Dear friends welcome to another video!
This is Nick from educ8s.tv and today we are
going to take a quick first look at this ATtiny85
board.
Without any further delay, let’s get started!
I wanted to take a look at this tiny board
for a long time.
It is very small size, it is low cost and
it uses a different processor than the Arduino
boards.
It uses the ATTiny 85 microcontroller chip,
which can operate at a frequency up to 20Mhz.
It has 8Kb of flash memory, 512bytes of RAM
memory and 6 I/O pins 2 of which can implement
the I2C protocol.
It is very small in size and has low power
requirements.
We can program it using the Arduino IDE, which
makes things so much easier!
I got this tiny board with a USB interface
in order to be easier to program.
You can find a link for this ATtiny85 board
in the description of the video.
I wanted to test if the ATtiny85 board is
a good option for simple projects and if we
achieve longer battery life with this board
that a standard Arduino mini.
Let’s find out together.
At first we have to download the appropriate
drivers in order the board to work with your
computer.
After trying a lot of different drivers for
my Windows 8.1 installation, the one that
works comes from this website.
Next we have to add the ATTiny85 board in
the Arduino IDE.
We go to File -> Preferences and we enter
this URL to the Additional Boards Manager
URL field.
Next we press ok.
Next we go to tools, board -> Boards Manager
we select the Digistump AVR package and we
select install.
After a few seconds our board is ready to
use with the Arduino IDE.
In order to program this board we have to
follow a different procedure that the one
we follow with Arduino boards.
At first we select the board, we select Digispark
(Default at 16.5Mhz).
Next we write our code and we press the Upload
button with the board still unplugged.
The bottom status box will ask you to plug
your Digispark board.
After doing so, the code will be uploaded
to the board and the program, the standard
blink sketch in this example, will run.
Now that we know how to program the ATTiny
board let’s modify the blink program in
order to measure its power consumption.
So, in this example program, the LED stays
on for a second and stays off for 3 seconds.
I have connected a Multimeter and as you can
see, the ATTiny board needs around 13mAs of
current.
If we put ATTiny to sleep using the code will
provide, we drop the current draw to around
4mAs.
Still not low enough.
So, I took more drastic measures.
I removed the power LED which stays on all
the time and I removed the regulator and I
provide power to to ATTiny chip directly.
Still, the current draw is high, about 2mA
when the chip is sleeping.
It seems the USB circuit requires a lot of
current all the time.
So, this board is not suitable for low power
applications.
I think we have to use a bare ATTiny chip
if we want to greatly reduce its power consumption.
As a final thought, from my experience with
the board, I can say that it is a nice small
board with limited capabilities.
It is useful from small projects that require
few lines of code.
But the power consumption is not low.
An Arduino pro mini at sleep needs less current,
costs around the same, and offers more pins,
memory and functionality.
For me, the Arduino Nano or the Arduino Pro
mini, is a better option, if the bigger size
of these Arduino boards is not an issue.
If you need the minimum possible board size,
the ATTiny is a good option.
What do you think about the ATTiny usb board?
Have you managed to further reduce the power
consumption of it?
If you have any tricks or advice, please post
your comments in the comments section below.
Thanks!
If this is your first time here, I would love
to have you subscribed.
In this channel I post videos about DIY projects
every Saturday.
I love making things and I believe that anyone
can make things, anyone can become a maker.
That’s why I created this channel, in order
to share my knowledge with the community and
learn from the community.
I hope you will join us.
Until next Saturday, Watch, Learn, Build!
