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Arduino
The Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform composed of two major parts:
the Arduino board (hardware) and the Arduino IDE (software). The Arduino IDE is used to write
the program that will interact with your Arduino and the devices connected to it. In the Arduino
world, such a program is called a sketch the Arduino board is a small-form microcontroller
circuit board it is also designed to make electronics more accessible to artists, designers,
hobbyists and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
Digital Ground
Definition:
usually refers to the reference voltage of digital logic ICs. This means that no analog signals are
coupled into this reference plane. You can often see analog and digital ground where digital
ground will be the reference for any logic and analog ground will be the return path for any
analog circuits.

What are ICs?


ICs are Integrated microchips/chips or more commonly called a monolithic integrated circuit is
a set of electronic circuits on one small plate ("chip") made of semiconductor material, normally
silicon. This can be made much smaller than a regular sized chip.

Coupled into this reference plane?


A reference plane is a plane in 3D space used as the workspace for drawing and the basis for
other interactive actions. The initial reference plane is the XY plane (or ground plane). The
reference plane may be one of the three Cartesian planes (XY, YZ, ZX), or it may be a custom
plane.

Logic Ground? And Analog ground?


Logic ground refers to mathematical logic, a ground term of a formal system is a term that does
not contain any free variables. Similarly, a ground formula is a formula that does not contain any
free variables. Meaning that a logic ground means that a formula that does not simply contain
any free variables.
And
Analog ground refers to a formula based on 0-100 unlike logic or digital it's only 1s and 0s

Digital I/O pins


Definition: a digital I/O pin stands for Digital Input and Output. Digital Inputs allow a
microcontroller to detect logic states, and Digital Outputs allow a microcontroller to output logic
states. Each digital I/O on a LabJack can be individually configured to one of 3 states: input,
output-high, or output-low.
What kind of pins are there on an arduino?:

What is a digital pins?


In addition to the specific functions listed below, the digital pins on an Arduino board can be
used for general purpose input and output via the pinMode(), digitalRead(), and digitalWrite()
commands. Each pin has an internal pull-up resistor which can be turned on and off using
digitalWrite() (w/ a value of HIGH or LOW, respectively) when the pin is configured as an input.
The maximum current per pin is 40 mA.

Serial: 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial
data. On the Arduino Diecimila, these pins are connected to the corresponding pins of the
FTDI USB-to-TTL Serial chip. On the Arduino BT, they are connected to the
corresponding pins of the WT11 Bluetooth module. On the Arduino Mini and LilyPad
Arduino, they are intended for use with an external TTL serial module (e.g. the Mini-
USB Adapter).
External Interrupts: 2 and 3. These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt
on a low value, a rising or falling edge, or a change in value. See the attachInterrupt()
function for details.
PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite()
function. On boards with an ATmega8, PWM output is available only on pins 9, 10, and
11.
BT Reset: 7. (Arduino BT-only) Connected to the reset line of the bluetooth
module.
SPI: 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), 12 (MISO), 13 (SCK). These pins support SPI
communication, which, although provided by the underlying hardware, is not currently
included in the Arduino language.
LED: 13. On the Diecimila and LilyPad, there is a built-in LED connected to
digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the pin is LOW, it's off.

Color Code Resistor


Analog Pins
In addition to the specific functions listed below, the analog input pins support 10-bit analog-to-
digital conversion (ADC) using the analogRead() function. Most of the analog inputs can also be
used as digital pins: analog input 0 as digital pin 14 through analog input 5 as digital pin 19.
Analog inputs 6 and 7 (present on the Mini and BT) cannot be used as digital pins.

I2C: 4 (SDA) and 5 (SCL). Support I2C (TWI) communication using the Wire
library (documentation on the Wiring website).

Power Pins
VIN (sometimes labelled "9V"). The input voltage to the Arduino board when it's
using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB connection or other
regulated power source). You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage
via the power jack, access it through this pin. Note that different boards accept different
input voltages ranges, please see the documentation for your board. Also note that the
LilyPad has no VIN pin and accepts only a regulated input.
5V. The regulated power supply used to power the microcontroller and other
components on the board. This can come either from VIN via an on-board regulator, or be
supplied by USB or another regulated 5V supply.
3V3. (Diecimila-only) A 3.3 volt supply generated by the on-board FTDI chip.
GND. Ground pins.

Other Pins
AREF. Reference voltage for the analog inputs. Used with analogReference().
Reset. (Diecimila-only) Bring this line LOW to reset the microcontroller.
Typically used to add a reset button to shields which block the one on the board.
This article should acquaint you with basic Arduino programming and show you how to write
programs that interact with objects in the real world. (A mandatory disclaimer: the last time I
really studied electronics was way back in high school, so this article focuses more on the
programming aspects, rather than the electronic side of things.)

Actuators and Sensors


The Arduino interacts with the world through actuators and sensors. Sensors are electronic
components that describe the world to your application. One common way sensors work is that
their electrical properties change (in a mathematically known way) as an effect of the changes in
the conditions in which it's operating. For example, the resistance of a photo-resistor changes
when the intensity of light incident on it changes. Thermistors are another example of such
sensors whose resistance changes when the operating temperature changes. A flex sensor is a
different category of sensor, where the resistance changes depending on the extent of the flex or
"bend". Such changes can be read as electrical signals on the Arduino's input pin. Depending on
the kind of sensor, the signal either can be digital (on or off) or analog (a continuous stream of
values). The latter part of this article shows how to work with analog sensors.
Actuators, on the other hand, are electronic components that are used to react to an external
event. For example, when it gets dark, the light should be switched on. Sensors and actuators,
thus, are used to achieve complementary objectives: one senses, and the other reacts. Examples
of actuators are solenoids and servos. Later in this article, I explain how to control a servo using
Arduino.

What is an electrical circuit?


An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by
moving electrons in a wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and
electrons such as in a plasma. The SI unit for measuring an electric current is the ampere, which
is the flow of electric charge across a surface at the rate of one coulomb per second. Electric
current is measured using a device called an ammeter. Electric currents cause Joule heating,
which creates light in incandescent light bulbs. They also create magnetic fields, which are used
in motors, inductors and generators. The particles that carry the charge in an electric current are
called charge carriers. In metals, one or more electrons from each atom are loosely bound to the
atom, and can move freely about within the metal. These conduction electrons are the charge
carriers in metal conductors.

What is AC DC (and no not the band)

The abbreviations AC and DC are often used to mean simply alternating and direct, as when they
modify current or voltage

Direct current

Direct current (DC) is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by
sources such as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of
the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow
through semiconductors, insulators, or even through a vacuum as in electron or ion beams. The
electric charge flows in a constant direction, distinguishing it from alternating current (AC). A
term formerly used for direct current was galvanic current.

Alternating current

In alternating current, the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct
current (DC, also dc), the flow of electric charge is only in one direction.

AC is the form of electric power delivered to businesses and residences. The usual waveform of
an AC power circuit is a sine wave. Certain applications use different waveforms, such as
triangularor square waves. Audio and radio signals carried on electrical wires are also examples
of alternating current. An important goal in these applications is recovery of information encoded
(ormodulated) onto the AC signal.

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