Arduino Nano Updated

The official Arduino Nano design has been updated to version 3.0. Like other new Arduino designs, it’s using the ATmega328 instead of the ATmega168. It’s also a slightly more reasonable $35. The small board is designed to be plugged directly into a breadboard and accessed via mini USB cable. This new design is also two layers instead of four making it easier to produce and modify. The new Nanos will ship at the end of the month.

22 thoughts on “Arduino Nano Updated

  1. @pburgess
    How can you say $35 is cheap when you could buy PDIP versions of the same chips for nearly 1/10th of the cost?

    By all means, take as much crap, (oh, you said crack, my bad) you want…

    Of note, I have nothing against the Arduino platform. It is awesome for rapid development and prototyping, but most folks stop there and call that good.

  2. There are so many projects that are temporary, maybe you just want to test a concept without rummaging through a parts bin or lengthy datasheet. The Arduino is perfect for this. And if $35 is within someone’s budget to not attempt a smaller/cheaper design, what’s wrong with that? It helps support the project :)

  3. I’m really curious why no one is using the propeller for anything. Really. Sure, I assume spin sucks, but it works and the chip can run on C or assembly just as easy.

  4. IIRC they were advertising the 1st nano with something like “It�s a four-layer board with power and ground planes to help provide ICs with sufficient charge during switching and reduce noise (EMC) on high speed switching I/O pins. Ground plane help reduce radiation (EMI). Power plane is low in inductance; therefore any transients that may develop on the power line will be at lower levels. ”
    maybe the manufacturing costs were too high?
    or the 4 layers board was not worth? ;)

  5. I was wondering when they were going to do this. Now that it’s a 2 layer board, it’s as cheap as the Duemilanove. No, it’s not as small or as cheap as the ‘bare chip’, but the bare chip doesn’t have an a power regulator or usb. Hell, you can’t even interface the ‘bare chip’ to serial without a level shifter. So, add all that to your ‘bare chip’ and see which is smaller.

    For me personally, I like the nano when space is a big concern (http://hackaday.com/2009/06/30/custom-car-door-keypad/) and the RBBB when you have a little more room.

  6. from my experience and various sources, the avr chip from which the arduino gets *all* its technical features (in case you didn’t know) seems pretty resistant to electric noise (efficient on-chip decoupling) so a 4-layer board was pretty overkill.

  7. Eh, $35 isn’t too bad, but you can still get the bare chips for $3 so I really don’t see the point. Sure, it’s easier, but c’mon, learning to do it the “real” way isn’t that much harder, and don’t we all want to get more skills?

    I really suggest everyone look up how to program an AVR by itself. At its simplest you can borrow a friend’s programmer if avaliable, load a bootloader on it (also easy, just look it up) and then from then on you can load code via serial. It’s really not hard to start programming AVRs on the cheap. Also check out Sparkfun.com, they have some good tutorials.
    -Taylor

  8. The board claearly says V3.0. Also, the schematic at the website to pre order them has the V3.0 schematic with the 168 on it. What gives? All the pics at both site have the 168 chip.

  9. They could have been working on the 3.0 board purely for cost reduction well before they decided to put the 328 chip in them. The two changes didn’t have to happen at the same time. The two chips are pin compatible after all. Perhaps they decided to go both at the same time for simplicity of sale, or to make an even stronger reason to buy it. I get twice the memory now for 15 dollars less?!? Sold!

  10. I appreciate dropping a Nano into a more complex PCB, abstracting away the uC to an open standard, easily swapping out uC “modules”, accessibility to a wide range of programmers, and one less thing to document and support!
    .
    It can help a proprietary PCB become less proprietary and more open.
    .
    A pick though. They missed providing a nice Eagle library for its footprint (Eagle libs for the Nano can be found elsewhere).

Leave a Reply to therianCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.