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SparkFun RedBoard - Programmed with Arduino
At SparkFun we use many Arduinos and we're always looking for the simplest, most stable one. Each board is a bit different and no one board has everything we want, so we decided to make our own version that combines all our favorite features. The SparkFun RedBoard combines the simplicity of the UNO's Optiboot bootloader (which is used in the Pro series), the stability of the FTDI (which we all missed after the Duemilanove was discontinued) and the R3 shield compatibility of the latest Arduino UNO R3.
The RedBoard can be programmed over a USB Mini-B cable using the Arduino IDE: Just plug in the board, select "Arduino UNO" from the board menu and you're ready to upload code. RedBoard has all of the hardware peripherals you know and love: 14 Digital I/O pins with 6 PWM pins, 6 Analog Inputs, UART, SPI and external interrupts. We've also broken out the SDA, SCL and IOREF pins that showed up on the UNO R3, so the RedBoard will be compatible with future shields. This version adds an SMD ISP header for use with shields.
You can power the RedBoard over USB or through the barrel jack. The on-board power regulator can handle anything from 7 to 15VDC. Check out the related items below for a compatible wall-wart power supply.
Not sure which Arduino or Arduino-compatible board is right for you? Check out our Arduino Buying Guide!
- ATmega328 microcontroller with Optiboot (UNO) Bootloader
- USB Programming Facilitated by the Ubiquitous FTDI FT231X
- Input voltage - 7-15V
- 0-5V outputs with 3.3V compatible inputs
- 14 Digital I/O Pins (6 PWM outputs)
- 6 Analog Inputs
- ISP Header
- 32k Flash Memory
- 16MHz Clock Speed
- All SMD Construction
- R3 Shield Compatible
- Red PCB!
SparkFun RedBoard - Programmed with Arduino Product Help and Resources
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April 15, 2016
We can use the parts and concepts in the SparkFun Invetor's Kit to make a primitive keyboard instrument.
RedBoard Santa Trap
December 25, 2014
A fun holiday project to try for anyone looking to catch Santa on Christmas!
Core Skill: Programming
If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.
Skill Level: Rookie - You will need a better fundamental understand of what code is, and how it works. You will be using beginner-level software and development tools like Arduino. You will be dealing directly with code, but numerous examples and libraries are available. Sensors or shields will communicate with serial or TTL.
See all skill levels
Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping
If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.
Skill Level: Competent - You will be required to reference a datasheet or schematic to know how to use a component. Your knowledge of a datasheet will only require basic features like power requirements, pinouts, or communications type. Also, you may need a power supply that?s greater than 12V or more than 1A worth of current.
See all skill levels
Comments
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We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.
Customer Reviews
4.6 out of 5
Based on 127 ratings:
4 of 4 found this helpful:
SparkFun Makes Good Use of an Open Source Platform
I love open source, and the RedBoard is a good example of why. It functions almost exactly like my Arduino Uno R3, but the USB Mini-B is a definite space-saving improvement. So far, it is exactly what it claims to be: a solid, slightly less expensive alternative to the Uno. Performance is all I hoped for, and programming is just as easy, all for at least $5 less!
Two VERY minor 'issues': mine was packed a little carelessly, and so my bank of digital pins (0-7) was slightly bent to the side. I carefully bent it back, and nothing cracked. Please pack these more carefully! Second, even more minor, is the fact that the onboard LEDs are crazy bright, so much so that I colored over them with Sharpie to dim them a bit for when I'm prototyping.
Overall, this is a great product. I will certainly buy again!
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Simple and powerful...
I'm using the RedBoard with WiFi shield and got it up and running in no time... It is up to my expectation by all means! It is a great product for prototyping your ideas... And beside the hardware you have a lot of samples to learn from... I found it very stable (runs for 10 days in row now withoud any need of restart).
5 of 5 found this helpful:
Good as usual
My only complaint so far is the obnoxiously bright LEDs that are on this board. No more stealth with this thing. Otherwise its an amazing product as usual from SFE!
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Everthing working, nothing to complain
I had no problems using the board with the board using arduino so far and everything worked out of the box. I can definitely recommend this for less experienced people as it is inexpensive and the arduino environment will support it without any configuration effort other than selecting the correct virtual com port.
12 of 12 found this helpful:
great Arduino UNO compatible board
I own several of these, some of them different revisions of the board. They all work great, and the price is really good. Always check what the currently shipping boards look like though.. the USB connector on these are USB Mini-B which differs from the Arduino UNO R3's normal USB 'B' connector. (i.e. be sure to have the right USB data cable on hand to program the board)
I believe the earlier versions of this board did not break out the pins above D13 (SCL/SDA/AREF/GND) as female headers, but the more recent ones do, so that's good news for any shields that may have relied on those header connections.
I've not encountered any problems programming these with the Arduino IDE as long as you select the correct board type in the software.
I like the nearly perfectly smooth back of the board that results from the surface-mount components, too. I feel like I don't need to worry as much about rubber feet or standoffs beneath the board to avoid accidentally shorting something.
Buy a few for the kids! My kids love 'em and are now constantly asking me to buy them some Picoboards..
6 of 6 found this helpful:
Love em
I also call them 'ol trusty. SparkFuns one of the few companies that kicks money back to Arduino, and being possibly the last company still manufacturing in North America it's worth supporting.
5 of 5 found this helpful:
Great board!
Only complaint I have is that it uses a mini-USB instead of micro-USB, because I have a ton of micro-USB cables lying around. I must have missed that in the product description.
Fortunately, I found an old cable in my workshop and was able to program it without running out to grab one.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great products and service
1 of 1 found this helpful:
The RedBoard is Awesome
Man, is the RedBoard a great implementation of the Arduino platform. From a hardware standpoint the construction is extremely solid, weight is very low, bottom is smooth.
I was happy to have the ISP header and broad power support as well. All that, plus Mini-B, Uno compatibility and full shield compatibility. What's not to love?
FTDI and OptiBoot are good choices on the firmware side. All this makes the RedBoard terrific for experimentation and prototyping.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Great Board, Well Made
Just starting out with programming and prototyping with Arduino and this board along with the starter kit has been great.
5 of 5 found this helpful:
This is a great Arduino alternative.
I bought this about 2 weeks ago and have been developing on it just about everyday since. It's 100% compatible with the Uno and haven't had any issues with its functionality. Its $5 cheaper and just as good.
Only change i would make is the on-board resistors seem too bright. A bigger resistor to make those a little duller would make this perfect.
6 of 6 found this helpful:
Good price for Uno-compatible
The redboards are nice Uno-compatible boards, except for one problem: recent versions of Mac OS X have broken (or omitted) the FTDI drivers. It works find on my old Mac 10.6.8 OS, but students have been having trouble on newer machines. Since the main reason for choosing an old, slow processor like an Arduino compatible was for ease of use by beginners, this broken-driver problem is very irritating.
Sparkfun should test post instructions on the Redboard site for fixing the Mac OS driver problem (there are a few scattered mentions on the Arduino forums, and the FTDI page linked to by Sparkfun is not straight-forward enough for novices).
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Works great.
I have tested many different operations with the new RedBoard and it works just fine.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Terrific
GREAT tech support and great product.
GNARLY!
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great Board! Needs More Support
The board itself is perfect. It would be nice to have Fritzing part, more tutorials, etc.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
VERY nice thing to get started with!
I heard about Arduino from my uncle when I discussed about my interest in electronics and especially in controlling stuff. Then I did some digging and found your awesome page with lots of good stuff there and saw the Inventors kit. The collection of motors and servos and interesting sensor made me grab my wallet and order it immediately. Once it arrived, I haven't done nearly anything else than programmed it. So, it was a really good purchase and got me even more interested in electronics ! You have also lots of other good stuff to buy. If I had the change I'd buy all of them but, you know, money...
P.S. The emails You send have good news about all the new stuff and I would also raise a thumb to your tutorials and product reviews!
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Satisfied
This is the 3rd redboard for me. Seems to function well. Saw this as a reasonable compromise between a real uno and another clone that may not be as stable as the redboard.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Best Arduino Board out there
What's not to love? It's the best value for an Arduino board out there. The all SMT parts means there are no pins to snag on the bottom. Sparkfun Tech Support is easy to use and actually helpful. The mounting hole locations aren't good, but it's because it's modeled after the Uno.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
I have several!
I own three or four of these and I really like them! A little cheaper (in price) than a standard Arduino and still does the same thing. I'm mostly using them in turnkey projects, like CNC control with GRBL and my custom GRBL interface shield. A good no-thrills clone that does it's job well.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Just plain works!
I've been slowly getting into the Arduino world and looking for an affordable way to replace/add to the 15 year old basic stamps in my classroom (I still use one of the Board of Education that were given away the day their website opened). Sparkfun was great about working with me to get the educator discount and set up purchase order capability. The price for the redboard is great and it works flawlessly with the Arduino IDE. I especially like that it uses the common USB A to mini B cable. The only drawback is that one cannot replace the Atmega328 as it's a surface mount on the Redboard. Bought one for myself and soon after ordered 10 more for the class.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great Value
Less time soldering/wiring/debugging and more time making/coding useful projects.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Works great, no problems
Using it as a weather station, works great, no problems.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Very nice board
So far the board functions exactly like an arduino Uno plus it is cheaper, glad I made this purchase.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
SparkFun RedBoard
works great and a very good value!
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Works as expected
The board acts exactly like an Arduino-brand board. I like the fact that the smaller USB connector was used, but I think it would be even better with a micro USB connector.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Pretty good.
Works great, but if you touch a wire going to ground with one going to the 5v or 3.3v, the board destroys the driver, forcing you to at least restart the computer you're on. Other than that, it's great - $6 cheaper than the uno, and cheaper shipping than on Arduino.cc
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Donation to the Arduino Royalty?
Does Sparkfun pay a royalty back to the Arduino Project when you sell these? I like the SMD and the USB connector better, but I am using these at work and my BOSS pays for them. I want to make sure that Arduino sticks around for a while. Thanks.
Hi Paul - No but we've tried multiple times since the first RedBoard version. Arduino has declined royalties up to this point. I believe it's because if Arduino did accept royalties on unbranded derivatives it would look like tacit approval of boards out of their control. There's an article's worth of writing here but SparkFun will always try to find ways to support the Arduino community. We do pay royalties on the approved Arduino Pro, Pro Mini, Fio, and LilyPad. Thanks for the excellent question and review.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
First impression... mixed?
I'm fairly new to arduino, and up to this point have only used the "real" Arduino Uno R3.
I wish there was a 3.5 rating possible.. because I think that's what my actual first impression is.
It programmed just fine, but the AI header and DC barrel jack are both soldered noticeably crooked with respect to the board. Is the header crooked enough that it won't accept a shield? I don't know... but it might be???
Like the idea of it all, and the price is good, but I guess I was looking for a professionally-assembled board?
EDIT:
I'm going to add a star back (now a 4 rating), and wait and see how it works with shields. The AI header is definitely crooked / offset a bit, but perhaps not so much as to hinder shield attachment, especially if it's a shield where I'm installing the headers myself. It doesn't appear that the AI and Power headers are lined up perfectly on the images above on the product description itself, so perhaps the header alignment is of little consequence in actual use...
Hi, Sorry you received a crooked header on your board. I'm not sure how that slipped past our production team, however we do have a great production department that is always improving their processes and tests. If you would like an exchange on your board, please contact us at https://www.sparkfun.com/returns
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Best thing I ever owned!!
works just like the uno! Cheaper and has a mini usb!!! Thanks Sparkfun! :)
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Very nice product
The best thing about this product is that it's really easy to just hook it up and start learning and hacking. I've used an Arduino Uno in the past, and it had issues with driver signature enforcement. But this RedBoard rocks! You just plug it in, download FTDI driver as an executable file, you install it and that's it! Keep up the good work sparkfun!!!
2 of 2 found this helpful:
It's great
RedBoard currently you can use the Arduino hardware can communicate with using MATLAB. Works fine!.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Good
Worked well once I found the correct (SparkFun) USB cable. Not all USB charging cables have the data lines connected. At least the USB connector does not short against any add-on shields. Now, if just the power connector were a tad smaller...
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Total noob having a blast
My son and I are having a blast learning all the things it can do. Our goal is to build a robot but we have ways to go. Baby steps for now. The hard part is learning to program.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
LED Too Damn Bright!
Sparkfun Team,
Please increase the resistance to the LEDs on future boards to decrease the brightness.
I though the others were just being meticulous, but they weren't. The LEDs are indeed much too bright. They were so bright that plugging in a wire blinded me. I had a big black dot in my vision for the next 10 minutes while I was coding. This happened many times until I couldn't take the black dots anymore.
Ended up coloring the LEDs with a black sharpie; they're so bright that they now match the Arduino's brightness after coloring them in.
Other than that, it is an excellent board. No technical problems and I'm very pleased with its performance.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Nice board, easy to program.
I have tried it with the LCD / switch shield and a few other sensors. Everything worked first time. Extensive library of code that is easily modified.
4 of 4 found this helpful:
Better than UNO?
This was my first Arduino, and it works flawlessly. I've prototyped lots of projects and used with shields, but have overwhelmingly used it to program ATTiny processors. I accidentally learned I can program them without the ground-reset resistor or capacitor that seem to be required with the official Uno boards, so that's incredibly convenient. The smaller USB connector is also a big plus, but people aren't kidding when they say the LEDs are BRIGHT. Not enough to cost a star or even really bother me, but it'll kill your night vision if you're running it somewhere dark.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
I heart RedBoard
I've used a few Uno variations and this is definitely my favorite. Why? That snazzy red color, of course!!
OK, that's not the main reason, but it actually is a factor. The red board color provides great contrast to the white lettering making it much easier for my middle-aged eyes to ensure I'm using the correct pins.
Speaking of lettering, all markings are crisp and clear. The size, position, and font also lend themselves to increased readability.
Other reasons this is my fav board: - Mini-B USB connection versus full-sized B connection. Although I have about half a zillion Micro cables laying around the house, the Mini connection is more secure. - Use of SMD components. No clearance issues! You lose the ability to pop out the ATmega328 but eh, who cares. I'd rather use an Arduino Micro or Nano if I need a smaller package. - Quality! The board is precision cut and assembled with love. - Support and documentation. Sparkfun is one of two companies I turn to when I need a well documented widget. (The other may have been named for the Countess that worked with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine.) Other companies, such as the the one that rhymes with Bain Fart, pale in comparison. Seriously, having access to solid reference materials, libraries, and examples is immensely valuable.
Still reading this review? Well stop it and Add to Cart already!!
- Timinator257
1 of 1 found this helpful:
I'm Hooked
My first Arduino and it's living up to its billing. I'm an EE by education and trade and I've built my own boards for small control projects, but I'd honestly rather just pull one of these out for all future needs. It's super simple to set up, the IDE is intuitive, the price is reasonable and the footprint is minimal. Also, confession time, I hate soldering. Just hate it. This is exactly what I've always wanted and I'm not sure why I waited this long to get it.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
worked flawlessly with MIDI
I used this with the MIDI shield from SparkFun. It all "just worked".
3 of 3 found this helpful:
I use this with students.....
I use this as the intro board for students before we move them to the mini for smaller projects. They can easily use jumpers to a breadboard and the excitement they get from making a light blink when they press a button is amazing!
2 of 2 found this helpful:
A great UNO alternative
This is a great board. They have worked for all my purposes so far. No compatibility problems. I currently own 4 and highly recommend them. Thanks SparkFun!
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Works like a charm!
Boots up much faster than the Uno! Also, the bottom side is nice and smooth. Easy to setup the Arduino IDE on both Mac and Windows. My only complaint is that rather bright green power LED.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
This is really neat
I don't know a lot about programmable IC's at this point. However I must say delivered in good condition and tested basic functions. I am happy with the purchase and hope to learn a great deal as I embark on my automation and robotics hobby. This should be a good start.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Perfect thing for the price.
Simply the perfect one! The only complaint is about the brightness of the LEDs on board.
3 of 3 found this helpful:
most stable one
Get the FTDI drivers for Windows was bit daunting. But that's all on Microsoft. If booted right up, grabbed com port 8 and ran all my old Adruino sketches. Currently it is running 21 shift register to light up a run of 168 LEDs. Great product and the prices was so good I ordered a second.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
:)
:)
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Excellent board!
I like this board better than Arduino UNO. That said, I also like the Adafruit Metro board. The extra-bright LEDs haven't been a problem for me. I kind of like them because I can still see them out of the corner of my eye when the board is several feet away from my PC. I will definitely buy more of these for projects that need a 5V Arduino UNO compatible platform
3 of 3 found this helpful:
Very nice
My first Arduino board and I am very pleased. Up and running in minutes. I installed Visual Micro for VS2012 and my first Arduino project came together without a hitch, complete with 3.5 color TFT via SPI. The mini USB is good. Micro USB is better only because I have more cables lying around. I like the FTDI, flat bottom, and yes, the color. Probably get another one soon. I'd like to play with the Due for a product prototype, but what I read about the port setup sounds like it would be a hassle for many people. Be nice to see if SFE can come up with their version of the Due, I'd get one in a second. Lastly, the regulator gets a "little" warm with the TFT running of the board with an external 12V supply. This board has taken quite some abuse but it hasn't quit on me yet.
EDIT: I've come to realize that the mini USB is indeed preferable to the micro USB due to it's sturdiness. I don't worry about the micro plug getting ruined as things get moved around on the workbench and plugging it in the wrong way is impossible.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great learning/prototyping/experimentation board!
I ordered the inventors kit and an inexpensive robot chassis initially. After going through the inventor's kit projects I was ready to start combining them to build my first robot. When I hit a snag I found the tech support folks very knowledgeable and responsive. This is a great way to get into electronics and robotics. So no complaints about the redboard. My one suggestion overall would be to keep the site more current. There are projects described that use discontinued parts, and sometimes the sample code is for an older rev of the Arduino board. But in all those situations the tech support folks helped me through it.
thanks - great hobby.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great for my summer budget!
I will teach a class in robotics to middle school students this summer. I purchased the board for evaluation and budget. I am happy with both aspects, no glitch's to speak of and it keeps my budget number under control. You can expect my order for more when I get final approval.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Good device to have
Loads arduino sketch which is a quick step into processor control. Great platform if you don't want to build from scratch. In the future you can learn to program the processor.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
It's the little things
It's pretty much an arduino uno that is slightly better in many ways. The only gripe I have with it is that the female headers on one side have a gap. That gap is not .1 spaced which means you can't make a shield with perfboard. That is actually a carry over from the uno and is not really the redboard's fault.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great board
It's inexpensive and works well. The power LED is too bright, but it's not a problem.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Good aftermarket Ardunio Board
It worked well with the line follower project I was doing. My only concern is that the on board LEDs are extremely bright and very hard to hide away. Nevertheless, I will be purchasing more boards in the future for additional projects.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Great for Programing Projects and Chip Interfacing
I bought this Board to program The Electronic Speed Controllers (ESCs) on a quad copter I built. after finding the right program files the Redboard Ardunio made this simple and easy to connect and interface with the chips on the ESCs. I Hope to find more uses for this product in the future.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Just another Uno for me
I am building an Arduino "supercomputer." Red is currently on top of the stack, but otherwise is behaving just like the others. That isn't saying much, because my requirements are minimal. At least for now.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
It's so smooth...
I bought the RedBoard a few weeks back and I've been working with it about one week. I also have an Arduino Uno. I use them interchangeably, but the RedBoard has surface mounted parts and the bottom of the board is totally smooth, with no protruding pins. I'll be working with students (Jr High and High) and a board that can only short on one side cuts my worries in half. The RedBoard is terrific.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Works fine
Using it with grbl firmware and gShield to drive a pair of steppers on an automation project. I just plug the Redboard into the USB, power the gShield with an external 24v supply, and use grbl-Panel for the GUI. I have quite a bit of experience with CNC and CAM hardware, and I'm very impressed with the performance I'm getting from this simple system for very low cost.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Solid board, easy setup
I chose this over the current Uno R3 due to the mini-b header. So much less overkill than the full size one on the Uno, and I have plenty of cables kicking around for it. I also like the use of the FTDI chip for the interface, it's super easy to get it to play nice with things.
I've partnered my Redboard up to a CNC shield from Protoneer, slapped the GRBL firmware on it, and within about an hour had my stepper motors happily executing g-code being piped over from Universal-G-Code-Sender...
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Economical Board with Solid SparkFun Support
Well engineered and assembled, a worthy Arduino offspring! Relatively inexpensive, i keep finding an excuse to add one to my order. Excellent HookUp guide (I checked it out just to be thorough). I would prefer that the guide explicitly indicated where the SPI connections were implemented (but these are identified on the schematic). I covered all the LEDs with electrical tape - they are very bright!
I did run into a component that was knocked off in shipping. So one didn't work correctly upon arrival. But that happens and SparkFun support quickly sent me a replacement.
Works great with the SparkFun ESP8266 WiFi Shield!
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Beautiful design, well manufactured and easy to use
The RedBoard worked perfectly straight away and with no problems since. This was my first time working with an Arduino compatible device and I was very pleased with the ease and usability; I had my program up and running with no difficulty in a few hours and it's run perfectly since then. I absolutely love the quality of the board and have ordered another one as the RedBoard will be my go to for prototyping and small electronics projects.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Nice product
This was my entry in arduino and its programming. I was very surprised how relatively easy it was to get started. The unit work as advertised and my first project turned out well. Already planning on my next project. Moving to the next level and incorporating an LCD display.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
simply amazing service
I knew nothing about arduino before I started. I just had an idea and the people at spark fun made it all possible
4 of 5 found this helpful:
Proud of this board
What can you not love about this board, it gets the job done and supports out favorite company.
3 of 4 found this helpful:
Unexpected Incompatibility with Mac OS X
Apparently FTDI isn't working automatically in OS X ( I have Mavericks), which means you'll need to install FTDI drivers separately, you can find them on this site.
In fact, after following those instructions, I still can't identify any non-bluetooth ports when running Arduino software with the RedBoard plugged in.
I purchased the RedBoard from Sparkfun thinking it would be better to have something supported by a trustworthy local company, but it seems like I would've been better with a cheaper UNO from ebay.
These should work great on your Mac. Please contact our support team for assistance.
3 of 4 found this helpful:
Great board
The only complain---whats the the 30 billion LUX green LED!
Guys, waaaaaay to bright!
1 of 2 found this helpful:
very good
Does what stated to do. Great support
1 of 2 found this helpful:
Really great little board
Never owned an arduino, but this little board has run all of the arduino code I have thrown at it. A very good purchase for me!
1 of 2 found this helpful:
A very nice thing
Works easily and as advertized
1 of 2 found this helpful:
Could Be Cheaper, But I Guess You Pay For Quality
This is a very nice board. It was my very first Arduino compatible board, and it has not failed me yet. The Atmel chip does get warm during PWM, but not so much that you could not keep your finger on the chip. I like the SMD chip, but might go with an Arduino with a DIP package for my next purchase.
1 of 2 found this helpful:
Great board for arduino inventors
There are no programs that I have put through it that have had issues. Love this board. Good mix of quality and price point. Highly Recommended.
1 of 2 found this helpful:
Very good product
This is an exceptional alternative to the arduino brand.
1 of 3 found this helpful:
Works ok in windows 7
I tried to make this work in my main comput I r environment, windows 8.1 and windows 10. Even after disabling 5he "unsigned drivers" block I could not get this device to function. I finally capitulated and had a windows 7 box brought in and this device worked perfectly within minutes.
Loving It
Works geat! I don't know why I waited so long to switch over to Redboard/Arduino from PIC controllers. I have purchased several and am constantly looking for new projects to stick them in. Great value, quality product. Thanks.
Nice Arduino Uno
This is the same as an arduino uno, except it costs about 20% less(at the time of writing). Additionally as others have said, it has no exposed connections on the bottom, so it makes it easy to install in places where that might be a concern.
Love it!
This is a great little board at a great price. Nice that there are no pins sticking out on the bottom.
If I were going to offer any feedback for , it would be to create a Bluetooth and wireless version.
Really nice implementation of the platform.
I buy Arduinos from all sorts of different vendors - spread the wealth or whatever - but this version is one of my favorites. When I want to squeeze some computational power in someplace I use the Minis, but this board is not very large, either, and can stand alone or get added on to projects in a variety of different ways. The "clever" device of adding 0.05" between the pins on one side, so one couldn't plug in shields "backwards" is a challenge when I want to add this board to a motherboard with a 0.1" hole pattern. But that can be overcome with the correct shield and in various other ways. I have been a "maker" since the 1970s, and this board and others like it have helped me fit unbelievable functionality into my projects.
as far as i tried it now
it works exactly the same as the duemilanove I used to work with.
Neat board
Like the smaller USB socket and the lower price
These boards are great!
Hard to beat them for the price. They are my 'go to' board for all but the most demanding projects. I love the smaller components, smaller USB connector. Very easy to use, solid, no issues.
0 of 1 found this helpful:
Go to www.bipsnm.com , click on novelties to see how i'm using your produces.
So far so good
Since I purchased the board a couple of weeks back, I have not encounter any issues yet and it's been working very well.
Great!
I swapped this with my Arduino UNO and was exactly the same but cheaper and no pins sticking out. The only thing was the usb connector isn't really common anymore, it would be cool if you had a newer connector or maybe a couple connectors.
Not so good
I have 2 issues with this board. And these 2 things work fine on the other brand that is blue. First, after each program upload, the USB cable has to be unplugged and then plugged back in before it will accept another program. Quite a pain when debugging and testing code. Second, it almost always hangs when used with the MP3 player shield. Go with the blue one and save yourself the headache. I've tried this on 4 different RedBoards.
I'm sorry about this issue. That's not a normal behavior of the board. Please contact our support team and they can help you figure out a fix, or repair/replace as needed Technical Assistance Page
Flawless
Used this board to make a antenna rotor controller. Worked without any problems whatsoever.
One word of caution Arduino 1.6.8 IDE does not work well with FTDI chips on Windows, will cause problems with all FTDI devices plugged into your USB ports. If using Windows, use earlier IDE or daily build. Works fine with Linux.
Good product
I like the clean look and the small USB interface. I have several of these for use in several projects. Also used the Arduino inventors kit with the RedBoard in teaching this semester with 17 students in which we implemented the SoapBox Snap Programmable Logic Controller.
Super Solid, Preferred Arduino Board
I love this board because it works so well with Codebender's cloud-based Arduino IDE. This makes it a snap to program using a Chromebook. I've never had any problems with drivers, etc. It just works.
redboard is great
as a Mechanical Engineer with a strong electronics curiosity, I decided it was time to get some first hand knowledge of IC programming. The RedBoard has been a great and easy way to introduce myself to programming without spending hundreds on material or a formal course. There is so much online information and projects for Arduino you can't help but learn quickly.
The SparkFun site has provided great tech support to get the drivers loaded and get the system up and running without a glitch.
Now it's up to me to have fun with it
thanks SparkFun
Great educational tool
I use this board in my Electronics II class with the SIK. Great set of activities. I recently purchased some ArduMoto motor driver shields and it was very easy to get up and running having my students design simple robots.
Awsome!
My first arduino. .. im goeing trough a tutorial and everything woeks fine, and it shipped quick... plus its better looking than an actual arduino :) absolutely worth the money...
Newby getting started
So far the board is everything its said it would be. I am having fun learning new things. One thing I think it should have been little clearer was it didn't come with power cord. Luckly I just happened to have one, but if I hadn't I would have been very upset. If it was recommend when ordered they would have made more money cause I would have assumed I didn't have one and bought it. Also no fault to company but don't get cheapest shipping. Post office decided to ship my package all around CO be for getting it to me and if I didn't throw a fit I do believe it would have taken longer to get to me.
Works like it should
I bought it to be sure it was compatible with the cheep LabView and it works as expected. I'm not smart enough to tell the difference between it and the cheep Chinese ones but just wanted to be sure I wasn't wasting my time chasing bugs in the bored it's self.
awesome board for the price
Great board for beginners
awesome
dependable as an UNO. It required a driver for my machine... but still pretty bullet proof.
Working great so far
This is my first Arduino-type board and so far all the experiments I have tried have worked fine. Enjoying it.
Sturdy but outdated
My big problem with board is that it still uses the old style Mini USB B connector, which has now been almost completely replaced by the Micro USB connector, so finding a cable for it proved rather time consuming and annoying. The Mini USB B also doesn't fit in as nicely as the Micro USB style. It's also not compatible with the other Arduino I'm using which is a UNO with a printer cable type connector. I would appreciate it if it had either a Micro connector to keep up with the times there, or a printer connector to be compatible with the other Arduinos, but not a Mini USB B.
Works every bit as good as Arduino and is a little more less expensive.
worked great!
I have had no problem with this product.
Love them for the classroom, but...
Nothing to do with Sparkfun, but these work seamlessly with Codebender, which has been great for my classes. I don't need to install a single FTDI driver. Now that codebender is closing, no more Chromebooks and I'll have to install FTDI on all of the laptops. Uggggh.
Worked Real Good
Used with RTC breakout. Set up circuit. Downloaded . Worked right away. Would buy again. Seems interchangeable with Arduino Uno that i usually use. Cheaper I think.
All was perfect
Excellent was also your answer on my E-mail
Really good
I like it over the arduino because it is more compact, however i think it should include the mini-usb as it is not standard anymore.
Arduino's Cousin
RedBoard is a polished Arduino, cleaning up what otherwise was a pretty good apple. What I like most is the reduced size of the USB port. Several of the projects I've done need a low profile microcontroller board to fit into a tight space. The one area all Arduino clones could use to further improve on is the placement of the mounting hole at the end of the digital pins. It's so close to the header, no common screw head can fit there. I have to cut off part of a nylon screw head to get it to fit.
My First Non-Arduino Arduino Board
I like the fact there are no pins sticking out the bottom. Mini USB snaps in tight. The LED’s on the board are insanely bright, like giving me welders flash bright. Do not look directly into the light in fact don’t look at it from an angle either, very distracting. Only had if for a day but all seems well. 5 stars for build quality and function. 4 stars for the annoying LED’s.
Sweet
Red
Hooking an Arduino up to an artificial neuron iPhone app?
Its possible. It worked on my first try. This little thing is amazing!
Don't know yet.
I just received my order. It took 20 days to get here, so I have not had time to do anything but download the drivers. Next time I will opt for a shipping method that does not involve Fedex. Edited version: O.K., now I have used it in my project. It works like a charm. I am using it in a project box and it will be easy to insulate the smooth back in contact with a 9V battery. LED brightness was a surprise, but no problem in the project box. The mini usb also surprised me, but I like it better than the printer style connection on the Uno because of the lower profile. I am changing my rating to five stars.
Great Arduino Board
Nice board - good for starting off and many projects. Great that it's both compatible in IDE w/ the Uno, and header wise for shields. 2 items on my wish list: (1) switch to USB micro, as it's much more common, and (2) had a bit more memory (like the Leonardo). The SparkFun SAMD21 Dev Breakout is a good option, has all of that and much more, but comes without headers and a barrel jack power connector - I have to do enough other 0.1" soldering that I'm currently avoiding the SAMD21 variant until I really need to move up.
Works exactly as advertised
Everything I have programmed onto this board has worked perfectly
Great board!
I have an Arduino Yun, but it is a bit much for simpler projects... First project with this board is a model railroad speed tunnel so I can program each locomotive decoder to top prototype scale speed for each locomotive. Even added a 16x2 LCD that I have had laying around for ages so I wouldn't have to be tethered to a computer for the serial data connection. I don't know what project I will do next with this no-nonsense board, but I look forward to lots of experimentation.
Not for noisy environment
This board reboots when short voltage spikes (nanosecond duration) appear on the 5 VDC rail (+5 V pin). I was using it in combination with a relay shield purchased from SparkFun (RFDuino RFD22131) to drive two large 12 VDC relays to drive a FErgelli Linear Actuator. The RedBoard would reboot periodically when the relays drove the actuator. A capacitor on the relay coils did not solve the problem, only eased it. A digital oscilloscope showed short duration voltage (60 nsec) spikes on the 5V pin when the relays triggered. The problem went away after replacing the RedBoard with an Arduino Uno.
Great low cost processor to use.
Easy to learn how to program and lots of examples on the sparkfun website and others. Board is well built and easy to read.
Love it!
It runs like a champ. The only problem I've had is that the barrel jack butts up against the shield I purchased for it. I removed the jack and soldered the power cord leads directly to the pads. Problem solved. I am using it in a fixed location and wasn't planning on unplugging the power cord anyways.
Works Perfectly !
This was a perfect foundation for my kids 5th grade STEM fair project. Using MBlock, he was able to code buttons, an RGB LED strip, and a servo very easily. I really like the use of the Mini-B, since the cables are more common, and less bulky.
Works great.
Threw one of my Arduino sketches on it, connected it up, and it all worked flawlessly.
Great board!
Works perfectly, haven't found any issues with it
Great product!!
So far I have 3 and they all work great!!!
Excellent
The board works the same as a standard Arduino Uno. I have used it with a number of I2C tempreture sensors. I would strongly recommend the product.
Goodie
Surprise, burned my original from starter pack, this was good replacement. All libraries and such work like charm. No standoffs required all the time when securing this to box.
seems pretty cool
integrated just like other arduino boards. having the chips surface mount on the unit enables more room for component to be placed on the back side of shield boards created to be plugged into the red board. Hopefully will stand up to year of use. Replacing micro previously used in device since 2002 with this so hopefully will have a long life.
Great for compact devices.
I use the RedBoard for a calibrated light meter along with an XBee radio. The slimness of the SMD plus the XBee Shield helps fit it together into a 1"x2.5"x4.5" box for use in the field. I have found a fix for the oversize barrel jack; I remove it and solder in an SMD jack with a 1.3mm Pin and 3.5mm ID. With the smaller barrel jack and trimming of the stackable headers the XBee Shield sits flush on the RedBoard headers. Works Great.
I would like to note that on the 3D model it is missing one of the female headers
Thanks -we'll check that out and get that fixed.
I wrote 30,000 bytes of code and it saying I don't have enough memory, why?
Can anyone tell me the dimensions or package of the 16Mhz resonator used on the redboard?
You can always check the Eagle file and check out the package there. Otherwise here is the part we use (CSTCE16M0V53-R0).
this is great, thanks for the help. I did look to the eagle file for answers but the package is listed as RESONATOR-SMD with no other details.
Received a Red Board on "Almost Free Day". I love the fact their are so many helpful tutorials and that I received a board to practice on instead of getting break out boards that I wouldn't be able to use without a micro controller. Not sure if it was intentional or luck of the draw worked perfect out of the box with the "Blink" program preloaded. Somehow I got it stuck on a sensor program and it would not let me upload any new sketches, but as usual I'm sure it was user error as I was able to get the "Blink" program to re-upload. I have a mac and didn't have any of the issues with the FTDI drivers as it seemed to work by just downloading the Arduino IDE. I Will admit though, I think something with the ports after uploading the DHT22 sensor sketch somehow affected the drivers temporarily which would upload half of a program then say "uno" wasn't connected to serial port. Works now though!
Hey all! I just bought my second Red Board and set it up today however it is not showing up on any com port! My other Red Board works fine and a notable difference in them is that on the new board the blue led labeled 13 flashes for a second in 1 second intervals while my old board does not. I have already tried reinstalling the FTDI Drivers Is there a way to fix the Board so that it shows up on a com port?
What's the idle current consumption?
Just a heads up I bought a couple of the RedBoards to put into the Arduino enclosures you sell (PRT-12839) and the RedBoards have an ever so slightly wider PCB. It's enough that they don't properly snap into the enclosure. Not a huge deal but was a bit of a disappointment to see the boards I specifically purchased for these enclosures don't fit properly, but stock Arduinos (from Duemilanove to Uno) do fit. It would be awesome if they shared the same dimensions and where in fact drop-in replacements for the other boards.
You are correct, while the Redboard does fit in some Arduino cases it is a tad wider. The reason for this is those SMD headers which need just a little bit of room on the sides. I wish we could do both, but all SMD and a flat bottom is more important to us at the moment than exact dimension matching.
OK got it, the SMD headers makes sense. Well understandable trade-offs I suppose. Maybe just a suggestion then to specify in the product description of that slight difference. The product description seems to indicate quite a lot of UNO compatibility (which obviously the RedBoard does have), but it could be useful for a one-liner that highlights this slight deviation in board design. I ended up buying 2 RedBoards spec'd for a project for those enclosures that aren't really as viable as they don't properly secure/are loose and off at an angle. Probably not a lot of people are going to run into this, but it would have been nice to have a way to have known before making the purchases. Thanks!
is there going to be a sparkfun mega?
We use to carry a Mega Pro but it didn't sell well. You might also want to check out the FreeSoc which has a Mega footprint but uses a PSoC5LP ARM Cortex chip. With the Cypress software you can change the pin functionality (and it ships with roughly Arduino Uno pin functionality). Higher processing power, more flexible pin configuration and approximately the same price.
Question: Is it safe to power this board directly off a solar panel? I just got a 7volt 200ma solar panel that that plugs directly into an arduino via the barrel jack and it powers the arduino fine in broad daylight. However, at dawn or dusk, the amount of power generated rapidly decreases. During this time (when the power is between 100% and 0%), will the arduino sustain damage? Do i need to look into a low-voltage cutoff device? Note that there are no batteries or capacitors to supply backup power.
Edit: Does any information you provide also apply to other models of arduinos like the Mega?
Does this come with a USB? I'd hate for it to get here then not be able to use it :).
It does not. If you don't have a USB cable you can use check out the related products.
Can someone point me to instructions for configuring this board to run at 8Mhz? I want to see if my project will work on an Arduino Pro 3.3v before I acquire one.
I have found hints e.g. "set the fuses", but nothing like a how-to.
Thanks in advance! (and afterwards, too)
How can I hook up a transmitter or receiver to this? I'm looking for the receiver to then control one DC motor and a servo motor (making a RC car). Does anyone know a helpful thread, page or comment that I can use to educate myself on this type of stuff?
Look it up on YouTube, that works for me.
Since you're using the SMD version of the atmega32 processor you really should have broken out the two extra A/D pins to connectors on the board. I know there is no way to add these without breaking shield compatibity, but you could put two pads somewhere so the user could access them. Much easier than trying to solder some #30 wire to the processor pins! I think there actually is an UNO clone somewhere that DOES bring these two pins out somehow.
Glad to see that you've populated the ISP header on this revision. The only possible improvement I can see now would be adding a 3.3V / 5V core logic selector switch. Anyway, nice work, SFE!
It is a nicer design and the logic level switch is a good idea. What I would like is it to use microUSB instead of mini and the reset button to be a right-angle board variety. That way a housing can let you plug in your cables and hit the reset easily.
USB 1.x/2.0 micro-B connectors are too delicate and annoying to align, in my humble opinion.
I guess it is one of those areas that is personal preference. I always find the micro to be pretty easy plus with so many things using it now I have a bunch of extra cables around and always one within reach of any spot I might be working on something.
with regards to delicate.. to many projects lately have been using smd versions of microusb connectors, and they rip of very easily, there are some that is almost throughole (for the casing, not the connector leads), which is more solid, so if everyone used connectors like that I guess one should be ok.
A trick I use when laying SMD-only connectors is to put a couple PTH holes at each side of the connector and then just run a bus wire up and over the part to "seatbelt" it down to the board. If the connector has a metal shell (such as µUSB), then you can solder the seatbelt to the shell itself. This makes it nearly impossible to rip an SMD connector off a board.
Even if they weren't ripped off, micro USB is flawed in design. the connector itself wears out after repeated use. I've had it happen on a number of phones, after daily plug/unplug the male pins just stop making a connection. SparkFun made the right choice. This is a larger board, go with the larger, safer connector.
What part of the connector wears out? One of my favorite things about USB uB is that they moved the latching pins to the cable.
I had many a phone with miniB that wore out the latches internally, and nothing could fix that short of replacing the device or voiding my warranty.
I've had a couple uB cables wear out their latches on me, but a cable is cheap to replace compared to the device itself.
"micro-B connectors are too delicate and annoying to align..."
No, they're not. They're being used by hundreds of millions of phones and such without problems. I second the micro-B request.
Thanks! Logic-level select is a really neat idea. That's definitely something to think about.
You can always improve designs. Cost is often the only prohibiting factor.
I'd like to see a UNO with a switching power supply like the Due has (LM2734Y). A linear regulator won't allow the full output current at 12V input or higher. Indeed, it will already dissipate 1.5W at 12V input and 200mA, and become very hot, very likely even shutdown. The switcher will let you have up to 1A, even at 15V, without problems. Board real estate is not a problem (you need less cooling area), though the board would become a dollar more expensive. Well worth it, IMO
I would love to see you mark the SPI pins (SCK, MISO, MOSI) on the board as well
For this to be the ultimate board it really needs to have a crystal oscillator to control the timing of the microcontroller. For me, +/- 5% is just no where near accurate enough.
There is a tiny crystal on thr board between the processor and the ISP headers. I know because if you put your finger on it, it sets and everything speeds up.
SF, let us know on microprocessors whether the clock is crystal controlled, or resonator based. The difference between about +/- 2 seconds per day and about +/- 7 minutes a day can rule out some products for data acquisition or control when using internal time keeping. Sure, we could get a WWV receiver or buy an atomic clock (or even an RTC from you guys), but for about 20 cents difference or less and no hassle getting a crystal in the product works well for very many things.
Seconded!
The bootloader appear to be affected by what is in the EEPROM memory. With certain values it does not execute the sketch. What kind of bootloader is reading the EEPROM? Do you have the sources for the bootloader used in the RedBoard?
I have an idea for a new version of the RedBoard, one that has a connector for a Lithium-ion battery,a on-board charging circuit, voltage booster regulator to supply 5 volts to the board and a on/off switch.
PLEASE (if possible) change your power plugs and USB to thru hole!! the students I work with (6-12th) are destroying them when they fall off of tables. Especially the young kids.
Do your students fall off the tables? :-)
Have you tried using these?
It would be really nice if these had some silkscreening that reminded you what kind of arduino board to select in the ide. Something like "arduino uno r3 compatible," or "board type: arduino uno." It would really help beginners and people who get one as part of a class and then months later want to put it to use. That's the only reason I can't recommend the inventor's kit to newbies anymore.
I like the idea, I just don't know if we can do it. Because its not an official Arduino board there are limits to what we can put on the board, but I'll pass on the suggestion.
In this case I would suggest a handy dandy label maker!
Please make a through hole version! With more current output (like the Arduino Uno PTH) and a USB-B replacing the mini-USB-B (they break too easily).
What enclosures are redboard-compatible? The uno enclosures listed here say they are not compatible with the redboard.
It is lacking parallel male headers next to standard female headers. Did not you ever need to connect two wires to the same Arduino pin? Or at least a few extra pins for Vcc and Gnd.. Gosh, you should really check what your Chinese friends are doing before finalizing the design.
Would it be possible to get the ECAD library file for the board. I'd like to import the .brd file into Solidworks but you need both the assembly (.brd) and the ECAD lib file.
"that combines all our favorite features"
For the next version, how about a RTC? Take a look at the NXP PCF85263A, very inexpensive and lots of features. The battery may be an issue, but you might fit one next to the ISP header.
Hi.. Did they ever fix the MAC OSX driver issue with this board..
Thanks
Usually the Chinese made copies of Arduino are significantly cheaper, this one is only slightly cheaper. Is it made in the US? For only $5 why would we not want to support the Arduino project? You say that your board is more "stable" than the normal Arduino board too but I do not see how that was arrived at.
This is a Sparkfun Original board, so it is made here in Boulder Colorado like all of our boards. As for supporting Arduino that has always been a bit tricky and is even more so because of the current split/legal action with Arduino. It looks like when we came out with the board we did talk to Arduino about royalties and they declined (see comment from our CEO ). While we do pay royalties on our official Arduino boards like the Pro, and Pro Mini, we do have a lot of unofficial boards as well that we do not pay royalties on. As for it being more stable, that is an interesting question. While we don't see this as much any more when the Uno first came out our techsupport department had a lot of issues with the USB to serial chip dying on the Unos, since it is a separate microcontroller there is a lot more that could go wrong. This was an issue we'd never seen with the FTDI chip and so we chose to use the FTDI chip on these since they seemed to be more stable. Basically we took all of our favorite features of the past Arduinos and put them into one board (and instability is not one of our favorite features).
What’s all this royalties stuff about? I thought one of the nice things about Arduino is that it’s open source?
We actually have quite a few boards that we give royalties on, and release as open source. Usually a royalty agreement is put in place with a collaborator who has something to offer us, sometimes that is board design, sometimes code, etc. When someone else gives us something of value we try to pay them appropriately. In the case of the Arduinos we get to build a blue board that says Arduino on it (Arduino is open source, but the name is still trademarked). It also becomes an official board, the board files are native in the IDE and it is listed on their site as an official Arduino board. Those are some pretty nice perks, and in return we give them a portion of the profits to help them keep the IDE up to date. In other words it is a win-win situation.
These dont look like sale prices for arduino day, where are the sale prices?
They aren't. They will only show up on Arduino Day (tomorrow).
What about the most important feature you left out -- using a removable DIP microcontroller so you can program your chip and then pull it off the board and use it directly in your project.
I've always wondered why the Arduino doesn't have a SMPS instead of the 1117. Yes, I know: cost and possible FCC certification issues. But when you have a 12V supply for the board with a linear regulator there's no way you can draw 800 mA from the 5V; it would cause the 1117 to dissipate more than 5W, causing it to light up in the dark...
Hi guys... what will happen to the red board if i press the rest button?
It will dematerialize. Seriously, what do you think will happen?
The board is quite nice, but the power light is glaring, and the TX/RX LED labels are backwards (at least on the version of the board I got). They are correct in some illustrations on the website, so they clearly got mixed up in production somehow.
Hello I am using your Red board for a temperature sensor test, using lm34 sensor....I was wandering if you have a breakout board, what connects to the input and output pins of the red board so it can be used for applications besides using with the breadboard.? Thanks
I'm not quite sure what you are asking since you can use this without a breadboard as is, but I think that the Protoshield may solve your problem.
Hi there, sorry I was multitasking earlier...I meant to say, I am done prototyping, now I want to use the red board to control the temperature for real application and I want to hard wire it, the protoshield might just do the trick for me. For my project I want to use c-grid connector where I can hard wire using long cables....do you guys sell the protoboard by itself? Also will I still run into issue of mounting the protoshield board on top of the red board or arduino uno board because of the USB and 5vdc plug?
Thanks SG
Are there any differences between the SPI implementation on this board, the last RedBoard, and the UNO? Has any one tried this board with a Nordic nRF24L01+ based ISM transceiver interfaced via SPI? I have 2 UNO's communicating successfully using the RF24 library from http://tmrh20.github.io/RF24/ with Addicore nRF24L01+ modules. My RedBoard (previous revision) will not play with either of the UNO's using the Nordic modules. I borrowed a buddy's Redboard (also previous revision) and it would not play either. Using the GettingStarted sketch from the RF24 library, the radio would return valid status. It would generate valid traffic (received by an UNO) when in TX mode. It failed to receive ping responses in TX mode as well as failing to see pings when in RX mode. I tested this with both the ISP headers and pins 10 - 13, on all 4 boards.
Is there anyway to turn of the "ON" LED indicator on the RedBoard? it's really glaring and blinding me.
You can safely desolder it, it's not required. If you don't have a soldering iron at hand, the brute way is to use a screwdriver as a chisel and to chop it off the board. Not pretty, but effective.
Maybe you can try to cover it with a small piece of tape, making sure not to short circuit anything
It looks to me like the schematic diagram has the power jack wired up wrong. The symbol for the power jack has the connections for the ground connection and the switch contact reversed. The barrel contact should be grounded and the switch that is NC (when the plug isn't inserted) should go to the FET gate.
will this work on windows 7 64 bit OS? i have an Arduino Uno and while uploading the sketch i always get the avr dude error ?
Yes, but the Uno should work too. Most of the machines at Sparkfun are Windows 7 64-bit and we have no problems with either the Redboard or the Uno. If you are having problems make sure the drivers are installed correctly and if you are still having problems email techsupport@sparkfun.com.
Red Borad not working on a MAC -running Mavericks? try this:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=198539.0
Good luck
My Red Board wasn't showing at all in the Serial Ports menu. This fix worked perfectly. Thanks!
I'm designing a shield for use with your board and noticed that when powered by USB only, I am getting power on the Vin pin. I looked at your schematic but your schematic is missing some components such as the LMV358. Can you update your schematic please.
If you have an op LMV358 on there, you probably have the older version. Here is the schematic for that board.
Thanks Jimb0 but unfortunately that schematic is also not correct. It does not show Vin connected to the power jack via the diode.
Neither schematic explain why I have USB power on the Vin pin when USB is the only source of power unless it is feeding back (from OUT to IN) through the LM1117.
Hey guys,
Thought I would point out that there is an error in the schematic with regards to how you have connected the DC barrel jack pins.
Ground should be connected to pin 2 of the barrel jack rather than pin 3 as the schematic currently shows.
With the current configuration, when the connector is inserted, the barrel is no longer connected to ground which means that the circuit has no reference. The design would only work with USB power.
Does anyone know if I can use the RedBoard with GRBL ? I've read that only works with Arduino Uno/Duemillanove. Tried myself with a Leonardo with no luck.
If it works on the Uno/Duemillanove it should work fine on the Redboard. The redboard uses the same microcontroller (ATMega328) and has the same bootloader as the Uno. The Leonardo uses a different microcontroller (ATMega32U4) which is probably why its not working.
have a RedBoard that someone from Sparkfun gave my son at a conference in Austin. I can’t upload any sketches to it.
I’ve got serial port connectivity to it on both OS X and FreeBSD, at least, I have connectivity enough to make the ‘TX’ LED light with each keystroke.
but if I try to use the Arduino software (using the blink example), I get:
“Binary sketch size: 1,084 bytes (of a 32,256 byte maximum) avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding”
I’ve never seen a response (of any type) from the board. I would think that the boot loader (if present) would respond to, say, a simple carriage return.
From ‘cu’, I’ve tried the following baud rates: 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200.
None have succeeded.
I believe I have the correct drivers. When the RedBoard is plugged in, dmesg reports:
AppleUSBFTDI, fInBufPool,kMaxInBufPool 8,64 0 [Level 5] [com.apple.message.domain com.apple.commssw.ftdi.device] [com.apple.message.signature AppleUSBFTDI] [com.apple.message.signature2 0x403] [com.apple.message.signature3 0x6001] [com.apple.message.summarize YES] AppleUSBFTDI: Version number - 1.0.1b10, Input buffers 8, Output buffers 16
and I get two device entries: /dev/tty.usbserial-AM01VDPE /dev/cu.usbserial-AM01VDPE
both are mode 666 (crw-rw-rw), so it’s not a permissions problem.
Powering the board on blinks the blue LED (marked ‘13’) three times.
Help?
I had trouble too, using MacOS Mavericks. I found experimentally that hitting the reset button 3 times about a second apart after hitting the "load" function got the reset to hit at the right time and download the board, but that got really tedious really fast.
Although MacOS comes with FTDI drivers written by Apple, they don't seem to control the modem-control lines, or if they do, not the same way the Arduino SDK and bootloader expect. I downloaded the latest MacOS drivers from the FTDI site and it works great now. I just now searched and found this, which tells how to do it: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=198539.0
On a related front, I've had 2 MacOS crashes while working with Arduino, the only ones I've ever had in my entire history with MacOS X except when my hardware was dying. (Other people have had this too, e.g., see http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=199920.0 ) My hypothesis is that it's from a USB-connected Arduino running a sketch spewing data but with no terminal window running, exercising a driver bug or a bug in the USB serial port handling, but I don't know (it happened both before and after my driver upgrade, so I lean toward it being in USB code). Since I first had that suspicion, I've always started a terminal window as soon as a sketch is loaded, and haven't had another crash, but YMMV.
techsupport@sparkfun.com can probably help you better than the comments section can on this one.
Someone care to explain how the reliability of FTDI differs from the serial programming implementation on the UNO? And for that matter, how is it preferable to ISP? I've noticed lots of the lower-end boards featuring only FTDI connections for programming and no ISP breakout-- isn't ISP supported natively on every AVR device? What's the rationale here?
I'd say both the Uno's custom-firmware'd ATmega16U2 and the FTDI on the RedBoard are equally reliable at this point. We've grown quite fond of the FTDI over the past few years because of how solid a chip it is. That, and the fact that it fits better into our manufacturing process (only one chip to program), are our main reasons for using it on the RedBoard.
Actually, one of the big changes in this revision was to populate that 2x3-pin ISP header. You can certainly program the RedBoard using an AVR programmer -- there's even an option in Arduino to upload your program via ISP -- but serial programming is generally easier (especially for a beginner who doesn't have an AVR ISP readily available [or a lazy engineer, who's AVR ISP is all the way across the room]).
The FTDI chip is also capable of higher data rates (I have a project that pushes 2mbps to an Arduino Duemilanove) but this board is sadly hampered by the lack of headers that go to the FTDI's flow control pins. Seems like an easy thing for Sparkfun to add, but so far it hasn't been done.
Thanks for the reply. A USBASP or similar can be got for $5, same as a FTDI cable, and can be used from the arduino IDE with a simple menu selection, so I'm still not seeing the benefit-- of course this is a moot point here, just been wondering why so many cheap board have a FTDI interface but no breakout for the ISP header.
Keep in mind that the upload from the Arduino IDE wasn't introduced until at least version 1.0. So for years people didn't have that option. Also, all AVR based Arduinos, as well as all of our Arduino clones have the ISP header on them if you want to use it (a few that are too small don't have the 2x3 header but do have the pins broken out). We actually use the ISP header to put the bootloader on all of our boards.
I don't know what advantage they're implying exists using the chip from FTDI vs a little AVR emulating the USB-Serial niche. But the advantage of using a separate chip from the main AVR is that your USB connection doesn't reset along with the MCU. It can be annoying when its serial port jumps from /dev/ttyACM0 to /dev/ttyACM1.
I don't think it's (FTDI) a matter of reliability or any real functionality improvement, but rather one of convenience. Many electronics newcomers won't have a serial programmer, and want only something cheap and easy to use.
I'm pretty heavily invested in Microchip PIC programming (8 & 32 bit, don't care for the 16 bitters), but I think I'm going to get one of these for my kids to tinker with. Pretty neat piece of kit.
For those who are interested in PIC32, check out Digilent's ChipKIT: mechanically Arduino-compatible, based on PIC32, and the same price as an Arduino Uno.
http://www.digilentinc.com/chipkit/
I see the Redboard has joined the FT231X club. What is the difference between this and the FT232R? Just a newer/cheaper part?
Yup, that covers most of it. It accomplishes everything the 232RL does (same drivers and all), as long as you can work with/around the 3.3V logic.
but the text above states ft232rl?
What enclosures are redboard-compatible? The uno enclosures listed here say they are not compatible with the redboard.