OVERVIEW
ince I’ve been doing Arduino tutorials and various electronic projects for a couple of years now, I’ve learned a thing or two about stuff going wrong.
One of the main thing I try to remember when buying parts for a project is: “Don’t just get one!!”
Because you see, those little modules or electronic parts that you get from Amazon or Ebay etc… Well they sometime arrive DOA or might fail not long after you start using them.
Now don’t get me wrong, most of the parts I buy are just fine and have no problems, but let me explain the reason to get more than one.
For example, in my last project, “The Motorized Arduino Slider”, I was using the Easy Driver stepper controller board, everything started out fine, but at some point in the project, after multiple changes to the code, the stepper motor started jittering and moving erratically.
Now at first you might be thinking that something was changed in the code to create this, so you start looking at the code, making changes, re-uploading to the Arduino, testing to see if that fixed it, and on and on…
So you’re wasting a lot of time trying to find the reason for this behaviour, and all this time it turned out to be the Easy Driver that for no reason just stopped working…
Now if you have bought more than one, you can quickly check if the “hardware” is at fault first, and if it is than problem solved and you can continue right away.
But if you bought just one, well then you spend an insane amount of time trying to figure out what’s wrong?
Because you see, we tend to concentrate too much on the code and not enough on the hardware, just taking for granted that it should be working, “well the red LED is on, so it must be ok?”.
Well sometime it’s not, and the only way to know is to switch it for another one.
Now I’m not saying buy two of everything, but if the module or part you’re getting for your project cost pennies or under 10$, well maybe it’s a good idea to get more than one…
It might end up saving you a lot of time trying to find a problem, or at least save you the trouble of ordering the part again and having to wait for it to be delivered.
And sometimes you are in the “zone” and having to wait might make you lose interest in the project.
So there you go, a quick tip that might help you when you’re working on your next project!
Cheers!
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