip socket, so your AVR will have to be on your proto board, which is painful to deal with, or it will have only a single socket, and support a single chip type. Both things are really bad. If you want fast and easy development, just get an STK500. The time you spend is well worth the cost.
What about other boards, like the AVR Butterfly?
These boards, with many builtin components (speakers, LEDs, switches, LCD, eeprom, RAM, etc.) may look tempting and may be right for some people. These pages are for someone who wants to end up building their own, small, standalone devices from scratch.
If you just want to tinker for a few afternoons, then something like the AVR Butterfly will work, but because of all the hardwired components, it will be difficult to use it for other purposes.
If you want more than 8 pins of input & output, if you want to build your own PCBs or standalone devices, or if you want to make a "real" product, then you should start with an STK500.
