I had purchased a “Book + Butterfly + Projects Kit” from Smiley Micros some time ago. The AVR Butterfly is a demonstration board for a Atmel AVR ATmega169PV microcontroller. The package that I purchased included, in addition to the Butterfly, a book and some components in the “project kit” to execute the samples from the book. The first thing that you have to do is add a connector it the board so that you can add a serial port connection. The serial port connection is used to download code to the microcontroller. The kit includes some wires and a female DB-9 connector which you get to solder together. I did it (successfully). The kit also includes a battery pack that you get to mod to add an LED as a power indicator and some headers to solder to the Butterfly to make it easier to attach and reconfigure wires to the device.
After performing this preliminary soldering, I followed the test procedures to make sure that it works. I was able to power the Butterfly from the external battery source and download my name via the serial port to the Butterfly. (The Butterfly has a sample program that will display your name on its LCD display.)
Now that the preliminary work is done, I can try the samples from the book… (I am finally putting my EE degree to use!) and maybe write my own code. (Yeah, I do write code, like web applications, for a living. Not usually something as cool as making blinking LEDs!)
Tags: atmel, avr, butterfly, microcontroller
oooh, i have been thinking about some kind of project like that as well. that sounds like fun!