Today I ran across an interesting MakeZine project article that shows how to use an Arduino Leonardo and an RFID card reader to make a custom password entry gadget. According to the article, the cost was about $75.
$75?! I accomplished the same thing last year for about $16 … with no soldering and without modifying or damaging any hardware. (You can get the same parts today for closer to $11.)
Arduino Workshop by John Boxall
While “thumbing” through an online version of the book Arduino Workshop by John Boxall I ran across Chapter 10, which has the title Accepting User Input with Touchscreens.
“Yeah, right,” I thought to myself. “That sounds easy … not!”
Within a couple pages I became an instant believer … and hopped online to order the necessary hardware.
NOTE: I’m not an expert on the best ways to utilize Dupont connectors; I’m just sharing what has worked for me.
One of the more frustrating things for me as an “electronics beginner” was the problem of making dependable connections between separate devices at the circuit level.
Prototyping on a solder-less breadboard is a breeze with purpose-made jumper wires, even though it can get to be a little confusing…
Atari Punk Console on Breadboard using Jumper Wires
…and it’s fairly easy to create custom breadboard wires when the time is right:
Atari Punk Console on Breadboard using Custom-cut Wires
You might even say that soldering up a permanent version of a circuit on perfboard or a PCB isn’t all that difficult:
Atari Punk Console on Perfboard (Top)
Atari Punk Console on Perfboard (Bottom)
But how do you deal with connections to devices or components that aren’t on the same board? Some kind of standardized connector would sure be nice. Enter …