Today when I came home from work and sat down at my desk I was quite sure I’d spend the whole evening with getting these new Arduino clones working. Actually, I finished in 10 minutes.
Let me introduce the cheapest Arduino Nano clone you could probably get which is actually a really good choice for beginners.
Why is it so cheap?
This is what comes in a bubble wrapped envelope:
So what makes this clone cheaper than the others? Well, most probably two things:
- The headers are not installed.
- It uses a different chip (CH340G) for serial-USB communication than the others.
Soldering the headers in their place is actually not a big deal, and it also makes the PCB more robust during shipping.
The different serial chip on the other hand was something I was a little bit worried about but I’ve found my fears to be baseless. When I connected the board to the computer with a miniUSB cable it was instantly recognised by Windows as a virtual serial port. I’m currently using Windows 10 on this machine but I guess it goes the same with Windows 7 as well.
So this was the first surprise and the second came when I loaded up the Arduino software and tried to upload the blinky sample to the board. To my greatest surprise it succeeded. I was absolutely sure that these devices were sold without the arduino bootloader installed since the more expensive versions are like that.
But I was wrong. Basically the device was 100% ready for use after unpacking and this is a huge advantage over other clones. You don’t need extra tools for uploading a bootloader. You don’t need to struggle with the FTDI drivers. It just works “out-of-the-box”.
[…] Arduino nano clone with CH340G […]
i have this clone exactly as mentioned
but i have issue with pwm pins and pwm functions
it doesnt work well with l298N motor driver
if you have any suggestion let me know
thanks
regards
Hello dic,
I contacted you via e-mail
Hello: I have had success with this clone. As you say boot loader installed. One issue I have is that although the Arduino IDE does upload sketches correctly, it does not identify which com port the Nano is communicating on. I checked Device manager were the device is shown. I select Nano for board in the IDE and then check the Com port identified in Device manager and all seems to work well.
Now, it’s even cheaper.
I got me 2 of these things, each one costing $2.5.
It’s extraordinary value!
I’ve been tinkering with these CH340 clones for a couple of years now and have around ten of them. None of them have failed or have been DOA. I’ve had no problems with my LCD/LED, sensor, etc projects at all.
You can easily find pre-soldered versions if you’re willing to pay a few (dozen) cents more. You can even choose between mini USB and micro USB (those yellow circuit boards) these days.
Most of my developing is done under Ubuntu, which has never had any kind of “driver” problem like I had with early samples on Windows (ie. required a no-brainer driver installation).
These things are simply awesome!
I did found problems with Windows 7, but you can easily solve by using the proper driver found here: http://www.wch.cn/download/CH341SER_ZIP.html
I have one of these.
I wanted to use it with some Sharp IR range sensors. But it didn’t work. The code and sensors work on my UNO board, but not my NANO board.
The Sharp IR is listed as consuming 30 mA.
Someone mentioned on the Arduino forum, that the clones can only deliver about 15 mA current. Can you verify this?
Hello hzd,
This is interesting. I guess the clones should be able to output the same current as the originals, since the microcontroller is the same. But 30 mA is definitely too much for a single pin. You can try to drive the IR with a MOSFET.
Adam
Just bought a bunch of these, but I can’t get them to work. Installed the driver on my Mac, and i think the connection is ok, but won’t upload to it.
Just found out that for this clone you should set the following in the Arduino IDE, otherwise I could not program it successfully on my Mac with latest Arduino IDE.
Board > Arduino Nano
Processor > ATMega328P (Old Bootloader)
Programmer > AVR ISP
I would like to thank you very much for your work.
I had spent many hours trying to get Nano Clone to work.
I have now successfully got it to work with your settings.
Cheers,
Adrian