Program Digispark Attiny85 with Arduino IDE

Introduction

Every electronics enthusiast and Hobbyist loves Arduino’s right! we all use board like Arduino UNO, Nano, Pro Mini, or any other similar Arduino even for some basic projects. For tiny projects like displaying a straightforward message on LCD or simply Fading LED would be a waste of resources and money. In this tutorial, I discovered an inexpensive and Compact Alternative to Arduino called ATTINY85. So, today you will learn to Program Digispark Attiny85 with Arduino IDE.

Components Required

S.N	Components Name	Description	Quantity
1	DigiSpark Attiny85 Board	DigiSpark Attiny85 Arduino Compatible Board	1	https://amzn.to/32km6UD
2	Arduino IDE	Arduino Programming Software	1	https://www.arduino.cc/en/software

About Attiny85 Board

Attiny85 is like Arduino, but it is not Arduino, ATTINY85 is a Micro-Controller chip, which has 6 General Purpose I/O pins (GPIO), out of which 5 are PWM enabled, and ATTINY85 also supports the SPI and I2C Communication Protocols, but it’s only 8Kb of programming memory, so yes, it’s not as capable as Arduino board, but it’ll work just fine for tiny projects.

It also has some more features like:

• Inbuilt 8-Bit timers.
• Inbuilt comparators.
• 512 Bytes of EPROM
• 512 Bytes of SRAM.

Here, is a complete datasheet for a brief knowledge.

This Attiny85 comes in a module and standalone chip. I would never recommend you guys to use this chip and rather go for a module that comprises a voltage regulator and can be directly plugged into your computer. But before you plug it into the computer, some things needed to be set up.

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Setup Arduino IDE for Digispark Attiny85

We need to add (DigiStump’s Attiny85) boards into our Arduino IDE.

Add DigiStump Board URL

First, open your Arduino IDE, Go to Preference and simply paste the link “ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/digistump/arduino-boards-index/master/package_digistump_index.json,” on the additional Board Management URL.

Then simply Press okay and Close Preferences.

Install DIGISTUMP AVR Board Manager

To install Attiny85 Board Settings on Arduino IDE go to board manager, under the Tools menu select the Contributed type of boards Option.

Select “DIGISTUMP AVR BOARDS“

Click on install to install it!

Install Attiny85 Device Driver

Now, install the drivers on your computer Attached on this Step

Unzip the Attached File. Click on DPinst64.exe to install the Drivers on your computer.

Now, insert the Attiny85 board into your computer. Sometimes your drivers aren’t installed correctly, in such an (unusual) case, we are going to follow these steps

Open Device Manager. Click on the View menu and select “Show Hidden option” Click on Device called “Libusb-win”

Right Click on the DigiSpark USB device and Click on Update Device. Browse the drivers from our computer. Finally, select the location of drivers stored on a computer

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Attiny85 Blink Test Program Code

Now, let’s run a test code to examine our ‘Attiny85’ board. We will simply try Blink code, which you can copy from below

void setup()
 {
  pinMode(1, OUTPUT);
 }
void loop()
 {
  digitalWrite(1, HIGH);   
  delay(1000);                      
  digitalWrite(1, LOW);    
  delay(1000);              
 }

Select Proper Board Type

Here, Selecting the correct Code is that the deal-breaker of this complete Setup. to do so, we will Select “Digispark (Default-16.5Mhz)” from Board Menu in Tools. Then finally, select programmer as “Micronucleus” from Board Menu in Tools.

Uploading the Code

Usually, we’d compile and Upload the code with our Arduino Connected. But here in Attiny85, we will Compile the code and press the UPLOAD button. Waits for the Plug-in device now… (will timeout in 60 seconds) message.

Connect the Board Within 60 Seconds.

Wait for “Micronucleus done. Thank you!” Message From compiler.

Enjoy! The output of this code will show blinking LED on Pin 1 on the Board

Future Projects

So, that’s all for this tutorial. I hope you have learned to Program Digispark Attiny85 with Arduino IDE. We will do much more projects and Experiments with this board in the future, like Displaying Text on LCD, making Stand Alone Attiny85 Projects, security alert systems, etc.

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