USD$5 Arduino knock off

[VK4GHZ]

Includes postage.
Now the bad news: the first 50 with free postage offer are already gone.

You'll have to cough up an additional USD$3 for the postage.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/itead ... tive-board

i like this bit of Chinglish:

We use a new chip of strong compatibility with ATmega328 for development, and offer you a nearly 100% Arduino compatible derivative board with some improvement

Nearly 100%!



For anyone interested in this type of thing, another low-cost dust collector is available.

[VK2OMD]

...
i like this bit of Chinglish:

We use a new chip of strong compatibility with ATmega328 for development, and offer you a nearly 100% Arduino compatible derivative board with some improvement

Nearly 100%!
...

Yet the specs state 8kB of flash (and some lost to the bootloader of course) against 32kB in the ATMega328.

From the chip number, I suspect it is intended to be AtMega88 / ATMega8A compatible, not ATMega328 compatible.

To some extent, a claim of Arduino NG compatible is more realistic (though later NGs had a bigger chip). Haven't heard of an NG, they are now pretty old, doubt you could buy one.

Don't know what the 100% is based on, perhaps board colour since it uses a different RS-232-USB chip and smaller processer chip.

Owen

[VK2GOM]

I wonder will the Chinese manage to knock off a Raspberry Pi?

I remember the day Nike ✔ released the Sasquatch golf driver, that afternoon the Chinese had copies available...

73 - Rob VK2GOM / GW0MOH

[VK4GHZ]

One thing!
I can vouch for the quality of the PCBs that iTeadStudio produce.
In the three orders I have received from them (2 x double-sided plated-through, 1 x single sided), their PCB quality cannot be faulted, despite the ultra competitive pricing (read as: cheap!).
Any owner of a ZL PLL board is likely to agree with this statement, as the ZL PLL boards were fabricated by iTeadStudio as well.

Nice PCBs for sure, but it will be interesting to follow the development of this Arduino knock off.

[VK2OMD]

Probably one of the most used boards is the Arduino Pro328.



Above is one at the top (with USB adapter), a logic sniffer at the bottom, and the little module in the middle is a 3 axis magnetometer, should be able to read compass heading to about 1° resolution ($3 on eBay).

I am playing with the idea of this as an bearing encoder for a rotatable antenna.

If you don't need the shield compatibility, I have bought Arduino Nano for about $11 posted from Melbourne, it has the USB/RS232 interface on board, '328P chip, IIRC all the IO, just a smaller board (which is good for some things).

Owen

[VK2GOM]

I recognise that magnetometer board; one lives on my quadcopter as the external compass - the inbuilt one is too close to other electronics causing various accuracy problems.

Again, these magnetometer boards are a valid point in that when they started to be used for quadcopters they were well over $60, and now they are $3 a pop.

73 - Rob VK2GOM / GW0MOH

[VK4JAM]

It looks good, but perhaps a little too "light" on features.

I have just bought a Mini USB Nano V3.0 ATmega328 5V Micro-controller Board for AU $7.32 including postage off ebay.

The prices for Arduino are dropping quickly. Not sure I would move to a less spec board, the small difference in $ don't make a strong case to change.

[VK3HZ]

Be aware that there is a hardware "bug" with the Nano boards. The original design failed to ground pin 26 (Test) of the FT232RL USB chip (underneath).
The standard fix is a solder "dag" between pins 25 and 26 - yours may already have such a feature!

Regards,
Dave.

[VK4JAM]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the info - I was not aware of the issue, and will check it out once it arrives.

This claims to be V3 - so it may be fixed.

FYI - the board is at : http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Nano-V3-0-AT ... 5d427b6fb5

73

Andrew

[VK2OMD]

...
This claims to be V3 - so it may be fixed.
...

Nano V3 deserves the fix, solder pins 25 and 26 of the FTDI chip together.

Dave is correct, there is an issue in reliability. It is reported to fail to start infrequently, and it can be very rare from my experience.

Owen

[VK3ZFS]

$8USD China clone Arduino Nano board ideal for fixed use projects.

[VK2OMD]

Here is the mod to fix the floating TEST pin...

A little solder bridge between pins 25 and 26 (click for a bigger pic). These are very small spacing, so dont jump in there with a Scope soldering iron or any plumbing gear!

Owen

[VK4JAM]

Hi Owen,
Thank you for the picture, I will be careful when doing the mod. I have several types of Arduino board, and have not had an issue (so far !!!)
Some of the libraries need a little work, but this is a great piece of kit for pulling together various projects.
The latest project is a AD9850 with 128x64 OLED as a VFO - absolutely brilliant kit to work with, and dirt cheap!!!
73
Andrew