Ultimate Flame Bait: Liquid Cooled Arduino

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U-cc_Qcf-w]

We do so many things around here  just because “we can”. Though this guy cites this as his reason, we somehow can’t help but wonder if he’s doing it just to troll the Arduino hating crowd. He has decided to overclock his Arduino by replacing the crystal and dropping it in some non conductive liquid coolant. Can you guess what sketch he’s running? That’s right, he’s blinking an LED.

Normally we would point out that we have no preference when it comes to Arduino. We simply post what is submitted. Though we are often accused of being Arduino lovers, it is simply just another tool to us. We sometimes delete obnoxious comments that get off topic, threatening, or vulgar because that’s just good house keeping. That being said, we know what to expect here. Go ahead, bash the Arduino. Get it out of your systems. Just keep it non offensive or it will be moderated.

[thanks jfreak09]

156 thoughts on “Ultimate Flame Bait: Liquid Cooled Arduino

  1. You Arduino knockers think you’re soooo clever..!!

    Most of you are 2nd year Engineering students who think because they’ve done a little coding in C, are in the big league..

    Fact is, if you were in that league, you wouldn’t be wasting your time posting here..

    How about you pony up and start posting your projects so we can see how clever you really are..??

  2. he have absolutely no clue what he is doing and just show how clueless he is when it came to internals of microcontrollers (yep you can’t just learn to code and expect to do electronics, for god sake electronics is hardware in the first place), 8bit micro is not Intel CPU, it will newer overheat, since long before this point uc shut down by instabilities and glitches, the only way to overheat 8bit uc is overloading it with current, not clock speed

  3. “hacking” with Arduino is equivalent to “hacking” with Lego Mindstorm toys. Yeah, it’s technically programming hardware… but that alone doesn’t make it worth reading. Additionally, the people who play with these toys think they’re totally awesome for doing it… I think that’s what causes the disparities between the “Arduino hackers” and a large chunk of the Hack-A-Day reader base. My $0.02

    Plus, a $3.00 ATMega8 can be programmed directly by straight wires from a parallel port (without a crystal or any other components). It’s cheaper, simpler, and just as easy to program these guys directly. Another $0.02

  4. Hm, I have a bit of experience with AVRs, coding them in C and assembler. And that is good fun.

    I have no experience with the Arduino. If I had and if it didn’t do what I needed, I just wouldn’t use it.

    But why hate it? I don’t hate a chain saw just because I need a hacksaw.

    If on the other hand someone starts hacking, who wouldn’t have had a chance in hell to get started with a standard AVR, fine by me!

    And I don’t understand all that aggression. If you don’t want to read about Arduino hacks, just don’t. Nobody forces you. Just skip those entries. The warning is in the title. And you don’t have to pay for reading HAD. You are not ripped off either. So keep calm.

    I always thought, hacking was about having fun.

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  6. Look, here’s the story on the Arduino. It’s a learning tool which people can use to get familiar with microcontroller concepts.

    Yes, you can do the same thing with an ATMega.

    Yes, ATMegas are relatively simple to program.

    But not as simple as the Arduino. Arduino connects over USB for one, no need for the clueless to waste time hacking up a cable. The IDE is also relatively straightforward. A few clicks and you have an example sketch running. Immediate gratification gives many people the confidence and desire to learn more.

    Devices like the Arduino are an important first step to a lot of folks. First you walk, then you run. How many people have tried the Arduino then branched off to more esoteric pursuits? A lot.

    That said, I suspect there are two major reasons for the Arduino hate:

    First, HAD did for a time become Arduino-centric, and people really would like to see more diverse material on the site. But that’s a HAD problem, not an Arduino problem.

    Second, there is a small minority of geektypes that don’t like their ‘secret knowledge’ becoming accessible to mere humans. I think this is a relatively rare occurence, but I have seen this attitude before and it’s pretty lame. Sort of like the alchemists of old, there’s something in human nature that says: when you tie your self-worth to knowing things that others don’t, you fight to preserve your self-worth when that knowledge becomes more commonplace.

    Lastly, can we all just quit arguing? I propose a new acronym for anyone feeling the urge to rehash the debate (of which I am myself guilty of with this post): ANS. Arduino, Nuff Said.

  7. What a bunch of crap.
    Instead of submerging his AVR in cool looking blue liquid, he should start programming in assembly, write a bench program which tests various AVRs for correct operation at given frequency.

    Then everyone here would learn how far each AVR type could be overclocked. This would be interesting because i expect that a ATMega 88 fabricated in 350nm runs faster than a AT90S8515 or ATtiny 2313 which is fabbed in 500nm

  8. Now people who don’t like unfinished arduino projects are incompetent engineering students supposedly..

    I think they suck and I’m way pass academics, and had an engineering career going before getting out of high school…

  9. “I for one welcome our new Arduino overlords.” by another “NotYou”

    Heh. I’m flattered someone picked my nick to troll considering I’ve made only about 5 postings total under this throw-away nick. Any future postings under “NotYou” will not be from me, I’m moving back to the other nick I use.

    That being said, I’ve never used an Arduino before as I do my AVR work using GCC and avr-lib but since the Arduino does gets more people into electronics then I do welcome our new Arduino overlords. Hopefully, they’ll just lose the training-wheels eventually.

  10. For everyone trying to defend the use of Arduino, that is not why people think this project is stupid. The reason it is stupid is that the difference b/w 16MIPS and 32MIPS isn’t that much, and if you really need more than 16MIPS, you should consider using different hardware. Why would you stick your arduino in a messy liquid and make it unstable? You can buy an avr development board with a chip that can take a higher frequency and program it using avr-libc just like Arduino. Yes, the arduino is great for beginners and artists but why would either of those need more than 16MIPS? I am not making fun of this guy for doing this b/c i do stuff like this when i am bored too, but to pretend that this is somehow practical or worth documenting is retarded.

  11. Weee Hoooo… Another blinking led and arduino. Well if I ever need to blink a led I know where to turn for tips.

    And no you guys don’t post everything submitted. You post anything arduino because it increases your search rankings on google when someone types in arduino. Be more tranparent = less bashing.

  12. Well at least there is now an alternative to Aurdrino. Crownhill have just released AMICUS which is pin compatible with Aurdrino but based on a 64MHZ PIC18F25K20 along with a free unlimited compiler based on their Proton Development Suite.
    infact the only limitation is that it only compiles for the 1825K20 where as the full suite compiles for just about every PIC there is.
    hardware is open source and compiler is offered free.

    http://www.myamicus.co.uk

    maybe hackaday peeps might want to mention the alternatives too if they aren’t too in bed with the drino crowd.
    I use PDS myself and know for a damn fact it compiles the tightest asm of any compiler I have tried including C , but as its a basic its even easier than aurdrino for newbies and the 18F25K20 is a poo load faster too

  13. @Dog and other ~bashers

    More flamers flaming = Better placement in google search for “arduino”. Each of you has fallen into this trap. I credit HAD with a stroke genius on posting this one.

  14. OK Here some useful info about uC overcloking.

    My friend likes Atmega and he found ATMEGA-8 speed limit, he run program that do a lot of calculations and register work for couple days to see if it stable and produce same result. So Max crystal seed was 32Mhz for all chips he tested and 48Mhz for most chips.
    I prefer PICs so here what I got overclocking 16f84a(4mhz default) all chips run stable at 25Mhz (I did not have faster crystal)

  15. @Maverick, Amazing, the arduino is so poor that someone had to copy as much as they could and put a faster pic chip in it. They say imitation is the best form of flattery :)

    Not knocking the amicus, I’m sure there are people that will like it.

  16. I just did a video review of this.

    http://www.vimeo.com/9571464

    Honestly I love using the arduino, It’s a great little toy to throw together something in a hurry and was easy for me to start off with. I’m at the point where I’m looking to branch out into PIC or AMTEL chip programming and I think the Arduino defiantly helped me het a good foothold on the whole mC world as far as starting to understand that it’s not “magic” brains it’s a series of signals that gets interpreted by clever programming. Hope you guys find the review funny… it’s early morning and I don’t know whats funny any longer

  17. based on my (mostly fascination with) experience with this kind of stuff, if you didn’t do it ‘because i can’ it shouldn’t be on this site!

    cheers to the poster of this story, keep them coming, always an enjoyable read, regardless of the platform used.

    (two more cents(canadian))

  18. Maverick: the nice things about the Arduino are:

    * Lots of third-party hardware and software available for it, including complete Arduino clones – which, thanks to the Arduino license, you can legally use with the official software.

    * Open source. Decide the Arduino hardware doesn’t meet your requirement? Port the software to one of the bigger AVR devices. (For example, there’s the Sanguino which has done just this.) Unlike the Amicus, there’s no need to pay anyone else to let you do so.

    * Cross-platform – runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

    * The Arduino language is fully-fledged C (probably rather more familiar to most programmers than Basic these days). Need to drop in some raw register accesses, interrupt handlers, or even inline assembler to make your code work? Just write it. You don’t even have to worry about including the right header files – it’s all done for you. Likewise, it’s easy to adapt C code snippets already out there – especially ones for AVR devices – to run in the Arduino environment.

    Oh, and it looks like the Amicus manages to be somewhat more expensive than the official Arduino, which ain’t cheap itself. (£29 including VAT, as opposed to £24.) Possibly fractionally more powerful hardware, but still…

  19. have you not noticed all the genuine microcontroller experts stopped reading this site because its gone way off topic as concerning genuine micro based projects… It’s become a haven for people with no talent to gloat at how clever they are, when actually they may as well have just used Lego mindstorm to achieve the same thing… – oh but that’s not a bare technical looking PCB with flashing LEDs is it…

    The very fact that the comments above are mainly people liking the ardweener says it all – you’ve lost your true hackers, and they’ve been replaced with ardweener packing students who should really be learning about micros, not using pre-built assemblies with an interface my granny could work.

    meh.. where’s the hardcore assembler crew –

    Why don’t you make a sister site that mirrors what this site was 2-3 years ago, a good resource for people with a genuine credible interest in all things not ardweener –

    FYI i un-subscribed from this RSS long time ago for this reason, i was pointed to this article by an acquaintance who knew id jump at the chance to have a rant –

  20. IIRC there were “Dead Tree” magazine letters to the editor bashing Ford Tractors as being not better than Horses. Of course, that was in places where the Horse Collar’s advantage over a rope loop was still la mystery.

    Arduino Vs Other Controller/Chip devices replicates many past tech whinging fests. Tube Vs Transistor? Analog Vs Digital? Lead Acid Vs NiMh ? There’s a pattern of course. With an amusing side effect.

    In some cases, an older tech actually *DOES* have features to choose that tech!

    Look up liquid cooled Thyratrons…

  21. my only complaint against arduino is that they keep adding italy references to the back of the thing. silk screening should be useful information, and not repeated unnecessarily.

    The AMICUS ( http://www.myamicus.co.uk/ ) looks like a great idea except the makers put the wrong USB port on it! Arduino has a type B socket, not a type A socket!

  22. Hi guys, have you seen whats going on at Crownhill?

    they launched the Amicus a PIC Arduino clone…nothing great.

    BUT

    LOOK, they also gave away Proton PIC BASIC

    duh, big commercial mistake for them eh? who will buy Proton now that Amicus is FREE

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