ok so I found some answeres, can have two programs in memory at once so I would have to upload the one I want to use.

found some good programing basics pages and looks like my best bet is to buy a starter kit and play and then buy some addons.

now the different flavors of the boards.... I was looking at the mega and now I have been reading a bunch on the Duemilanove, and I have read that you can also get it with a built on wifi.. so what is the differnace between the mega and the Duemilanove that would make either more desiriable for some one like me who is starting out?

Steve

ok so looking around would this be a good kit to order for playing around?

http://www.hvwtech.com/products_view.asp?ProductID=1205

I figure it has a temp probe so I could play by getting it to turn off and on lights at different temps.

Steve

That would be a great place to start.

As for the number of programs you can have, I think you're having a conceptual issue. You can write one program that will handle multiple types of meat and/or timing cycles. the question is: How much program space (i.e memory) does any particular chip have ? THAT will limit the size of the program.

When I sold HVWTech.com, the Arduino was just starting to be known and I don't know a tremendous amount about it myself. From what I can gather though, with previous C++ experience and some electrical/electronics background, you are FAR better equipped to get into this than many people I used to sell development tools to !

hmm.. I got it from somewhere else that you can only have one program on the chip at a time, but I have been reading code all morning trying to figure out out a bit and I might be able to have a selectible loop routeen, but having two seperate programs isn't a big deal either as it takes a couple seconds to upload the one you want to use. or if I use quick disconects for the inputs/outputs I could easily have two units and just plug in the one I want. I actualy found a PID front end here
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/PIDLibrary so i need to do some more reading to figure out how to combine it with my other requirments.

Steve

Ok so I ordered a development kit, should be here friday.. so I will start playing and seeing what this can do.

didn't get a LCD or wirless for now figured I would work on getting other things working befor adding more headach :mrgreen:

Steve

Very wise. You will want an LCD at some point as it will make development and troubleshooting much easier. Of course, you'll need some kind of display for your project too !

now I was reading that for playing with this if I have it pluged into my laptop through the USB that I can use my laptop to monitor?

I think later I will get a WiFi shield and use a web page as a monitor or maybe a LED. the cool thing I was looking at is the actual board is only 30ish bucks so to build more stuff with be cheep compared to my initial purchase.

Steve

Again, I'm not very familiar with the Arduino but other micros have the ability to send information back to the PC and have it display there. The hitch to that is that it takes time -albeit only milliseconds- but this can affect how the rest of your program runs and can sometimes actually cause probmlems that wouldn't otherwise exist.

you'll be fine to start though.

Have at 'er !

Well got my kit today, overnight shipping for 9 bucks.. not bad at all.
I am surprised by how small it is.. might be a bit of a challange by ham fisted people like myself :mrgreen:

I got it installed and comunicating with my lap top and i uploaded a test program to make a led flash on the board.. rather underwhelming but it confirms that everything is working properly. and I could make a self contained fake car alarm light with how it is set up now :mrgreen:

anyways better go outside and get my welder tested now that I got the right liner for the gun and i'll play with electronics later.

Steve