Congratulations on receiving your Blinks Dev Kit!
First things first, let’s make sure you have everything you need. Included in the box should be…
What’s Included
-
6x Blinks
- 6x custom PCBs,
- 6x 3D printed bases
- 6x 12 polarity aligned magnets
- 6x CR2032 coin cell batteries
- 6x battery/magnet security screw
- 1x Carry Case (magnetic enclosure for carrying 6 Blinks)
-
Programmer
- 1x Pocket AVR programmer, AKA USBtinyISP)
- 1x USB mini cable (3’)
-
Service Port (used for Serial Monitor)
- 1x Blinks Serial Adapter
- 1x FTDI board (Red w/ usb on one side and 6 pins on the other)
- 1x Molex cable (4 black wires)
- 1x USB mini cable (6”)
If you’re missing one of the components, please reach out to us at info@move38.com!
Next up, you’ll need to make sure you have all the needed software, which you can get below!
Arduino IDE - Download it here
Blinks Library - Download it here*
*If you want to have the latest and contribute to the development of Blinks, here’s our Github Repo
Installing the Blinks Library
After you have installed the Arduino IDE (> 1.8.5) and launched the application, you will notice that Arduino has created a folder in your Documents
folder, aptly named, Arduino
. Follow these next 5 steps to have the Blinks library installed:
- Create a folder called ‘hardware’ inside of the Arduino folder
~/Documents/Arduino/hardware
- Download the Blinks Library if you haven’t already done so
- Unzip the Blinks Library
- Move the Blinks Library into the hardware folder
- Restart Arduino (quit and relaunch)
If you click on Tools
in your menu bar, and navigate down to Board:
you should now see Move38: Blinks Tile
at the bottom. Select it.
Now if you go to File/Examples
, you should see Examples for Blinks Tiles at the bottom of that list as well. Open the first one up and see if it compiles.
Windows Troubleshooting
No programmer detected?
Check to make sure you have the correct driver installed, relaunch the Ardunio IDE and then you should be able to select USBTinyISP from the Tools > Programmer dropdown in Arduino.
For the extra curious, here is the source code for that driver.
Faster Upload Time
- Download this file
- Move file to
/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/arduino/avr
(it will replace the existing file here - Restart Arduino if it was open
- Now select the
Blinks Programmer
when programming and it should be roughly 4x faster upload speeds
Last but not least, here’s a handy little unboxing video that will walk you through some basics!
You should be good to go! For more robust documentation - including an API Reference Guide, details on hardware functionality and what Blinks are presently capable of - head to https://move38.com/letsdothis!