ATTiny85

I am using an ATTiny85 for the first time in one of my projects. This is also the first time I try to program a microprocessor that is not on a breakout board with a bootloader. If you are new to the ATTiny85 then there are great resources available to get you started such as high-low tech.

I am using an Arduino Uno to program the ATTiny85. The process is surprisingly easy thanks to the board library created by high-low tech.org. You can find instructions on their website.

Here is a picture of my setup for writing to the ATTiny85:

The required connections are:

ATTiny Pin 1 to Arduino Pin 10 (purple wire)

ATTiny Pin 5 to Arduino Pin 11 (green wire)

ATTiny Pin 6 to Arduino Pin 12 (red wire)

ATTiny Pin 7 to Arduino Pin 13 (yellow wire)

Note that I am referencing the physical pin numbering on the ATTiny. It can get confusing since some examples you find will reference the IO number.

ATTiny Pin 8 to Arduino 5V (red wire, this is power for the ATTiny)

ATTiny Pin 4 to Arduino Gnd (black wire)

A 10 uF capacitor should be placed between the Arduino's Reset pin and Ground.

Use the Tutorial on high-low tech.org to add the ATTiny board to your Arduino IDE and you will be ready to program that little guy.

Enhanced DIP Socket

You may have noticed in the image that the ATTiny is looking somewhat long-legged. That is because I have it plugged into an enhanced DIP socket that I created. You will find as you work with the ATTiny that you need to plug it into the breadboard shown in the image above to program it, then you need to unplug and put it into your circuit. As in all programming it takes alot of iterations of modifying code and testing before everything works. This will get out quickly. So I created this to make it easier to plug and unplug the chip from the breadboard.