I saw these in the latest Micro Center flyer and didn't recognize them due to them using a photo of the underside of the board, rather than showing the side with the PCB traces used for the USB connector.
Back in September I posted some details on these (after Drew Van Zandt posted a link): > Aside from being inexpensive, the Digispark looks > to be about a 1/2" square (actually .7" x .75") PCB with a tab sticking > out on one side to form a male USB plug. > > Arduinos are starting to approach the size and price of "LED throwies." :-) > > Notable that it is fully open source hardware. > > Here's the Kickstarter page: > http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/digispark-the-tiny-arduino-enabled-usb-dev-board?ref=home_popular Would you believe they're selling for $6? 10+ units in stock in Cambridge. (It says "Originally $9.95." When was that? As far as I know they just started carrying them in the last 30 days. They sell for $8.95 directly from the manufacturer. The $6 price doesn't appear to be a limited duration sale price.) Digispark USB Development Board http://www.microcenter.com/product/409634/Digispark_USB_Development_Board# This USB Development Board is an Attiny85 based microcontroller development board similar to the Arduino line, only cheaper, smaller, and a bit less powerful. With a whole host of shields to extend its functionality and the ability to use the familiar Arduino IDE. Looks like it comes with a couple of connectors you can optionally solder on if you want to temporarily connect it via jumpers to a breadboard, or attach the shields (see below). Here's the manufacturer's site with more details and better pictures: http://digistump.com/products/1 A bunch of "shields" (peripherals) are available: http://digistump.com/category covering expanded digital I/O, RGB LED, LED matrix, IR receiver, motor driver, relay, LCD, non-volatile memory, and others. Most priced under $10. Most are sold as kits with some soldering required, but they all look pretty trivial. You can also opt to buy just the PCBs for about $2 each. A $15 starter kit bundles a Digispark with the RGB LED shield and a prototyping board (just a square perf board with header pins to mate with the Digispark when the optional connectors are attached). They also sell a $4 programming accessory that basically just acts as a USB pass-through connector with a switch so you can power cycle the Digispark without unplugging it. Seems like they should have included that, instead of the RGB LED shield in the starter kit. Remember that USB connected indicator light peripheral we talked about here a while back? I think it sold for something like $30. You could combine a $6 Digispark with a $3 RGB LED shield, and with some D-I-Y assembly and packaging, have the equivalent hardware capability, with the added bonus that you can easily reprogram it. Need a hardware watchdog to power cycle a small device if it crashes? $6 Digispark + $7 Relay Shield Kit (relay handles 3A@125VAC). (I'm assuming it would be easy to program a Digispark to receive "I'm alive" signals from the host device via USB.) According to: http://digistump.com/wiki/digispark/tutorials/connecting#using_the_digispark_with_the_arduino_ide as long as you are using their customized Arduino IDE, you just plug your Digispark into your host computer and hit the upload button in the IDE to program it. They note: If you unplug the Digispark and plug it back in or attach it to another power source there will be a delay of 5 seconds before the code you programmed will run. This 5 second delay is the Digispark checking to see if you are trying to program it. That startup delay could be a serious limitation in some application, so something to be aware of. -Tom _______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list Hardwarehacking@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
