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Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: jocatch on January 12, 2012, 01:36:50 PM

Title: Difference between old and new Arduion Mega?
Post by: jocatch on January 12, 2012, 01:36:50 PM

I have the original Arduino Mega I bought a long time ago and have been out of the hobby for about a year and now I see there is a new Mega. I have not been able to find a chart showing the differences between the old and new Megas which I may need to know for my next project. Can anyone give me a link? Thanks.

JC

Title: Re: Difference between old and new Arduion Mega?
Post by: Soeren on January 12, 2012, 07:28:18 PM

Hi,

While not giving a table (which would have been helpfull), you can see all the official Arduino boards and their specs here (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Boards). Reading just this page (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardMega2560) should tell you what's changed (including changes in revisions of the new board).

Title: Re: Difference between old and new Arduion Mega?
Post by: jocatch on January 12, 2012, 08:01:13 PM

Thanks for the links. I couldn't find them before. Looks like the only real difference is the amount of memory.

JC

Title: Re: Difference between old and new Arduion Mega?
Post by: Daanii on January 13, 2012, 01:14:35 AM

There are two main differences between the new and old Arduino Megas. One, as you note, is the memory. The new ATmega2560 chip has 256kB. The old ATmega1280 chip had 128kB. That's the main difference.

But they also took the opportunity to replace the old FTDI to USB chip. That has always been a weakness with the Arduino design. They did an upgrade to an ATmega chip, which is somewhat better, but not as good as full USB. The Teensy, for example, has a great USB interface.

But none of the pins or other stuff like that has changed.

Title: Re: Difference between old and new Arduion Mega?
Post by: jocatch on January 13, 2012, 11:37:01 AM

Thanks Daanii. I only use the USB port to dowload the sketches, thats all so that change sounds like it would be transparent to me. I just ordered my second Arduino, the Uno. Not sure what I want to use it for but I wanted another Arduino to experiment with since my Mega is all wired up in my first robot project.

JC

Title: Re: Difference between old and new Arduion Mega?
Post by: Daanii on January 14, 2012, 10:40:30 AM

I really like the Arduinos too. Recently I bought some Teensy boards, which is a semi-official Arduino but with a nicer USB setup.

The Teensy is set up so that you can use the Arduino development environment, or you can just program in C and download the compiled hex code by USB. Very convenient.

They have a Teensy++ too, which is about the same as the Mega.

You can buy them at pjrc: www.pjrc.com/teensy/ (http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/), where there is also a lot of reference material.