[rcheshire (Rowland)]

You've done a really well considered job on your camera, Jo. It's very good. I have some spare TMP36 temp sensors. Your welcome to one if it will help. No charge.

It's taken a while to acquire the learning to get anywhere near the results to date. It fell into place one day - I am tempted to do an EE course at Uni. I think it would be fascinating.

I'm using a Teensy 2.0 - it's not Arduino, but it is compatible and it was necessary to install the Teensyduino environment alongside the Arduino environment to use Arduino code - a bit easier for me than C++. Teensy can be run with C++ or the Arduino Wiring program.

The Teensy probably has better hardware, but that's a matter of opinion. It's not so easy to configure for external voltage sources as the Arduino. Handy if you want 3.3v for analog sensors and 5v for other stuff - motors, pwm, leds etc.

I would go with the Arduino for now of similar size such as the Leonardo and Nano, which is a bit smaller. Maybe grab a bigger model such as the Uno, which might be easier to handle first up. Jaycar sell the Freetronics version along with a bunch of convenient ancillaries, break out boards etc.

Some of the guys on the forum are real whizzes with programming. Mine is very basic - nothing flash, but it does what I want.

Next will probably be a double sided PCB. I will do the artwork by hand - roughed it out already. I'm looking at dual redundancy power and mosfets.