Reading or writing in SD Card with Arduino is fairly easy to
do. Internally, Arduino already provides a specific library for interacting
with SD Card, called 'SD.h' library. This library has capability to read
various types of SD cards, such as SD card, mini SD and micro SD. In terms of
hardware, you'll need an SD card reader module or a shield or a SD card reader
embedded in another shield. For example SD card reader which is embedded in
another example is an Ethernet shield. You will found SD card (micro SD) slot
in this shield. So, if you buy an Ethernet
shield you will also got another advantage, i.e. read and write micro SD card
as an extra storage for your system.
As an initial experiment, please prepare Arduino board (ex: Uno
or any other type), Ethernet shield and of course, a micro SD card. If you don’t
have Ethernet shield, you can use an individual dedicated SD card module that
is widely available in the market.
Arduino - SD Card Sketch Handle
Next, open example sketch 'CardInfo' through File-Examples-SD-CardInfo
menu in Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment) software. You can
download it in www.arduino.cc if you don’t
have the software. Upload the sketch to your Arduino board immediately to get
knowledge how to interfacing SD card with Arduino.
Next, open Serial Monitor window from Tools-Serial Monitor
menu in the IDE. There should have been a display like in the picture below
Easy enough, right? Only in less than 5 minutes you can read
some info from your micro SD card.
In closing, basically a module/SD Card reader (shield) to
read using intermediary communication protocol synchronous called SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface). They
require at least three pins to communicate with their pairing devices, i.e.
MISO, MOSI, and CLK. This is why in the sketch related to SD Card access, always
include 'SPI.h' library besides 'SD.h' library. And how lucky Arduino users
they are, because Arduino eco-system provided a ready-made library for any
purposes. Imagine if you had to write it from the scratch. Hmm, it could curly
your fingers and brain J
.
Thus this tutorial as an introduction ‘how to’ handle SD
Card with Arduino. In next tutorial I will discuss how to read and write data
on the SD Card especially for/from micro SD using Ethernet shield.
A blogger, electro-hobbyst, freelancer n technopreneur. I'm an Indonesian, I did my best to make tutorial without spelling errors, please CMIIW or if something burned your eyes..
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