#38 DIY ARDUINO UNO ATTINY85 PROGRAMMER

Sometimes an Arduino pro mini is just not small enough for an electronics project. Enter the Arduino ATTINY85, this MCU comes in an extremely small package. It has only 8 pins and works with 5v.

Below are the specs of this microcontroller:

• AVR MCU, 8K FLASH, 512B RAM, SPI
• Controller Family/Series:AVR Tiny
• Core Size:8bit
• No. of I/O’s:6
• Program Memory Size:8KB
• EEPROM Memory Size:512Byte
• RAM Memory Size:512Byte
• CPU Speed: 8/16 MHz internal clock, up to 20MHz external clock
• No. of Timers:2
• Peripherals:ADC, Comparator
• No. of PWM Channels:4
• Digital IC Case Style:DIP
• Supply Voltage Range:2.7V to 5.5V
• Operating Temperature Range:-40°C to +85°C
• No. of Pins:8

This is great and all but its a hassle to program the board unless you buy a dedicated programmer (expensive in SA) or if you’re happy to use a messy breadboard every time you want to program. So I decided to make a very crude but effective programming shield for my Arduino UNO.