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I really enjoyed working on microcontrollers and embedded systems back when i was interning at an aerospace company. It was so fun getting into the nitty gritty

I really enjoyed working on microcontrollers and embedded systems back when i was interning at an aerospace company. It was so fun getting into the nitty gritty of these tiny controllers. Spending hours at the lab bench, messing with clock settings and registers. Ended up going towards software after college though, mainly for the money tbh. I still wonder to myself how i can back into this hobby. These kinds of tutorials are nice but they always kind of leave you wondering what else one can do. IMO it takes so much more than just the mC to make something useful/interesting, as it's just the brains of the operation. One still needs to give their project the arms and legs to really do something.

turbinerneiter 6y ago
adafruit.com They have a bunch of tutorials, aimed at absolute beginners, but they also have a lot of great breakout boards for different sensors and their store is well stocked with weird little trinkets that inspire creativity. Blinking stuff, actuators, sensors, all there. sparkfun.com is a similar shop. It's a bit like shopping individual lego parts.
- chasd00 6y ago
  adafruit is great. also, they have circuitpython support for most of their stuff. circuitpython is nice for getting LEDs flashing without having to setup a large toolchain. micropythin deserves a shout-out too for getting something happening with minimal toolchain setup overhead.
andruby 6y ago
I recently got back into it. There are tons of youtube videos that provide tutorials. What helped me most was having concrete and doable projects that you'll want to finish. My first project was a digital dice (attiny85, 7 leds, CR2032, button and a small perfboard). Now it's a led strip for a camper (esp8266 w WLED firmware, potentiometer, 5V stepdown converter). I'm also toying with radio transmission over 433Mhz so I can have battery powered sensors (water-well depth, temperature, etc)
pkaye 6y ago
I've gone back to embedded development as a hobby recently. A good starting point is a Arduino board. These are mostly AVR or ARM board with a set of input/output components you can easily plug in. There is a sketch coding environment which is basically C++ with some some helper libraries. However you should be able to convert to a fully open source environment. I recently got things compiling using avr-gcc and avrdude to downloads. I'm doing all the editing in vscode. Next step for me will be bringing up FreeRTOS. You can get some dev board and components in bulk through Amazon quickly. Also many manufacturers sell their dev board directly.

turbinerneiter 6y ago

adafruit.com They have a bunch of tutorials, aimed at absolute beginners, but they also have a lot of great breakout boards for different sensors and their store is well stocked with weird little trinkets that inspire creativity. Blinking stuff, actuators, sensors, all there. sparkfun.com is a similar shop. It's a bit like shopping individual lego parts.

chasd00 6y ago
adafruit is great. also, they have circuitpython support for most of their stuff. circuitpython is nice for getting LEDs flashing without having to setup a large toolchain. micropythin deserves a shout-out too for getting something happening with minimal toolchain setup overhead.

andruby 6y ago

I recently got back into it. There are tons of youtube videos that provide tutorials. What helped me most was having concrete and doable projects that you'll want to finish. My first project was a digital dice (attiny85, 7 leds, CR2032, button and a small perfboard). Now it's a led strip for a camper (esp8266 w WLED firmware, potentiometer, 5V stepdown converter). I'm also toying with radio transmission over 433Mhz so I can have battery powered sensors (water-well depth, temperature, etc)

pkaye 6y ago

I've gone back to embedded development as a hobby recently. A good starting point is a Arduino board. These are mostly AVR or ARM board with a set of input/output components you can easily plug in. There is a sketch coding environment which is basically C++ with some some helper libraries. However you should be able to convert to a fully open source environment. I recently got things compiling using avr-gcc and avrdude to downloads. I'm doing all the editing in vscode. Next step for me will be bringing up FreeRTOS. You can get some dev board and components in bulk through Amazon quickly. Also many manufacturers sell their dev board directly.