4 ms·

If you are interested in micro controllers, my recommendation is to get a $20 soldering iron, some lead free solder, flux, breadboard, jumper wires, Wemos D1 mi

If you are interested in micro controllers, my recommendation is to get a $20 soldering iron, some lead free solder, flux, breadboard, jumper wires, Wemos D1 mini or Pro, LEDs, resistors, buttons, distance sensors (IR and ultrasonic), temperature and humidity sensors, relays, and some speaker wire. You can get all that from China for about $45. Get 2-3 of the Wemos boards as you’ll likely fry one. If you are into home automation, look into Sonoff stuff. It uses these chips but comes nicely packaged into several different form factors. You can run open source firmware on them. Plain Arduino (AVR) boards don’t have a ton of advantage over the ESP8266 and ESP32 chips. So I’d honestly mostly skip them except if you want a ton of GPIO pins or if you want to use the Uno form factor with the shields. Having Wi-Fi is such a huge thing that I think it outweighs the other considerations. Good luck!

sunsetMurk 9y ago
can you share some links to where to buy? where to learn some basics? thanks!
- heegemcgee 9y ago
  Tayda and SmallBear market to the hobbyist maker. They stock common ICs and components, and don't mind small / single unit orders.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  AliExpress.com has it. Just search on there. Note that for Wemos specifically there are a ton of clones that don’t actually say “Wemos” on them. Get the branded ones as the price difference is negligible. https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/WeMos/1331105_257103054.html https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/WeMos/1331105_2571030... https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32765214054.html?spm=a2g0n.search-cache.0.0.654b53c7bIPB6N https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32765214054.html?spm=a2g0n.s... https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32454217006.html?spm=a2g0n.search-cache.0.0.7cd925064YMgE https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32454217006.html?spm=a2g0n.s... The soldering iron is the only thing I got state-side. I went with one that has temperature control so I can do lead-free solder.
lorenzhs 9y ago
Why the recommendation for lead-free solder? It's harder to work with, the fumes are more poisonous than leaded solder, you shouldn't eat/lick either, and the amount of lead is harmless for DIY solderers. I agree that lead-free solder is environmentally preferable for mass-produced products that eventually end up in a landfill somewhere in Africa, but for a DIY project, I don't see the advantage. I'd love to be proven wrong though :)
- fao_ 9y ago
  > the fumes are more poisonous than leaded solder What do you mean? > the amount of lead is harmless for DIY solderers. To date, the FDA, CDC, and the WHO state that "no amount of lead is harmless". It's just that we can't get a sensitive enough handle on the neurological effects to determine a good metric for it. On another note, does anyone know if the Respro masks are suitable for protection against lead (+ the stuff with lead) inhalation while soldering? The "techno" mask has a HEP-A filter and a charcoal mesh, which I would have thought would be enough for most of the lead particulate?
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    My understanding is that there are no lead fumes. It becomes a gas at like 3200 degrees. Your soldering iron won’t make it into a gas and if you are inhaling fumes that hot you have bigger problems. My main issue with it is that I don’t want any residue on my work surfaces where my kids might play with it, or on any electronics they might touch.
    - CamperBob2 9y ago
      It's lead, not ebola. Although that degree of caution is more or less warranted when dealing with lead solder in paste form, I have to admit. That crap gets everywhere.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        > It's lead, not ebola. Exactly. Fumbling around with a soldering iron and some leaded solder a little bit, few times a decade, won't give you cancer or any poisoning. Safety considerations are aimed at people doing lots of soldering, because at this point the amount of flux fumes they might breathe in (or risk of ingesting lead) becomes a possible risk. (And to be honest, I believe most of this safety advice is aimed not at DIY people, and not even at people who occasionally have to solder something at work, but to have a stick that will prevent employers in soldering shops from creating very unhealthy conditions for their workers.)
joshvm 9y ago
The ESP chips are not trivial to hook up, unless you get something like a NodeMCU. The original breakouts are not breadboard friendly, and they have (comparatively) weird requirements for programming (e.g. some pins need to be pulled up, which means you need to breakout the breakout boards). They're also not 5V tolerant, which means you normally need a regulator and have to worry about interfacing. The documentation is OK, but it's a warren of official documentation, Wikis, Github and forum posts. I would say that the Arduino advantage is that it's truly out of the box. ESP8266 is close, but it's not that easy. If you want an easy IoT dev board, I will always recommend the Particle Photon (no affiliation). It's $20 and has really great documentation. It will do OTA updates out of the box once you've set it up on your network using a smartphone. It's a separate IDE (cloud based, or you can get an offline one), but you still use Wiring and they've retained the setup() / loop() constructs. I have had some issues with devices not connecting to networks using the chip antenna, so you probably need the external one. Other minor issues - most ESP boards are not FCC/CE compliant. They're just fake stamps on the EM shield. Some of the boards are, but you need to be careful if you're trying to build a product or worry about interference. The Photon, on the other hand, is certified (and they also certified it with a suitable external antenna).
- m-p-3 9y ago
  The nice thing about working on 3V is that they're stupidly easy to power using 2AA batteries, but I agree it's a bummer they're not 5V tolerant otherwise it would be as easy to power over USB.
  - gh02t 9y ago
    They are 5V tolerent on the logic pins, just not on the power. LiFePO4 batteries work great for powering them as their voltage curve matches perfectly without regulation.
    - earleybird 9y ago
      And, the built in A/D will give you the current voltage reading with no additional wiring so you can post it to your MQTT instance and monitor when you need to change/charge your LiPO :-)
wiremine 9y ago
+1 on the Wemos D1 mini recommendation. I have 5 or 6 and are great little boards. If you need some more pins the, you can get the NodeMCU boards.

sunsetMurk 9y ago

can you share some links to where to buy? where to learn some basics? thanks!

heegemcgee 9y ago
Tayda and SmallBear market to the hobbyist maker. They stock common ICs and components, and don't mind small / single unit orders.
IgorPartola 9y ago
AliExpress.com has it. Just search on there. Note that for Wemos specifically there are a ton of clones that don’t actually say “Wemos” on them. Get the branded ones as the price difference is negligible. https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/WeMos/1331105_257103054.html https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/WeMos/1331105_2571030... https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32765214054.html?spm=a2g0n.search-cache.0.0.654b53c7bIPB6N https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32765214054.html?spm=a2g0n.s... https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32454217006.html?spm=a2g0n.search-cache.0.0.7cd925064YMgE https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32454217006.html?spm=a2g0n.s... The soldering iron is the only thing I got state-side. I went with one that has temperature control so I can do lead-free solder.

lorenzhs 9y ago

Why the recommendation for lead-free solder? It's harder to work with, the fumes are more poisonous than leaded solder, you shouldn't eat/lick either, and the amount of lead is harmless for DIY solderers. I agree that lead-free solder is environmentally preferable for mass-produced products that eventually end up in a landfill somewhere in Africa, but for a DIY project, I don't see the advantage. I'd love to be proven wrong though :)

fao_ 9y ago
> the fumes are more poisonous than leaded solder What do you mean? > the amount of lead is harmless for DIY solderers. To date, the FDA, CDC, and the WHO state that "no amount of lead is harmless". It's just that we can't get a sensitive enough handle on the neurological effects to determine a good metric for it. On another note, does anyone know if the Respro masks are suitable for protection against lead (+ the stuff with lead) inhalation while soldering? The "techno" mask has a HEP-A filter and a charcoal mesh, which I would have thought would be enough for most of the lead particulate?
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  My understanding is that there are no lead fumes. It becomes a gas at like 3200 degrees. Your soldering iron won’t make it into a gas and if you are inhaling fumes that hot you have bigger problems. My main issue with it is that I don’t want any residue on my work surfaces where my kids might play with it, or on any electronics they might touch.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    It's lead, not ebola. Although that degree of caution is more or less warranted when dealing with lead solder in paste form, I have to admit. That crap gets everywhere.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      > It's lead, not ebola. Exactly. Fumbling around with a soldering iron and some leaded solder a little bit, few times a decade, won't give you cancer or any poisoning. Safety considerations are aimed at people doing lots of soldering, because at this point the amount of flux fumes they might breathe in (or risk of ingesting lead) becomes a possible risk. (And to be honest, I believe most of this safety advice is aimed not at DIY people, and not even at people who occasionally have to solder something at work, but to have a stick that will prevent employers in soldering shops from creating very unhealthy conditions for their workers.)

joshvm 9y ago

The ESP chips are not trivial to hook up, unless you get something like a NodeMCU. The original breakouts are not breadboard friendly, and they have (comparatively) weird requirements for programming (e.g. some pins need to be pulled up, which means you need to breakout the breakout boards). They're also not 5V tolerant, which means you normally need a regulator and have to worry about interfacing. The documentation is OK, but it's a warren of official documentation, Wikis, Github and forum posts. I would say that the Arduino advantage is that it's truly out of the box. ESP8266 is close, but it's not that easy. If you want an easy IoT dev board, I will always recommend the Particle Photon (no affiliation). It's $20 and has really great documentation. It will do OTA updates out of the box once you've set it up on your network using a smartphone. It's a separate IDE (cloud based, or you can get an offline one), but you still use Wiring and they've retained the setup() / loop() constructs. I have had some issues with devices not connecting to networks using the chip antenna, so you probably need the external one. Other minor issues - most ESP boards are not FCC/CE compliant. They're just fake stamps on the EM shield. Some of the boards are, but you need to be careful if you're trying to build a product or worry about interference. The Photon, on the other hand, is certified (and they also certified it with a suitable external antenna).

m-p-3 9y ago
The nice thing about working on 3V is that they're stupidly easy to power using 2AA batteries, but I agree it's a bummer they're not 5V tolerant otherwise it would be as easy to power over USB.
- gh02t 9y ago
  They are 5V tolerent on the logic pins, just not on the power. LiFePO4 batteries work great for powering them as their voltage curve matches perfectly without regulation.
  - earleybird 9y ago
    And, the built in A/D will give you the current voltage reading with no additional wiring so you can post it to your MQTT instance and monitor when you need to change/charge your LiPO :-)

wiremine 9y ago

+1 on the Wemos D1 mini recommendation. I have 5 or 6 and are great little boards. If you need some more pins the, you can get the NodeMCU boards.