When I began building robots I almost exclusively put together kits. Then I discovered the Arduino. The Arduino is a really popular electronics platform. Since then, I’ve made a LOT of projects that use the Arduino that I would like to make permanent. The problem is that it’s really expensive because an Arduino Uno costs about $30. Because the Arduino is open-source I thought: “Couldn’t I make a very cheap clone?"
This article has been copied over from my old blog, niekproductions.com. Please excuse any mistakes.
So I started designing in eagle CAD. First I placed the base-parts: an atmega328, a 1K resistor for auto-reset functionality and a 16Mhz crystal with 2 capacitors.
Then I decided to add a couple of other elements:
- I wanted every pin on the atmega328 to have its own 5V and Ground pin. This will make it easier to plug in servo’s and other peripherals with a servo-connector.
- I also added a pin-header with DTR, rx and tx to simplify the uploading of code.
- A capacitor was added to the analog reference line
- Then there was the power supply. Eventually i chose a 7805 5v regulator that accepts a input of 7-10 volts. I could’ve went with a LDO regulator, but this was cheaper.
When that was done, the etching started..
Etching
Done!
Finished PCB
The source files are released under BSD License at the GitHub repository.