VERY cheap arduino mega clones!!

[PJ Santoro]

Hey All,
   A while back, Ira found a site that was selling Arduino Mega clones for $35. I just checked their site today, and it looks like they are on sale for $21 (http://www.sainsmart.com/evaluation-board/atmel-avr-board/arduino-mega2560-avr-atmega2560-atmega8u2-with-free-usb-cable.html). It says "US stock," so hopefully it won't take weeks to get here, but shipping is free! Also, dealExtreme has them for $18, but you may have to wait a little longer: http://dx.com/p/arduino-mega2560-atmega2560-16au-usb-board-118047?item=8

[Doctor]

Aside from slight aesthetic differences, these clones are virtually identical to a regular Mega, correct? No difference in performance?

[Ira Laefsky]

FYI/RE: Sain Mega 2560

Let me preface by disclosing that as a result of a consulting arrangement with Sain I received a sample of this product. It uses the same ATMEGA 2560 as the official Arduino project, and that PJ got this working as is with the Sain-based Arduino Ethernet Shield.  It uses a slightly earlier Rev 2 (rather than Rev 3 of the MEGA software, but we ran into no problems running this with the official Arduino libraries.  If you feel the need to wait till you see it I can bring it to the Hive at the appropriate MMMM.

--Ira

On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Doctor <xxobso...@gmail.com> wrote:

Aside from slight aesthetic differences, these clones are virtually identical to a regular Mega, correct? No difference in performance?

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[Doctor]

I'd love to be able to take a look before buying. I'll probably go for it if it's as good as the real thing. Cheap is good, especially if it works as good as a more expensive version.

[PJ Santoro]

Just got mine in the mail yesterday :) I tested the board with the Arduino Test Suite: https://github.com/arduino/Tests and I used the General Test (https://code.google.com/p/arduino/wiki/ATS_General) to see how the board faired. Here are the results: http://pastebin.com/i09aFmJD
Thanks again to Ira for pointing me to this forum for testing boards: http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,64557.msg470709.html#msg470709

On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 10:17 PM, Doctor <xxobso...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'd love to be able to take a look before buying. I'll probably go for it if it's as good as the real thing. Cheap is good, especially if it works as good as a more expensive version.

[Daniel Toliaferro]

Ira rules.

[Jack Zylkin]

There is a very weird and frustrating bug in older firmwares of the Arduino Mega 2560 that you should check!!! any time you use three exclamation points in a row, /*even in comments!!!*/ the computer freezes up while uploading to your board!!!  Kelsey had this problem when making her aura camera -- every time she made some progress she would get excited and comment with lots of exclamation points, and then it would stop working!!! // most ironic bug ever!!! 

 

Its fixed now but I worry that cheap boards might not have the latest firmware -- that's what happened to us.

Jack Zylkin
usbtypewriter.com
Philadelphia, PA

[Joshua D. Johnson]

My $.02 

         I read Arduino brand clones don't have quite the memory as the real thing. 

         Also your money is going to China and supporting an industry that knocks off electronics and innovation of all types rather than Mr Banzi and crew who have an open source and education driven motive.. Not to lay the guilt.,

JOSH

[Adam Kaufman]

sorry, how is the memory different if they both use the same chip?

[Sean McBeth]

And the Arduino is open-source. It's *supposed* to get knocked-off.

[Joshua D. Johnson]

There was a recent article retweeted by Arduino on the various boards that are out there. Many chips that look similar and even have the same markings are not.. Just check the memory, if it's O.K. it's O.K. 

Arduino.cc's take on the issue is here.  http://arduino.cc/blog/2010/07/06/how-to-recognize-official-arduino-boards/  Don't take my email the wrong way, I find it interesting that an Open Source co can license and protect things but it seems like that is the norm these days.

JOSH

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Adam Kaufman <unmot...@gmail.com> wrote:

[PJ Santoro]

While it is supposed to be knocked-off/copied/improved upon/etc, they shouldn't be using the Arduino name because that part is legally trademarked. These boards have no indication that they were /not/ made by the Arduino team and they have all of the same silk screening that an 'official' Arduino Mega Rev 02 has. Kinda shady

[Adam Kaufman]

Agreed, knocking off the implementation of an open source design is kind of the point. making it *look* like you're buying the "real deal" is pretty sketch. Still, three of these for one Mega R3? why not? And I think we all know my stance on cheap oversears knockoffs... *cough*harborfreight*cough*

[Jack Zylkin]

Threadjack in 5, 4, 3 ....

Dude there is a new harbor freight in Camden now!  Right over the bridge!  Lets talk about it!

[Adam Kaufman]

I SAW IT!!! IT'S HUGE!!!!

[pezman]

Get a TI Stellaris Launchpad for $12.95 and use Energia to program
it. Cheaper, faster, better -- and the Energia development
environment is an adaptation of the Arduino IDE. Price includes
shipping, and delivery is usually quite fast. https://estore.ti.com/Stellaris-LaunchPad.aspx
-- so in the end this winds up being a tad over half the price of the
super-cheap MEGA clone.

I will temper my fanboi-ishness by mentioning that the Energia
libraries are a little sub-par (at least for the MSP430 boards), For
example, the PWM routines are flaky. But the board is very kick-ass,
and it's one of the few hobbyist boards with an ARM Cortex M4. Also,
you have access to the source code for the library, so it's usually
not too hard to either re-write the libraries or swap in your own
similar (better) libraries.

And you can always move to a real development system if you want to do
some serious development (not being snobby here -- I tend to use
Energia whenever I can -- but it's not suitable for large, elaborate
projects).

On Jan 18, 8:07 pm, vouvo...@schafmail.de wrote:
> Maybe you want to look into tinyUSBboard
> (http://matrixstorm.com/avr/tinyusbboard/).
> It is a very cheap DIY arduino compatible device with an onboard USB
> interface.
>
> Have fun!

[Sean McBeth]

Yeah, the linguistics kiosk was done in the Arduino IDE, but it was really not appropriate for the job. There was just way too much code to wrangle in that tiny, broken-ass editor.

[Dave]

As always, it's about using the right tool for the job. There's a time when chopsticks are the bee's knees, and there's a time when you just need a steak knife. Saying one is better than the other is a little naive/silly/pointless.