/ tuesdaytooling

Tuesday Tooling: Teeny Tiny ATtiny85

A hardware themed Tuesday Tooling this week!

So what is it?

A tiny microcontroller that is compatible with the Arduino IDE. It comes in many different forms, some connect via micro USB, some direct into your USB port.

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This version of the ATtiny85 is a clone board connects via micro USB to your computer
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This is a Digispark clone board that connects directly to USB, note that sometimes these can be wobbly in your USB port.

What can it do?

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My crude pinout created in Inkscape

The ATtiny85 may only be tiny, but it can provide many of the functions found in much larger microcontrollers.
From the total 6 IO pins we have a combination of

  • 6 Digital
  • 3 Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
  • 3 Analog
  • I2C
  • SPI
  • USB

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This is plenty to use for many applications, in fact I recently made a quick hack to show how WS2811 LED (Neopixels) could be used with the board to illuminate a boring old LED cinema sign from #Pounderland (write up for that will be a Friday Fun project!)

I bet they aren't cheap?

You are sooo wrong, these retail for about £2! You can purchase them from Abx Labs, a UK based seller who travels from Maker Faire to Maker Faire selling cool and cheap electronics.

Where can I learn more?

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Warning: Self promotion detected!

I've written an introduction to using the ATtiny85 for the Electromaker website. In the guide I show you how to configure the Arduino IDE to use the board, then we create a simple demo project using a few LEDs.

Pick one up, have a go, it'll cost you less than a skinny macchiato latte with those posh little biscuits.