Hey everyone! I’ve just got back to the wonderful world of electronics after a, say, 20 year hiatus. Oh my, things have changed!
I made a small arduino game (like a unidimensional Pong) using a couple of buttons and 7 LEDs. It’s working fine on my breadboard + Arduino R3 UNO, and I’d like to make a version that’s not a giant rat nest of wires.
So far I’ve figured out how to use Eagle (barely!) and found oshpark.com (which means I don’t have to deal with gerber files). I’ve also figured out I’d like to use an ATtiny84 for the project – I only need 7 pins from the processor, 2 of them PWM.
As far as power goes, I’d love to have a miniUSB connector on the board so I could update the software in-circuit, but ideally I could also have something like a CR2032 so I can carry the thing with me. (I’ll worry about 3D-printing the casement later.) Is there a better way to update the programming? Maybe what I need is a pin header I can plug into from my bigger Arduino board to use that as an ISP…?
Any tips for me? I’m curious about:
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Can I mix surface-mount and through-hole components in my project? Will Eagle take care of that for me? (I’m a soldering newbie, by the way, any tips on reducing solder risk will be appreciated.)
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Anything special to do in order to add the battery? I’m guessing I just put it over my ground plane polygon and somehow connect the + side away, haven’t seen how that works in detail yet.
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Should I be using a smaller/cheaper chip?
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Am I crazy to try this off the bat with no previous board printing experience?!?
Thanks in advance!! I’d really appreciate any help with this. 