NEW Arduino Compatible

BEST DEAL

For US$10, it is a heck of a deal. [link]

EXCELLENT PACKAGING

Use of excellent padding, anti-static bag and silica desiccant.

ACCESSORIES

Very nice USB cable and mounting hardware

INNOVATION and IMPROVEMENTS

Features implemented in the BUONO:

• Selectable voltage operation: 3.3V or 5V
• Better location for LEDs and reset switch, especially if you use a shield
• Higher power. Maximum of 1.8A for peripheral devices
• Cleaner AVCC. LC Low pass filter for the AVCC allows the ADC to be more accurate
• Easy access ground terminal to facilitate measurement and trouble shooting

Power is provided by the FP6182 DC-DC converter [link]. It can provide up to 2A of current

SDM microprocessor and high quality crystal oscillator.

Silicon Labs C8051F321 USB bridge chip [link]. (Make sure you have the latest firmware [link]) for full compatibility with Arduino UNO R3,

I am not sure why use a Silicon Labs parts, except it may be less costly and does not require an external oscillator.

The USB MCUs feature an on-board universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 function controller with an integrated transceiver and on-chip clock recovery. No external resistors, crystal, voltage regulator, EEPROM or other components are required. On-chip resources include a high-speed 8051 CPU with up to 64 kB Flash, UARTs, SMBus, SPI, timers, counters and PWM generators. On-chip analog features include a multi-channel 10-bit ADC, voltage reference, internal oscillator, comparators and a temperature sensor. Available in 28-pin QFN, 32-pin LQFP or 48-pin TQFP packages, these devices provide a single-chip solution for embedded USB applications.

TESTING THE ARDUINO-COMPATIBLE BUONO

The Arduino Buono R3 is an Arduino UNO clone. It is designed to behave exactly as the Arduino UNO R3.

I wanted to make sure it is a fully fully functioning before I test the rest of the system.

1- Plug the device to a USB port with the included micro-USB cable. Immediately you will see that the OS will recognize the device and attempt to load the Arduino UNO driver. If you do not have the Arduino software installed, the computer will not find the device driver

2- The next step is to check the FW version, and ensure it is version 0200 or newer (check on the device manager for “Arduino UNO”). The manufacturer website has the instructions to install the latest firmware [link]

3- Download the Arduino software and install it. It will also install the USB driver.

Confirm that you want to install the Arduino USB Driver.

After installation, the Arduino UNO will be recognized as a periphery device. In this case a serial device in COM3

4- I like to test with the “BLINK” sketch. Open the sketch in the Arduino software and upload it to the Arduino. If everything works as expected, the device should be fully operational.

 

Additional information from the manufacturer: [link], [link]