Introduction: How to Setup the Arduino IDE to Work With the Tinusaur Boards.
This is a short guide how to setup the Arduino IDE to work with the Tinusaur boards.
What it does basically is to make it work with the AtmelATtiny85/45/25microcontrollers. The only difference is that it will appear on the list of boards as Tinusaur – this is done for convenience, so relatively inexperienced people won’t get confused by the long list of unknown boards and microcontrollers.
Step 1: Installing the Arduino IDE
First of all, we need the Arduino IDE itself.
It could be downloaded from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software – the official Arduino website.
The current version at the time of writing this guide was 1.6.8 but should work with all the most recent versions.
Step 2: Adding Support for the Tinusaur Boards
- Start the Arduino IDE first.
- Go to the menu File / Preferences.
- Find the “Additional Boards manager URLs” and the button on the right that will open an edit box.
- Put the following URL in the edit box:
NOTE: It is possible to have multiple URLs as long as they are put on separate lines.
- Close the edit dialog by pressing “OK”.
- Close the “Preferences” dialog by pressing “OK”.
- Go to the menu Tools / Board:… / Boards Manager. This will open an additional dialog window with boards information. You may need to wait until all data is loaded.
- From the drop-down menu “Type” choose the “Contributed” item.
- Locate the “Tinusaur Boards” item and click on it.
- Press the “Install” button. That will install the necessary files into the Arduino IDE.
- Close the dialog by pressing the “Close” button.
Step 3: Setup to Use the Tinusaur Board
- Go to menu Tools / Board:...
- The Tinusaur should be available somewhere at the bottom of the list. Choose the Tinusaur.
- It is important to setup the other parameters for the board.
- Go to menu Tools / Processor:… and choose the appropriate CPU type. If unsure choose ATtiny85.
- Go to menu Tools / Clock:… and choose the appropriate CPU frequency. If unsure choose 1 MHz.
- Go to menu Tools / Programmer:… and choose the appropriate programmer. If unsure choose USBasp. That’s it.
Info
Another version of this guide but with screenshots is available at the Arduino IDE Setup page.