Arduino enthusiast Nick Gammon has demonstrated a method of running an Arduino microcontroller using an incredibly small amount of current - down to 0.1 uA. This is achieve by constructing an absolute bare-minimum system consisting of the ATmega328 and enough components to allow for function - so no voltage regulators, USB interface or other miscellaneous circuitry. Furthermore, by using a typical numeric keypad Nick introduces a wake-on-press function that also returns the buttons pressed to the Arduino.
This is a great example of a project that requires user-input and long battery life, or even for interest's sake. To get started, visit Nick's project page here. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you're prototyping Arduino projects on solderless breadboards, blown the MCU on your board, or making your own - save time and hassle with our new ATmega328 microcontroller pre-loaded with the Arduino Uno bootloader:
It's the same one as found on our Eleven, KitTen and the original Arduino Uno, plus it has a very useful pinout sticker attached to save confusion when wiring it up. So for more information and to order, click here. And we also sell the stickers!
