Just received a set of packages for most of the remaining parts for what I’ve ordered!  Busy night coming up tonight in that case 🙂

Edit:  Looks like my post order got a bit scrambled from me trying to edit the tags…  Doh.  So I’m reposting this to get it at the top and restore a bit of timeline continuity.  Sorry…

As discussed in my last post about the AeroQuad, I wasn’t having much luck with the Wii sensors and wound out getting a BMA180 accelerometer and ITG3200 gyroscope ordered in.  Short results:  Gyroscope’s fine, accelerometer’s not.  But it’s being replaced by the supplier, so all’s good.

As discussed in my last post, I intended to make up a prototype shield in order to supply three main functions - ICSP programmer, breakout to allow ICSP programming off-board, and FTDI serial input to allow comms with the inserted Atmel chip.  This post will discuss how I went with the schematics and breadboarding of the planned device.

The Schematic

I got myself one of Sparkfun’s FT232R Breakout Boards, but I didn’t get the basic version (whoops).  Now, the advanced version breaks out every pin of the FT232R, but it doesn’t have a direct pinout to an FTDI cable such as what the FT232R Basic supplies.  Oh, and it’s set by default to 3.3v, but that’s adjustable through a solder jumper.

So, I’m planning on building up an Arduino-compatible breadboard in order to prototype my MCE Remote IR Blaster. In order to do this, I decided I needed a few extra components so I can program the ATmega328p microcontroller without needing to go and pull chips out of sockets on my current Uno boards;