Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Hardware and software requirements
Let's first see what components are needed for this project. As an example in this chapter, I
will use a project I have previously worked on, which is a low-power Arduino board. This
board has just the bare minimum of components to be usable. This way, no power is wasted
on components that are not necessary when the system is operating, such as LEDs, a USB
interface, and so on. This board can then be used in very low-power applications such as
motion sensors based on XBee.
The most important component in this project will be the microcontroller itself. The micro-
controller is at the heart of all Arduino boards. It is the component that we program every
time we write a new sketch.
I based my design on the Arduino Uno board design, so I used the same Atmel ATmega328
controller as the Arduino Uno board. For this project, you will need one of these microcon-
trollers, which are sold separately. Please make sure that you are buying one with the Ardu-
ino bootloader so that you can directly upload the Arduino code to the microcontroller.
You will also need several smaller components to make the microcontroller work. You will
need one 10 uF capacitor, two 22 pF capacitors, one 10k ohm resistor, one 220 ohm resist-
or, one green LED, and one 16 MHz crystal clock.
You will also need a battery to power up the project. I used a battery pack that can contain
two AA batteries (1.5V each) to power the project. You can use the battery of your choice
by keeping in mind that the official documentation for this chip says that the voltage should
be between 1.8V and 5.5V. However, I really recommend using at least 3 V to power the
project.
To program the microcontroller, you will need an external programmer because the project
does not integrate a programmer. Instead of using a dedicated programmer, I simply used
an Arduino Uno board for this task.
Finally, you will need a breadboard and some jumper cables to make the connections
between the different components of the project.
This is the list of all the parts that were used for this project:
• ATmega328 microcontroller with Arduino bootloader (
https://www.sparkfun.com/