Anyone else working with Arduinos locally?

I've done some basic tinkering, but the last time I played with one the software was still revision 12 or 13, I think. I was out of country for 7 months, so didn't have access to my project boxes. I have a couple of the mini versions of the arduino, so they aren't directly compatible with the shields.

I also just got a Parallax Propeller, and have a small pile of AVR chips that I am meaning to play with. I've worked with PICs and some other lesser known stuff in the past.

Edit: This topic should get moved over to the Hardware section

I've used basic stamps in the past. ( Material use meters for work mostly.)
Arduino shields would have made the design easier.
Next time I have a need I'll be using it.
C

@Charle What do you mean by material use meter?

I've got a Duemilenove, a Mega and the Sparkfun Pro Mini version of the Arduinos. I've been using them for a few months and really found them an excellent way to jump into embedded software development. Of course they're a little high level for some tasks, but for the most part you can get things prototyped really quickly.

Its a reflective sensor, keypad and lcd added to a bunch of roll laminators.
The operator zero's the counter at the start of a job, and gets the correct amount of material to bill at the end of the job.

I produced the circuit board with an engraving bit on a cnc router.
Using the Arduinos shields would have saved me enough time to learn the Arduinos software, and the language.

One of the things that gets me interested in sector67 is the chance to see what tech other people use.

@Charle are you milling those PCBs in Madison? What resolution can you get out of them? I've been experimenting with etching and have gotten pretty good but it's still pretty time intensive and messy.

I've attached a number of projects I've done recently, notably the encoder counter box for work as well, very similar to what you needed except that it just indicates counts, it's used for timing an engine valvetrain to an external encoder.

Otherwise over the winter I updated by SSR holiday light controller to an Arduino with serial over ~150ft of ethernet cable, works spectacularly well.

It looks like You are getting higher resolution with the etching method. I used a CNC that had more backlash than was ideal, and the depth of the cut was an issue.
I'm looking forward to trying the mini mill, but I haven't yet.
And yes, here in Madison.

I have a few arduinos, which led me to also use some other Atmel chips as they are fairly close to the same instruction set. I have been thinking about trying my hand at etching but haven't taken the time to do so. Currently, I am working toward a two wheeled balancing robot, but haven't had a lot of time recently.

I just got my first Arduino for Christmas and am pretty stoked about playing with it. I just got some MOSFETs in the mail so that I can control RGB LED lights strips. I have some ideas for cool light displays. I also have some ideas for next year's Halloween costume with movie parts and LEDs and my long term goal is to learn how to use my Arduino to control relays so I can program my christmas lights for next year.

I think I'm already past the Arduino 101 class but will definitely fit the 102 class into my schedule. Thanks for this great forum!

I've been playing with Arduinos for awhile now and they are great for quickly throwing together prototypes and because they are so popular there are lots of cool things that "just work" (the GRBL CNC controller comes to mind).

The thing I really like about the Arduino is that it's fairly straightforward to prototype something with it and when you get the final design you can distill the Arduino board, shields, etc. down into a custom board without having to start over with a new microcontroller, etc.

I've used them for everything from a simple way to add a custom hardware interface to a desktop computer app to stand-alone logging/monitoring system for a remote solar power setup. It also got me into working with the Atmega chips directly (C/C++ and avrdude, etc.) and now I'm working on an 8-bit "smartphone" based on the atmega32u4, among other things.