Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

lopespm.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#41

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

bashmelek wrote: post #23
poulpy123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a look at the document of the kit, and it's like the one I have: it doesn't even explain what is a current and a tension, or what is the relation between resistance, tension and current, althought it is the basic of the basic of electronics The fact that the author uses the word heterojunction that is at the same time not useful at the first level for a beginner and not used or explained in the document shows t…

The official arduino starter kit teaches some beginner level information, but it is very rudimentary. It is really hard to penetrate the next level of electronics—electronic engineers will stress the importance of precise calculations where previously I was just used to putting together whatever components I had from a kit, with few caveats. It was not until I tried buying extra transistors that I realized I didn’t u…

I'll let you in on a secret: engineering the world over is mainly about rules of thumb and knowing when you need to actually do some math.

e.g., when I started my EE career, if you wanted to light up a red LED from 5V, you'd put a 330ohm resistor in series. If it was driven from 12V, then you'd use a 1kohm. Standard values that everyone has in inventory and you don't need to think about it. Similar "rules" would apply if you wanted to use an NPN transistor as a switch and so on.

Actual calculations would only come into play if I needed to e.g., make sure that the LED always had a constant 15mA through it whether the drive voltage was 5V or 24V.

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#42

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

poulpy123 wrote: post #26
zild3d wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it more like the goal is to build cool stuff, learning electronics is the happy unintentional side effect as you're exposed to concepts relevant to what you want to do. e.g. I want to build a cool robot with my kid -> oh why can't you just wire the motors directly to arduino output pins -> oh motors need a lot of current to run ... (btw have never heard voltage be called tension, TIL)

> (btw have never heard voltage be called tension, TIL) It's the main word for voltage in french and I checked wiki before posting. It was listed as an alternative to voltage so I kept it, but I should have realized it wasn't common

Hopefully helpful comment: "tension" is sometimes used as an alternative to "voltage" in English, but it's typically only in the case of power delivery. e.g, "high-tension 50kV power lines." I don't think I've ever seen it applied to common control panel voltages like 5V or 24V.

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#43

Post by hi_hi »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #38
hi_hi wrote: post #5

These starter kits are great. I'm a complete electronics newbie but was always interested, but found the sheer choice of equipment on offer, and the fear of buying a bunch of kit that wasn't compatible to be a barrier to getting started. I came across a kit for the Micro:bit which I purchased as a Christmas gift for my young daughter. It's really captured that delight in working with technology for me again. Even sta…

> but it turns out power requirements vary depending on wavelength of light being generated. [pedantic] It's actually because of the different forward voltages of the blue LED vs red, not the overall power [/pedantic] Clearly, I knew what you were getting at, but I made that comment because it's useful to understand that LEDs are primarily current controlled devices, not voltage controlled. Had you driven both LEDs w…

Thank you. I appreciate the correction. I knew I was in murky waters with that bit as it was a while ago and I don't have the best memory :-)

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#44

Post by hi_hi »

JayNitram wrote: post #17
hi_hi wrote: post #5

These starter kits are great. I'm a complete electronics newbie but was always interested, but found the sheer choice of equipment on offer, and the fear of buying a bunch of kit that wasn't compatible to be a barrier to getting started. I came across a kit for the Micro:bit which I purchased as a Christmas gift for my young daughter. It's really captured that delight in working with technology for me again. Even sta…

Are there any particular simulators you would recommend?

I have no idea if this is considered good, but I've started with https://www.tinkercad.com/

There may be better ones out there, I just found this quite accessible to get started with.

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#45

Post by spauldo »

rs186 wrote: post #12

My biggest problem is that you get excited for the first few days, then you realize that there is very little you can learn from these toy projects, and then there isn't a project that is meaningful (to yourself) enough to persue. If you look at all those motors and sensors -- you need to think hard enough to come up with a project that makes good use of them. I browsed maybe 50 of the most viewed project on arduino…

I suspect this is very subjective. I had a Radio Shack 200-in-1 kit when I was a kid and learned tons from it, working through the book and then designing my own projects.

My current project just ties in my doorbell to Home Assistant. I could have built it only using what came with my old Raspberry Pi kit. Once I finish that, I'll be tying in my garage door, another project that uses simple parts. These projects are way simpler than what I do for work (currently writing PLC code for the Navy), but they're still fun.

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#46

Post by Arch-TK »

bityard wrote: post #25
Arch-TK wrote: post #22

I can't comment on how good these things are for learning electronics but I find a lot of people who learn embedded development or programming from Arduino end up learning an endless number of bad practices. I think C++ is a terrible programming language to give to people with potentially no prior programming or at last no prior C++ experience. And for people who _do_ know C++, it's just a weird environment full of s…

Teaching academically-correct C++ is not one of Arduino's goals. C++ just happens to be one of the tools in the box. EE's complain that Arduino doesn't teach correct electronic circuit design principles. Which is also not one of its goals. The point of Arduino is to learn how--with nothing but a cheap microcontroller and some wires--to make lights blink, sensors sense, and servos serve. It's a starting point for easy…

Just to try to understand your point. Are you saying that there is no bad or irresponsible way to teach something?

If I teach you to weld and don't explain welding gloves, long sleeves, or welding helmets, is that still okay or is it crossing a line because someone's safety is at stake?

What if someone takes their arduino learning's and starts controlling dangerous things like heating elements for pressure vessels? Would you agree now that its irresponsible? (Actual real world cases of exactly this.)

Or if someone who used arduino thinks their C++ is great and writes network facing software which controls a heated pressure vessel (again, actual real world cases of exactly this).

Re: Inside the box: Everything I did with an Arduino starter kit

#47

Post by soundblaster »

This is fun, but the hard part really is when you want to migrate from the prototype to something embedded. You won't deploy a development board for mass (your friends) production, or yes. I think there's a gap there that few people teach. How to design a PCB, and hook up an enclousure, doesn't need to be a 3D printed thing
Post reply on HN