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Build your own Arduino for under 10

By Nathan Chantrell, on August 19th, 2011 How to make a stripboard Arduino clone, AKA the veroduino. Once a project is past the prototype stage there is no need to use a complete Arduino, even with the ever decreasing cost of Arduino compatibles and the availability of cut down versions such as the Arduino Nano and Mini its still overkill for a lot of uses. Fortunately it is very easy to build your own Arduino compatible circuit around the ATmega microcontroller and it will only cost you a few pounds; with some good deals on bulk components and by flashing the Arduino bootloader yourself you could do this for as little as a fiver. Here is how to build a basic Arduino on a small (5cm square) piece of stripboard, all you need is a handful of components and a little time. Parts required Piece of Stripboard/veroboard Atmel ATmega328P-PU microcontroller 28 Pin DIL Socket 16MHz crystal LM7805 voltage regulator 2 x 100uF 25V electrolytic capacitors 2 x 22pF ceramic disc capacitors 1N4001 diode Momentary push to make button/tactile switch (optional) 10K 0.25W resistor (optional) 6 pin male header (optional) 100nF ceramic disc capacitor (optional) Hookup wire Heres my stripboard layout:

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Notes on components You will need a piece of stripboard at least 20 holes across by 19 strips or 14 holes across if on board programming and reset button arent required. If you dont need the on board reset button you can leave that out and if you dont need on board programming you can omit the 6 pin header and 100nF capacitor. If you arent using both the reset button and the FTDI connection then you can also omit the 10K resistor. The 1N4001 diode isnt strictly necessary either, its just there for reverse polarity protection. You can use the ATmega168 (half the Flash/EEPROM/SRAM of the ATmega328) if that is all you require, either way the Atmel AVR will require the Arduino bootloader flashed to it before you can upload a sketch to it, you can either buy one with it preloaded or use another Arduino to burn it yourself. If you want to buy one preloaded you can get the ATmega328 on eBay here together with the required crystal and the 22pF loading caps. The build Break the tracks on the copper side of the board where indicated with the red crosses and solder in the components, if you havent used stripboard before see this page for an explanation of how to use it. Make sure the socket for the ATmega chip is installed with the notch at the top and the LM7805 voltage regulator is installed with the metal strip at the right hand side. The 1N4001 diode needs to be installed with the side marked with a band at the top and the two electrolytic capacitors also need to be installed the right way round (note the + signs in the diagram above) the positive lead should be longer and there is usually a stripe on the canister marking the negative side. Install the tactile switch with the legs on the sides so that it joins the top and bottom strips when pressed. The other components can all go in either way round. Power Connections You can connect power to the VIN and ground on the right, 7 to 9VDC will be fine as is but Id put a heatsink on the LM7805 voltage regulator if using 12V. You can also power it via USB from the FTDI connection but make sure that the external power (VIN) isnt connected at the same time; if you want to have both connected you can disable the FTDI power completely by omitting the link shown in blue next to the 6 pin header. I/O connections Ive marked the locations of the digital and analogue lines on the layout above (note they are in a different layout to the Arduino board) but have not included headers in the parts list as normally you would be connecting directly

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to the board once you are past the prototype stage. Programming Loading a sketch can be done by connecting a 5V FTDI board or cable to the 6 pin header or by temporarily transferring the ATmega chip into another Arduino for programming. A good USB FTDI cable is available on eBay here, make sure you get the 5V version.
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Tags: Arduino, electronics, IoT | Category: Arduino, Electronics | 18 comments

18 comments to Build your own Arduino for under 10 Ken Boak (@monsonite on Twitter)
August 23, 2011 at 10:17 pm Nathan, An excellent write up of a subject very close to my heart. Lets chuck in a magjack breakout board from CoolComponents (1.99)and an ENC28J60 (1.99) and make Nanodes cheapskate stripboard cousin.

Ray Madigan
February 22, 2012 at 6:18 am I just found your article and decided to build one of these for my next arduino project. The processor part works well, as would be expected. I however cant upload a sketch to the atmega 328. I am using the Sparkfun FTDI breakout board and I made sure the pinout was correct. I had to swap Rx and Tx. Im not sure what could be going on, any ideas would be appreciated. The message I am getting is: avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=000

Ray Madigan
February 22, 2012 at 7:59 am I figured out what the problem is and am now able to upload sketches. I tied the cts line on the FTDI breakout board to gnd and it works like a charm. I found it by reading the Sparkfun writeup on the breakout board. Hope this helps someone in the future.

takbee
April 13, 2012 at 9:30 am Hi.I have built with some mods.The regulator capacitors are 10 uf ,also added resistor +led on pin 13(like the original arduino uno board).Uploaded the blink sketch using the usb2serial light adapter and everything worked fine!Uploaded some other example sketches and everything wend good.BUT when i try the lcd library uploading the Hello world example, the 13 pin led flashes continously (like continous resets) and nothing happens UNTIL i start the serial monitor andeverything works!! Stopping the serial monitor jams everything .Any ideas? Thanks anyway for the nice design! (I select the uno board from the arduino IDE running on XP windows machine)

Nathan Chantrell (@nathanchantrell on Twitter)

April 28, 2012 at 7:09 pm Hi Takbee, Sorry, I missed this. Did you get to the bottom of it? Ive never come across anything like that before, the fact that opening the serial monitor makes the problem disappear is really

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odd.

Ian McMill
September 22, 2012 at 10:23 pm where would the obligatory LED go for power-on notice ? I am super new to electronics so please excuse me for this question

Pascal
January 11, 2013 at 10:45 pm Please can anyone Update this fine layout with a resistor and led on pin 13?? many thanks.

Nathan Chantrell (@nathanchantrell on Twitter)

January 15, 2013 at 3:31 pm Does this help: http://nathan.chantrell.net/downloads/arduino/veroduino-led.png 1K resistor from D13 (pin 19 of the ATmega) to the anode (long leg) of the LED and the cathode of the LED to ground.

Jazly
March 12, 2013 at 6:35 pm Hi nathan thank you so much for posting this arduino prototype.I have a small question.can u plz mention the FTDI header decription (which one is DTR,GND,VCC etc) thnx alot.

Nathan Chantrell (@nathanchantrell on Twitter)

March 12, 2013 at 8:18 pm Hi Jazly, From top to bottom in the diagram above: Ground CTS (not used) 5V TX RX RTS Cheers, Nathan

Jazly
March 13, 2013 at 8:29 am Thnx for the reply bro.. i hv a small question i bought a USB module which contains following pins Ground 3.3V 5V TX

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RX DTR i cudnt find RTS and CTS pin can i use this usb module to ulpload sketch?? thnx again

Ken (@monsonite on Twitter)

March 13, 2013 at 10:36 am Jazly, Your USB module should work. It sounds like it follows the usual FTDI standard connection. The DTR line is the signal used to reset the Arduino. You need to fit a 100nF capacitor between the DTR signal and the reset pin (Pin 1) of the ATmega RTS and CTS are not needed.

Nathan Chantrell (@nathanchantrell on Twitter)

March 13, 2013 at 12:36 pm Yes, just connect the DTR to the one I called RTS, theres already a 100nF cap on the board between it and reset so you wont need an extra one. The CTS pin isnt connected so you should just be able to plug your module straight in, it doesnt matter that you have 3.3V on that pin.

Jazly
March 13, 2013 at 7:41 pm thnx alot for both Nathan and Ken cheers

Kevin
May 3, 2013 at 8:56 am Hi Nathan I have built your veroduino exactly like the diagram and circuit. I only added a led to pin 13 and for power. My problem is that I have uploaded a pov scetch but the leds seem to be flash slower and dimmer than if it was on the UNO. Needless to say that the pov does not work as it should. Why do you think its doing this. Regards Kevin South Africa

Piero
May 3, 2013 at 2:04 pm Hello Nathan, and very very thanks for your usefully tutorials. I have some ATMEL 168 and some 328, and soon Im gonna do my first veroboard, thanks to your posts. cause Im REALLY newbie in electronic stuff (but Im learning, hopefully fast), I dont understand why is there a need to make cuts on the rear of veroboard. Can I ask you why cut tracks? Are not already separated? Thanks in advance and really sorry for the newbie question

Nathan Chantrell (@nathanchantrell on Twitter)

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May 15, 2013 at 6:30 pm @Kevin, Thats puzzling, it shouldnt be any different, what are you powering it with? @Piero, The strips are separated but if you want to put components inline with a strip you need to break it otherwise there would be a short. For example if you look at where the 328 chip is if the tracks were not broken underneath it then all the pins on the left would be joined to those on the right not what we want.

Piero
May 23, 2013 at 2:12 pm Hello Nathan, many thanks for answer Now I understood the problem was that my are not stripboards but perfboard Thanks again ad thanks for all your work Piero

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