[Swansea Hackspace] ok wont be in.

[Justin Mitchell]

On Tue, 2014-11-18 at 08:38 +0000, Graham Owens wrote:

> Is there a reason to use an arduino in your led project, as you could
> probably achieve the same result with a 555 timer, or a small 8 pin
> device like a pic12f629 (just off the top of my head as i have one)
> they cost about 50p compared to the price of the arduino.

I have been using the PIC 12F1840 in recent years, same kind of price,
loads of features on it.  Theres tutorials on the website using it as
well as a bootloader for it.

Use the pickit in the space (tool cupboard) to flash the bootloader onto
it, and then you can just connect the chip to a serial port (eg a usb
uart board) and reprogram it at will just like an arduino.

If you are dead set on using an arduino then use a mini-pro board, you
can get them off places like aliexpress from £1.50 and up.  Same cpu as
the big arduino uno boards, but without the usb (you need to hook up
your own usb uart board to program it)