Build It
Build your own Arduino demo board
By Dave Prochnow Posted 12.24.2008 at 11:07 am 7 Comments

TIME: 13 hours
COST: Varies; all new parts $78.60
DIFFICULTY: Moderate

PARTS

Polyphemus Sensors:  Dave Prochnow

You can build this "kit" from off-the-shelf parts--no printed circuit boards are needed. Also, you can add, replace, or substitute your own parts for the parts recommended in Polyphemus (e.g., if you don't have a white LED, try another color of LED).

STEPS

1. Download our Polyphemus project archive. Inside this ZIP file you will find source code, board layout information, datasheets, and image files.

2. Cut the perfboard into two pieces. One piece will hold the Freeduino, LED, battery holder, and phototransistor, while the second piece will support the Nokia color LCD, pushbuttons, buzzer, analog connector, and power on/off switch.

3. Mount the Freeduino and support components on the lower piece of perfboard.

Polyphemus LCD:  Dave Prochnow

4. Mount the Nokia LCD and support components on the upper piece of perfboard.

5. Use small lengths of wire to route connections between the Freeduino, the support componets, and the Nokia LCD.

6. Connect the negative terminal of the battery holder to one terminal of the on/off power switch. Connect another length of wire from the switch to the Freeduino.

7. Use the free Arduino programming environment for loading the Polyphemus code on the Freeduino.

8. Insert the battery into the battery holder (watch the holder's polarity!) and turn on the power switch. In a couple of seconds, the buzzer will beep twice and the main menu screen will be displayed. The complete sketch weighs in at slightly less than 6kb. Feel free to evaluate your own components on Polyphemus. Remember to avoid Port B when adding new components (it's used for communicating with the LCD). Now don't let some "geeks" poke your eye out.

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7 Comments

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davek01521
12/25/08 at 10:54 am

Dave,

Your article might garner some interest if your readers had any idea of what you were talking about. I'm sure there are those out in InternetLand who understand completely and therefore don't need your article, but I would bet the majority of Popular Science readers come to the Popular Science website to LEARN something they don't know. Being confronted with "Every AVR programmer worth her weight in ATmegas knows about the AVR Butterfly--a ridiculously low cost ATmega169 demonstration and evaluation kit" tells me absolutely nothing. A nice sentence full of sound and fury signifying nothing and definately a sentence that does not inspire me to read further. So when I see any AVR's or ATmegas walking down the street, I'll be sure to cross over to the other sidewalk.

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Kmeer
12/28/08 at 10:43 am

I agree. What the hell is it and why would I want to build one?

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AdventureDude
12/30/08 at 12:31 pm

Dave,
Nicely done. As a hobbiest with a butterfly and arduino this looks like a fun and useful project. Its just the cost of that color LCD that kills, but such is life.

I wonder what version 2 will look like.

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bill2009
12/31/08 at 8:26 pm

Great work. I WILL Build one.

There must be some variant on this that would fire imaginations the way the PopTronics Cosmac Elf did in the 70's.

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bill2009
12/31/08 at 8:30 pm

looking at the build info though, the LCD board is sort of dauntingly expensive. There must be a more affordable alternative.

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techsmoke94
01/11/09 at 12:19 am

By the looks of it it might be hard to build if you don't know what te heck he is talking about

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DngrMse
06/18/09 at 10:49 pm

For people who were/are concerned about the cost of the Nokia 61xx display...there is a cheap alternative, that also gets you a nice 3.7v rechargeable battery for nothing. T-Mobile has been selling these phones in Wal Mart, (prepaid cellular thingy), for under 30 dollars...(it might have been about 20 when I picked one up). I'd sacrifice mine, but it works in areas, like my house, with marginal signals where all other phones I tried fail.

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