BASIC Tech Group - MyNews 17 - The Arduino Zoo

I have always up to now used the plain ordinary Arduino UNO. But there's growing, burgeoning explosion of "clones" on the market, from Chinese eBay and more steady suppliers like Sparkfun.

These "clones" and even new development versions from Arduino themselves present considerable problems to users. The biggest issues seem to be

- Diffferent USB connectors, micro, mini and standard

- Different USB interface chips, or USB implemented in software.

- Different supply and I/O voltages 3.3/5V

My original search was fro a plain old Arduino UNO R3, but fitted with a small USB connector, either the micro or the mini. But I have not found anything - seems strange as this would seem to me to be one of the most useful modifications... giving a lower profile to the board and better spacing to shields plugged directly on top (especially my own shields that use this space above the USB connector for a new 8 pin header carrying RF signals.

So the ZOO:



The original Arduino UNO: Standard FTDI USB interface chip and large USB connector. (The tape stuck on the connector is to prevent short-circuits from the RF header which will plug in above!)



A fancy version of the UNO,:with built-in WiFi. This is a development board which Arduino sent me free but which I have not done anything with yet. Trying to think how to make a remote controlled SDR TXRX with this board, but I will need help with the software.



The one I thought I wanted: an UNO with a mini USB connector, but those screwy Chinese did not use the industry standards FTDI USB interface chip - they don't make it and can't copy it... So they used a CH340 chip. Normally a Mac will automatically load a driver for any USB device plugged in, for this chip it does NOT. There is about on the web a "driver" but I am highly suspicious of Chinese drivers, and all the documentation is in Chinese!



Finally one from SparkFun, called the "Lite". This has a micro USB socket, and software implemented USB as far as I can tell. It identifies itself as an Arduino Leonardo to the Mac and the IDE. But I have been unable to upload my sketches to it. It accepts the Arduino Example Basic01 Blink sketch. But not mine. I guess some of the libraries I use are incompatible?

Tiresome!