Talk:Arduino/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

List Of Arduino-compatible Boards and Shields

I believe that we have arrived at a consensus that a new page called "List Of Arduino-compatible Boards and Shields" should be created and the long lists of Arduino-compatible hardware listed in the Arduino article should be moved there. If nobody else is willing to step up to the plate and create the page, I will give it a shot, but I would prefer that someone more familiar with the various formatting issues create at least the basic framework for the new page.

Please note that the usual "Wikipedia is not a list of links" rule specifically does not apply to such "List of..." articles and that the notability requirement for items on such lists is considerably relaxed compared to other types of articles. The list itself has to be notable, of course, but once that has been established completeness has a higher priority than notability. See "...Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria..." in WP:STANDALONE for more on notability requirements for items on lists.

It has been suggested that the list should be categorized as follows:

"Shield compatible" (fits on a standard Arduino)

"Mega shield compatible"

"Arduino IDE compatible"

"Aduino form factor compatible" (same mounting holes as an Arduino, size identical to or smaller than Arduino)

Please discuss possible improvements upon the above scheme. For example. "Arduino IDE compatible" sounds like pretty much any Arduino-compatible board, but I think the meaning should be those boards that can be programmed using the (possibly modified) Arduino software development environment but are otherwise not compatible at all. The Illuminato X Machina at http://www.liquidware.com/shop/show/IXM/Illuminato+X+Machina is one good example of this. What classification wording best reflects this?

We also need some way to classify boards that which don't use the Arduino software development environment but have shield-compatible pinouts (something like the Leaflabs Maple at http://leaflabs.com/devices/maple/ but without the Maples' effort to use an Arduino-like software development environment.)

It would be a good thing to iron out how we want to classify things before anyone starts writing the new page. Guy Macon 12:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

It has been a month since the last comment. Does anyone still have an interest in working together to get this done? Guy Macon 18:52, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I've just started the split, over at List of Arduino compatibles.

Naturally of course, someone has already slated it for deletion. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:09, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

...which has a snowball's chance of actually happening. Probably best to get the deletion proposal out of the way right up front so we can refer future deletionists to it. I use this list a lot. If I am doing a one-off test setup it helps me to find a shield, and if I need multiple copies it helps me find open source schematics and code, saving me work compared to doing a design from scratch. Good job on the split, Andy. You get an attaboy for that (usual restrictions apply).

(Wow! Wikipedia has no article on Attaboy!! How will The People know that one Oh Crap! erases any number of Attaboys?) Guy Macon (talk) 21:04, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

List of Arduino Shields

Assuming we (I?) do something about this one soonish, we should first address a few questions.

• What is a Shield?
• What is a note-worthy Shield? (i.e. what goes in the list)

A Shield is, IMHO, an add-on hardware board that plugs into some portion of the Arduino's headers sockets, either standard layout or Mega. This would include those that only use some of the header sockets (usually stripboard Shields using the 3/4 headers that fit the 0.1" spacing). However it would exclude those that merely plug a cable connector header into the sockets. It would also exclude any that only use the ICSP header.

A note-worthy (NB not "WP:Notable") Shield needs to have a line drawn somewhere. I would suggest depending on the commercial or non-commercial distribution of either Shields, kits, components or commercial sale of plans. This would include pretty much anything that "exists", but it would exclude hand-scratched notes for virtual designs, unless these (which I think is a well-defined, but empty set) were sufficiently important that people would pay money for the design alone. We should certainly include non-commercial production and re-distribution of Shields, as there are some educational and hands-on projects that have distributed free (bare-)boards and the like. Is this level sufficient to include all the interesting Shields? I don't want to omit an important one, just because it's offered free as a circuit-only design. What about my own stripboard layout DMX controller design? Trivial, but still useful in its application scope and interesting as an example that you can do valuable Shield work on stripboard (only needs one digital pin).

Complexity should not be an issue for inclusion. We should include the bare-board Proto-shield for certain. Anything more than this is thus included too.

Sketch or library need or provision should not be criteria either. It's the hardware that's at issue here, not the software.

Thoughts? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Do we include http://ryanjmclaughlin.com/wiki/Arduino_Thermocouple_Shield but exclude http://ryanjmclaughlin.com/wiki/Single_Thermocouple_Interface ? Perhaps software (in this case https://github.com/ryanjmclaughlin/MAX6675-Library ) does make a difference? Guy Macon (talk) 09:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I would say first, but not second. Not because of the software, but because it's a Shield. The second, and its software, might fit into an article on Arduino sensor interfacing, but this is about Shields specifically. Those second boards are headers, they'll fit any controller board, not just an Arduino. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Arduino The Documentary

Just to share this video on Vimeo entitled: Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD http://vimeo.com/channels/hd#18539129 --Ecureuil espagnol (talk) 12:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Duemilanove: ATmega168 or ATmega328?

A recent edit changed the processor listed for the Arduino Duemilanove from ATmega328 to ATmega168 with the comment "Duemilanove uses the ATmega168 not the ATmega 328." That is not correct, but neither is the old version of the page. http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDuemilanove says "The Arduino Duemilanove ('2009') is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega168 (datasheet) or ATmega328 (datasheet)" and the Arduino software allows you to select "Arduino Diecimila or Duemilanove w/ ATmega168" or "Arduino Duemilanove w/ ATmega328" from the Tools > Board menu. I am changing the entry to read ATmega168/ATmega328. Guy Macon 02:25, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Design criticism

Recently user 62.24.87.147 added a "Design criticism" section. Alas, I had to revert it because it does not meet Wikipedia's quality standards, but I also think that the basic idea is a good one, that we should have a section on design criticism, and that his good-faith effort is a good starting point. To that end, I have reproduced the part I removed below so we can fix the problems and then re-introduce the material into the article.

Here are some problems with what was posted:

It contains typos ("standartized," "espcialy"). Easy to fix, but they should have been corrected before adding the material to Wikipedia.

Some of the references do not support what the authors asays they do For example, the only citation (hint: read Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources...) supporting the claim that a reliable source shows criticizm of non-rectangular shape of the board is a post on a discussion board which simply asks why Arduinos are shaped the way they are. No criticism found.

From there the author writes a personal essay based upon original research (hint: read Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Essay#Essays) containing his personal opinion "Arduino looks like designer forgot to add ICSP connector when designing the board" followed by a claim that needs to be established with a citation to a reliable source "acording(SIC) to Arduino this bump is fully intentional." You are not allowed to write "according to Arduino" without a citation proving that someone on the Arduino team actually said such a thing.

Nonetheless, there are legitimate criticisms out there, and if properly written and referenced, a section on the criticisms would add to the article.

Here is the section I removed.

BEGIN QUOTE

Few non-standartized design features can be found on Arduino board, espcialy:

• Non-rectangular shape of board

• • Arduino looks like designer forgot to add [[ICSP]] connector when designing the board, so there is strange "bump" on the right side of Arduino, anyway acording to Arduino this bump is fully intentional and it's added along with blue color to make Arduino easily recognizable from other "green rectangular [[PCB|boards]]", so the shape of Arduino looks that way for [[marketing]] reasons.<ref>{{cite web|title=Arduino Shape|url=http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1189417296}}</ref>

• Oddly placed pin headers

• • Arduino have headers that are used to connect Arduino with shields or some other hardware, but one of them is misplaced so it does not fit the standartized 2,54mm grid common to most PCBs. It's unsure if it's just design fault which remains unfixed even in latest boards or if it's another marketing trick to prevent users from simply attaching [[perfboard]]s to Arduino and making cheap shields from them.<ref>{{cite web|title=Arduino Shield Design Standards|url=http://www.practicalmaker.com/blog/arduino-shield-design-standards}}</ref> Another opinion claims that strange pin spacing is meant to prevent users from attaching the shield to the Arduino incorrectly, anyway there is no official statement made by Arduino.cc.<ref>{{cite web|title=Arduino – fix your pin spacing!|url=http://mightyohm.com/blog/2008/09/arduino-fix-your-pin-spacing/}}</ref>

• • There are few Arduino clones fixing this issue by adding another row of headers (and even some shields are compatible with this new "header layout"). Another way of fixing this is buying special bended header adaptor which will enable you using Arduino with perfboards.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sparkfun: Arduino Offset Header - 8 Pin|url=http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9374}}</ref> <ref>{{cite web|title=Seeeduino Mega|url=http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/seeeduino-mega-p-717.html}}</ref>

• • Many people are hoping that Arduino will fix this issue by releasing some transitional-board which will have both header layouts on it and removing the misplaced header few releases later, so compatibility will be maintained for some time, after this transitional period it's possible to sell addaptors for using new shields on old Arduinos (Some shields already have both pin rows and it's up to owner where he decides to solder the pins)

• Holes

• • There are few holes that are enabling arduino to be attached to some plastic case, etc... Placement of those holes and their varying sizes are also bit strange and it looks like Arduino wanted to make oportunity for selling some Arduino specific boxes or casings.<ref>{{cite web|title=AdaFruit: Arduino Hole Dimensions Drawing|url=http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/02/28/arduino-hole-dimensions-drawing/}}</ref>

END QUOTE

Anyone care to take a shot at rewriting it to Wikipedia standards? Guy Macon (talk) 16:46, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of List of Arduino compatibles for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of Arduino compatibles is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Arduino compatibles until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. — [[::User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] (talk · contribs) 13:19, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Folks, we need your input on this. If you think it should or should not be deleted, please weigh in. Guy Macon (talk) 19:37, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was keep. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Should it stay or should it go?

This recent edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arduino&curid=5389424&diff=448093645&oldid=448092108

Removed an external link. I would like opinions as to whether the link belongs or not. Thanks! -Guy Macon (talk) 20:07, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know really. Most of it looks like it is already covered in the article (even some of the code, which is verging on WP:NOTHOWTO) so I don't really see the point in including it. If there's anything in there that isn't included in the article (I don't know if there is, I only skimmed it) then it should probably be added rather than linked to. Alphathon /'æl.f'æ.θɒn/ ^(talk) 21:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I removed the same link a few weeks ago. Whatever virtue the content might have (which is debatable), the presentation is unreadable and far too poor to meet WP:EL. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

That was my impression as well, but I wanted a second opinion. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 00:03, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

There is almost no history in that article, and the javascript-driven viewer sucks. Isn't this information already available in some other way? 98.164.12.249 (talk) 00:35, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Ivrea

We need to figure out what, exactly is in Ivrea. Recent edits have bounced it from being the former home of defunct Olivetti to the current home of non-defunct Olivetti. The Olivetti article says that the Olivetti headquarters is there, but the Ivrea article says that Olivetti closed its operations there. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:57, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

"We" don't need to figure out anything. There's an objective reality outside the bounds of WP. Copenhagen can go fuck itself. Olivettti was a big operation, and even if it isn't now, Ivrea was always the company town. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

You do realize that "figure out" means "find out what the objective reality is", right? The Copenhagen interpretation has nothing to do with it. The question is whether this article accurately reflects what is in Ivrea -- whether Olivettti is currently headquartered there or whether Olivettti was formerly headquartered there/ Guy Macon (talk) 06:55, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Chill, y'all. Sources, sources, sources. Show me reliable independent sources, and I'll be content to quote or paraphrase them, even conflicting ones. That is both our prosaic business and our figurative quest at WP. I agree with Guy - we need reliable independent sources to verify what's the deal with Ivrea, and an end to the slow edit war about it. Andy, if objective reality is as you say it is, then there will be sources to back that up, and we, trust me, will concisely report it. We can even report conflicting sources. But it is always, always about the sources, not the editors. --Lexein (talk) 08:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK, Olivetti is certainly "scaled back" in Ivrea from what it was and there's coverage in the UK trade press to back that up. Whether that means large reductions in numbers but still the HQ, or a big empty office building with just two people still working there, or a bulldozed brownfield site, I don't know. Anyone working on the Ivrea or Olivetti articles ought to check that from real sources - there's far too much recursive sourcing going on within WP these days.

For Arduino though, does it matter? We know that there was a large group of engineers working for Olivetti there once, and now at least some large number of them aren't. That's the important aspect: a town where the skills are there, but they're now surplus and free to do things like inventing the Arduino. It doesn't matter whether Olivetti Co. have turned into Apple, HP or even Marconi - we're just not that interested in the business' precise state, merely the resultant oversupply of engineers. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:14, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Article becoming a link farm?

The article appears to be turning into a link farm. It was this edit that alerted me to it, but there are plenty of other "hey look at my blog!" type links in there. It seems that, per WP:EL, we shouldn't have a link to a huge list of external websites. For the edit by Shields Arduino (talk · contribs) in particular, I suspect a violation of advertising and conflict of interest. I would like to seriously trim the external links, but would like input from others before doing so. Dead Horsey (talk) 02:43, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it is becoming a link farm and the links should be pruned without mercy. "External links" can be trimmed to the first two items. I don't see anything in "Further reading" that can't be nuked, but I would also be happy with it being a list of actual printed books as long as they are Arduino-specific. "See also" is also getting to be a huge list of pretty much everything under the sun. Do we really need to have these sections be far larger than the same sections in Apple Inc.?

Related question: do you think "Official hardware" and "Arduino board models" should be moved over to List of Arduino compatibles? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Another link went up today. Like the others, it isn't a bad link, but there are so darn many of them that I feel like a Link Farmer watching a healthy crop of Links growing if a field. Shall we do some weeding? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I feel concerned about how all the detailed product data will be maintained. The article contains a huge table of links to products of mostly two vendors. The wikipedia table seems easier to navigate then the vendor site, and it seems like wikipedia is making up for what the vendors are lacking. Perhaps the detailed product data should be in a separate article. Wikfr (talk) 17:47, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Production Numbers

I'm wondering if there is any production information for at least some of the principal manufacturers. Of course, there is no way of tracking all of the clones. However, information from the principal manufacturers would be useful for estimating the relative user-base for each models. Has anyone come across this type of information? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rolfedh (talk • contribs) 21:55, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Shields and I2C

One thing this page fails to explain is how multiple shields talk to an Arduino at once. I don't have an embedded-electronics background, so when I saw the stack of five shields shown at [1], I was perplexed: there are only so many pins; how could so do these five shields just happen to use different sets of pins? Even if they all did use different pins, you'd run out of pins eventually. I've subsequently gathered that many (most? all?) shields communicate via an I²C bus and that those shields have settable I²C addresses so you can make a huge stack and then the Arduino can send each one a command by addressing the shield by "name" and the others will ignore that command.

Is that correct? Do most shields support I²C? Is it generally an option to talk directly via pins versus via I²C?

This may be obvious to electronics junkies, but it's not obvious to everyone and seems like a pretty basic part of the description of "what is a shield" that I haven't found spelled out here or elsewhere. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 11:43, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Generally shields don't stack. If you want to do this, you first have to assemble a shield so that the shield has sockets on the top too, like an Arduino itself. Easy for home-assembly shields, but it can limit you amongst commercial shields. There are also the issues of mechanical stability (stacked shields can wobble enough to cause connection failure) and also the issue of power supply. Many big stacks are done for multi-LED display outputs and the power demands can overload the bottom board in a tall stack.

Then their connections are simply paralleled. This can be a problem if two shields both use the same pin, hence the ShieldList site's most obvious information being a pin-use diagram. Inherently parallel buses, such as I2C and Dallas one-wire wouldn't care, so long as the device addresses differ.

Another approach is to use sub-shields. This is sometimes done for display devices, such as LED cubes or dot-matrix displays. An Arduino Shield stacks onto the Arduino and offers some "decoder" function. This then has a number of sub-shields stacked onto itself, where each one drives a single output module, such as one tile in a tiled display. This secondary connector is physically different, can be electrically either parallel (with addressing) or daisy-chained, and is designed from the outset to support stacking.

Really though, shield stacking just isn't an issue. The Arduino is primarily a starter device for simple projects. Because it's also open sourced, most people building devices that have complex output or shield requirements instead find themselves making their own *duino clones with the same bootloader, but different board hardware. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I understand that some shields are just directly using the pins, but as a non-EE I assumed that was more or less the only way to do it, so I was perplexed when I saw a stack of shields. In the interest of revealing the obvious to those who don't find it obvious, I'll add mention that some shields use a serial bus to talk, allowing stacking. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Undefined term(s)?

"(When used with traditional microcontroller tools instead of the Arduino IDE, standard AVR ISP programming is used.)"

IDE is not defined or hyperlinked. What is the Arduino "IDE"? 124.148.146.231 (talk) 08:24, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Integrated Development Environment Andy Dingley (talk) 09:09, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I just added wikilinks for IDE and ISP (same sentence). Good catch, 124.148.146.231! Finding little errors like undefined acronyms and initialisms is an important part of improving Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Atmel or Arduino?

here's what I'm not clear on, why say the micro is an Arduino, but it's actually an Atmel microcontroller? I can understand the boards being put together by Arduino, but the micro is not, it's Atmel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.36.101.50 (talk) 18:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi! Could you quote the part of the page you are talking about? I see "An Arduino board consists of an 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller with complementary components..." Perhaps you are confusing microcontroller with single-board microcontroller? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

it's the first sentence "Arduino is a popular open-source single-board microcontroller," — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.36.101.50 (talk) 16:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The Arduino is a Single-Board Microcontroller -- a Microcontroller that is a Printed-circuit Board. The Atmel AVR is a Single-Chip Microcontroller -- a Microcontroller that is an Integrated Circuit. Most current single-board microcontrollers contain upon single-chip microcontrollers, but single-board microcontrollers are much older than single-chip microcontrollers, and were originally built with Microprocessors. When the single-chip microcontroller arrived, it did not make the single-board microcontroller obsolete, because single-chip microcontrollers don't have connectors, voltage regulators, crystals, LEDs etc. The Arduino is one example of that.

You have identified an inconsistency in Wikipedia that should be fixed, but it isn't in the Arduino article. Single-board microcontroller says "A single-board microcontroller is a microcontroller built onto a single printed circuit board" but Microcontroller says "A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit." Single-board microcontroller#Single-chip microcontrollers clarifies the relation by saying "Single-chip microcontrollers ... simply the design of a single-board microcontroller." We should update Microcontroller so that it no longer incorrectly implies that all microcontrollers are integrated circuits. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:03, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

IMHO a "microcontroller" is normally a chip, one that contains all the components of a complete computer, including timers and peripherals. When googling for "microcontroller definition" you get results like this: [2]. When you put a microcontroller on a board with all the other stuff to make a practical system (crystal, connectors, power supply etc) you get a "microcontroller board". So Microcontroller is exactly right in saying that a microcontroller is a chip, and has a list of microcontrollers listing only chips. The arduino is a microcontroller board, but some (lazy) people started to shorten that to just "microcontroller". And yes, in the past you had small boards containing only the barest necessities to create a working system, for example a 6502 (CPU), a 6522 (Timer/PIO) a 2716 EEPROM, and a static RAM chip, these were generally called "controller boards", or somewhat later Single-board microcontrollers. Mahjongg (talk) 18:06, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting! Reference 2 at Single-board microcontroller references a "Intel Single Board Computer" from 1975, and of course the terms "minicomputer" and "microcomputer" are older than that. I wonder when the first use of the term "microcontroller" was. If we could document that it might make a nice addition to the encyclopedia.

Related in an odd way: all over the country there are locations named "Telegraph Hill" that were named that well before the invention of the telegraph. That's because everyone shortens Electrical telegraph to "telegraph." those hills were named that because they were the sites of the earlier optical telegraphs. Likewise "computer" used to be a job title - a job that was replaced by electronic computers, which we shortened to "computer". --Guy Macon (talk) 00:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

wow, thanks everyone, very insightful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.36.101.50 (talk) 19:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)