Learning Arduino: Interfacing with Analog Devices

Take your Arduino projects to the next level. Learn how to connect analog devices—sensors and circuits, LEDs, joysticks, and stepper motors—to your Arduino board.

Arduino helps engineers and DIY enthusiasts build functional, interactive prototypes and electronics projects. Integrating analog devices allows you to take your Arduino projects to the next level, bridging the digital and physical worlds. With analog components, you can collect data from sensors, make motors run, and display information to users. This course teaches you the basics you need to get started. Zahraa Khalil shows how to connect real devices—temperature sensors, LEDs, LDR circuits, joysticks, and stepper motors—to your Arduino board. She explains the wiring and coding you need to get them up and running and showcases the possibilities of Arduino-driven hardware in three mini projects.

Introduction

• Integrating analog devices with Arduino
• What you should know before watching

1. Analog Inputs

• What are analog devices?
• Understanding analog-to-digital converters
• Exploring our temperature sensor (TMP37)
• Understanding how to interpret the sensor values
• Interpreting the sensor values
• Wiring up the temperature sensor
• Coding to read the temperature sensor
• LDR (light-dependent resistor) sensor
• Using a voltage divider with our LDR
• Wiring up our LDR circuit
• Coding to read the LDR circuit
• Joystick module
• Wiring up our joystick
• Coding the joystick circuit

2. Analog Outputs

• How Arduino generates analog output
• Understanding pulse-width modulation (PWM)
• Understanding the analogWrite function with PWM
• Wire up an LED
• Write code to use PWM with the LED
• Understanding the map() function
• Wiring a potentiometer to control LED
• Coding to control the LED with a potentiometer

3. Interfacing with a Stepper Motor

• Stepper motor introduction
• Unipolar stepper motors
• Stepper motor driver board ULN2003
• Wiring a stepper motor to Arduino
• Coding to control the motor directly
• Exploring the Stepper Library
• Coding for the stepper motor
• Coding using the Stepper() function

4. Projects

• Using the joystick to control LEDs
• Wiring up the joystick and LEDs
• Coding for the joystick and LEDs
• Using an LDR sensor to control a motor
• Wiring
• Coding the LDR and sensor
• Using a joystick to control a motor
• Wiring up the joystick and motor
• Coding the joystick and motor

Conclusion

• Next steps