The Arduino

Well, after I know what I want to to, I have to think about how. How to tell a brainless machine how to do its job. You may laugh, but that was a hard one. Since I'm a mechanic, I don't know much about electronics. But at least I already did some programming, BASIC in the early days and I even wrote a little iOS application some time ago. But I'm definitively no big programmer, I do more, well, let's invent a new term, bitch code. I know that stuff like that used to be done with the serial and parallel ports of computers. But I'm a convinced mac user and macs don't have those old ports. I need either something wireless, WiFi or Bluetooth, or something that hooks up via Ethernet or USB. I don't feel like being able to mess with DisplayPort or Firewire. I found different things, mostly either industrial stuff, by far to expensive, or windows only.

The first one was the U4x1 from usbmicro.com. But it looked, a little outdated, the mac app was still PPC only and the thing wasn't easy to get in Switzerland.

I then found a Forum and looked at the stuff he used. That looked already pretty cool, but was 1-wire only and not that cheap. I've nothing against 1-wire. But mac support seemed to be pretty limited, there's that OWFS stuff but that didn't convince me, and if I want to use it on other stuff later I'm much more limited.

I than almost went for Velleman's K8055. Even if there's no official mac support, there are some promising hacks around and I thought to be able to do the programming. But to use a temperature sensor with that thing would be difficult. The extension from Velleman is also a little board, and everything but waterproof. Using a DS18S20 is not possible because the K8055 is to slow for 1-wire and to get a PT-100 to work must be a nightmare, since you've to amplify his signal.

After some more research I found the phidgets. I almost ordered them but realized that I would need one for the analog input and another for the relays. Sad, but not sexy enough.
My desperate research my then finally led to the Arduino.

I directly liked their opensource spirit. but hesitated.
An Arduino would be another instance between me and my machine. And I'd have to program that to.
But after I looked at some coding examples I thought to be able to master that. Oh and extensions. Relays, screens, wireless stuff, all you can imagine. And have you seen the price? Even if I fuck up the first, I can get a new one and will still be cheaper than all other solutions.
I think I fell in love. Well, somehow... :)
So I ordered a starter kit from sparkfun:

I directly ordered a eight relay board (not soldered yet, that's gonna be fun) and a DS18B20 temperature sensor with it too. Once I'll have it, you'll hear from me...