Living in the Philippines particularly in Manila is an advantage for most electronic hobbyist and technical aficionados but what if the electronic kits / devices / gadgets you purchase online came from abroad and have no local support... and all of the sudden your worst nightmare happened, your electronic kit arrived fresh from the postal courier, filled with excitement you open the parcel and wanted to give it a try... and the moment you test it... it did not worked... now your work / test place is filled with the air of frustration until you give up...
That kind of nightmare happened to a friend of mine when the Arduino (Original) he ordered online arrived and did not work... unfortunately for him he was one of those person who have the first version of Arduino (Original) and did not work... He did contact the seller online but sending it back to the vendor will cost him almost the same amount of money he used to purchase the Arduino (Original) and of course the long waiting time... (oh did I mention his struggle with Philippine Customs which a pain in the *please pardon my English: A$$).
So in this blog, I will instead discuss about the alternative we found... and that is purchasing a Arduino clone... yup you heard me right... A CLONE... but why buy a clone, is it piracy???
My answer is NO, Arduino Clone is also based on the Original Arduino however, some modification has been done also take note that the Arduino is based on an OPEN SOURCE project which everybody can make.
To know more about Arduino you can visit this website
http://www.arduino.cc/
Now, since I did mention Arduino Clone, we are able to find a very reliable source of it and it is located in a very accessible place in Manila and the store name is E-Gizmo. The reason why we did specifically mention this place is because we have personally tried and tested the technical support and of course if there is any issue with the electronic device we purchase then we could easily ask them and have the device tested without waiting for months.
To know more about E-Gizmo, please visit their website at
http://www.e-gizmo.com/
Going back to the topic, Arduino has been in the market for several years and many tutorials has been made. Since the one I'm using now is a Gizduino (which I did mention an Arduino clone), it means that all the tutorials available for the original Arduino can be used with Gizduino.
To get started with Arduino, I could recommend this Youtube tutorial from Jeremy Blum:
Tutorial 01 for Arduino: Getting Acquainted with Arduino
You could follow his Youtube site and get to know more about Arduino.
Personally, I suggest that when you start to jump in to the Arduino bandwagon, you should have at least have your own Arduino (Original or Clone) and better start coding...CHEERS!
- TO BE CONTINUED
