Definition

pid·dle [pid-l] verb, pid·dled, pid·dling.

To spend time in a wasteful, trifling, or ineffective way; dawdle (often followed by around ): He wasted the day piddling around.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Decisions, Decisions

So I sit down to order an Arduino board and there are a lot of different options.  Not only in the various types of boards but also there are a lot of different places to order them from.  Let's take a look at what I have found.

The hardware section of the official Arduino website shows many board assemblies.  Uno, LilyPad, Mega, Fio, Nano, and that isn't event getting into the shields.  So what are the differences and where should a beginner start?  One basic thing to remember is:

  • Arduino boards are sort of "mother" boards which hold the micro-controller and the support circuitry needed to program and run your application.
  • Arduino shields are a sort of "daughter" card which add functionality and interface to the connectors on the Arduino board.
I decided that starting with the Uno seemed to be the best choice.  From what I can tell it seems to be the best entry level board.  However, there now comes a second dilemma - which version of the Uno should I get?  It is now up to rev 3 and it seems that you pay a premium in order to get the latest hardware.  From what I found at various online retailers the Rev 3 boards about $3 more than the prior Uno generation.  While you do get some hardware improvements they did not seem to justify the few extra dollars cost to me.  On a somewhat related not, you could also purchase the Duemilanove version, which is nearly identical to the Uno for about $0.65 less.  But to me it was worth the extra few cents to get the Uno.

So now my hardware is in the mail and I guess the next step is to get the development environment installed while I wait.  If you have made it this far, thanks for reading!

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