Hardware

@soward I use some sort of no-name 10 uH 12mm (I know, stupidly big) shielded inductor from AliExpress. Looks a lot like these, fairly bulky and heavy: http://m2.uxcell.com/photo_new/20140506/c/ux_a14050600ux0992_ux_c.jpg Haven't done more than go over it with the continuity tester to see that it didn't have some sort of rudimentary inside damage. I also tested the capacitors, they were close enough to 10 uF but I did some surprising minor variation that can't be blamed on the DMM. Random Ebay caps are probably not a good idea if you need spot on values. But they did seem to work.

@Yveaux said: there should be some OKI tiles somewhere, or maybe some blobs of resin somewhere on the back? I dug a bit further and under some green tape I found something: [image: upload-fcac12ad-87ad-47c6-9035-d3635d2bbbf0.jpg] [image: upload-96483404-3883-4553-abd4-3b3818c366ce.jpg] So I guess these might be the LCD controllers then. Anyway, if someone feels like sinking their teeths in one of these let me know.

@hek : Thanks so much... no idea why I didn't see that earlier. I think you can close this post.

@ivan.todorovich Hi! See this examples how to power it from 220V without tranformer. http://www.designercircuits.com/DesignNote1a.pdf

Thanks, Didn't spot those, mainly because they looked like 5v > 3.3v in the heading. I'll maybe buy some of those plus find some of the 5V ones i see in the manufacturers spec sheet.

Minimum? Well, you need the 3 fixed SPI pins and 2 more (CSN and CE) to run the radio (at least in the normal manner). And whatever pins you need for sensors and actuators.

I was just looking for alternative approaches.

@mitekg Have you converted you sketch to v 1.4?

@hek Hmm, yeah that would work. It just seems like overkill for a few extra pins (price and size wise). I didn't realize there were 8 analog pins on the APM, those should actually be enough to drive all the things as long as they work OK as digital outputs. I figure the shift register will cause problems because I won't be able to build an 'AccelStepper' object since the input for the constructor is a pin number. I assume I'd have to modify the code if I want to put it through the shift register.

@ServiceXp Well, I am considering a TSO1202 in addition to that one. At some time. Looks at least on visual inspection like good value.

This may have already been answered by have you guys tried another IDE? Something like Atmel + Visual Micro

@Zeph said: card edge connector Now we know the 'official' name! Thanks dude :+1: I think this one should suffice for a ISP connector: http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/7-5530843-7/A101966-ND/2310829

@soward Go ahead design those, sell to all arduino dealers and mass produce them. (Notice the order; first sell then produce)

Only 500m? ;-) Search for "nRF24L01 1000m" and you see quite some matches. Is it possible? Yes, using the right antenna's and line of sight it is possible but real world, no way.

@grint how would a compass sensor perform in a lawnmower robot?

@lininger said: but was scared to remove the regulator, without asking first. You can't do any harm with this imho. Unless you pull it off without heating the pads first. @Yveaux Nice idea as well...

FYI: RadioHead library 1.34 has some specific initialization code for RFM73 in the nRF24 driver (e.g. ACTIVATE command). See https://github.com/Yveaux/RadioHead/commit/f895ba933950681234d714fd7c3d3c18658b8ed5

Ok so.... things not to do: Don't short the holes for the capacitor. When I thought about this some more I realize it didn't make any sense to do that. I clipped the short and presto the Nano booted properly, no solid TX RX. So I cleaned the holes and put the capacitor in just for kicks and I think everything is working now. A big thanks to Ross for putting the PCB together it's awesome!