Arduino Board Description

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino board can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP). The open-source IDE can be downloaded for free (currently for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux). In other words, the Arduino is great development tool intended for everybody who wants to easily and quickly create an own application. For example it could be a blinking LED but also a robot or even a system for controlling of the house central heating operated via GSM network. The possibilities are endless... There is a great article about Arduino Fever. The main accessories for the Arduino board are USB Cable for the connection to PC, and DC Adapter if you need running of application independently.

Arduino Board Features

The Arduino Duemilanove is the enhanced release of Arduino Diecimila version. It adds to the previous new features (autoreset function, extended power connector, built in LED, USB over current protection and the automatic power selection). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. Arduino Board comes fully assembled and tested with ATMega328 pre-loaded with bootloader. Please see the Arduino support forum for more information about this new board revision and bootloader. The main accessories for the Arduino board are USB Cable for the connection to PC, and DC Adapter if you need running of application independently.

Overview
The Arduino Duemilanove ("2009") is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega168 (datasheet) or ATmega328 (datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. "Duemilanove" means 2009 in Italian and is named after the year of its release. The Duemilanove is the latest in a series of USB Arduino boards; for a comparison with previous versions, see the index of Arduino boards.

Summary
Microcontroller Operating Voltage Input Voltage (recommended) Input Voltage (limits) Digital I/O Pins Analog Input Pins DC Current per I/O Pin DC Current for 3.3V Pin Flash Memory SRAM EEPROM Clock Speed ATmega168 5V 7-12V 6-20V 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output) 6 40 mA 50 mA 16 KB (ATmega168) or 32 KB (ATmega328) of which 2 KB used by bootloader 1 KB (ATmega168) or 2 KB (ATmega328) 512 bytes (ATmega168) or 1 KB (ATmega328) 16 MHz

Schematic & Reference Design

EAGLE files: arduino-duemilanove-reference-design.zip Schematic: arduino-duemilanove-schematic.pdf

Power
The Arduino Duemilanove can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply. The power source is selected automatically. External (non-USB) power can come either from an AC-to-DC adapter (wall-wart) or battery. The adapter can be connected by plugging a 2.1mm center-positive plug into the board's power

jack. Leads from a battery can be inserted in the Gnd and Vin pin headers of the POWER connector. The board can operate on an external supply of 6 to 20 volts. If supplied with less than 7V, however, the 5V pin may supply less than five volts and the board may be unstable. If using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and damage the board. The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts. The power pins are as follows:

VIN. The input voltage to the Arduino board when it's using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB connection or other regulated power source). You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage via the power jack, access it through this pin. 5V. The regulated power supply used to power the microcontroller and other components on the board. This can come either from VIN via an on-board regulator, or be supplied by USB or another regulated 5V supply. 3V3. A 3.3 volt supply generated by the on-board FTDI chip. Maximum current draw is 50 mA. GND. Ground pins.

Memory
The ATmega168 has 16 KB of flash memory for storing code (of which 2 KB is used for the bootloader); the ATmega328 has 32 KB, (also with 2 KB used for the bootloader). The ATmega168 has 1 KB of SRAM and 512 bytes of EEPROM (which can be read and written with the EEPROM library); the ATmega328 has 2 KB of SRAM and 1 KB of EEPROM.

Input and Output

Each of the 14 digital pins on the Duemilanove can be used as an input or output, using pinMode(), digitalWrite(), and digitalRead() functions. They operate at 5 volts. Each pin can provide or receive a maximum of 40 mA and has an internal pull-up resistor (disconnected by default) of 20-50 kOhms. In addition, some pins have specialized functions:

Serial: 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data. These pins are connected to the corresponding pins of the FTDI USB-to-TTL Serial chip. External Interrupts: 2 and 3. These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt on a low value, a rising or falling edge, or a change in value. See the attachInterrupt() function for details. PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function. SPI: 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), 12 (MISO), 13 (SCK). These pins support SPI communication using the SPI library. LED: 13. There is a built-in LED connected to digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the pin is LOW, it's off.

The Duemilanove has 6 analog inputs, each of which provide 10 bits of resolution (i.e. 1024 different values). By default they measure from ground to 5 volts, though is it possible to change the upper end of their range using the AREF pin and the analogReference() function. Additionally, some pins have specialized functionality:

I2C: analog input pins A4 (SDA) and A5 (SCL). Support I2C (TWI) communication using the Wire library.

There are a couple of other pins on the board:

AREF. Reference voltage for the analog inputs. Used with analogReference(). Reset. Bring this line LOW to reset the microcontroller. Typically used to add a reset button to shields which block the one on the board.

See also the mapping between Arduino pins and ATmega168 ports.

Communication
The Arduino Duemilanove has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other microcontrollers. The ATmega168 and ATmega328 provide UART TTL (5V) serial communication, which is available on digital pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). An FTDI FT232RL on the board channels this serial communication over USB and the FTDI drivers (included with the Arduino software) provide a virtual com port to software on the computer. The Arduino software includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to be sent to and from the Arduino board. The RX and TX LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the FTDI chip and USB connection to the computer (but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1). A SoftwareSerial library allows for serial communication on any of the Duemilanove's digital pins. The ATmega168 and ATmega328 also support I2C (TWI) and SPI communication. The Arduino software includes a Wire library to simplify use of the I2C bus; see the documentation for details. For SPI communication, use the SPI library.

Programming
The Arduino Duemilanove can be programmed with the Arduino software (download). Select "Arduino Diecimila or Duemilanove w/ ATmega168" or "Arduino Duemilanove w/ ATmega328" from the Tools > Board menu (according to the microcontroller on your board). For details, see the reference and tutorials. The ATmega168 or ATmega328 on the Arduino Duemilanove comes preburned with a bootloader that allows you to upload new code to it without the use of an external hardware programmer. It communicates using the original STK500 protocol (reference, C header files).

You can also bypass the bootloader and program the microcontroller through the ICSP (InCircuit Serial Programming) header; see these instructions for details.

Automatic (Software) Reset

Rather then requiring a physical press of the reset button before an upload, the Arduino Duemilanove is designed in a way that allows it to be reset by software running on a connected computer. One of the hardware flow control lines (DTR) of the FT232RL is connected to the reset line of the ATmega168 or ATmega328 via a 100 nanofarad capacitor. When this line is asserted (taken low), the reset line drops long enough to reset the chip. The Arduino software uses this capability to allow you to upload code by simply pressing the upload button in the Arduino environment. This means that the bootloader can have a shorter timeout, as the lowering of DTR can be well-coordinated with the start of the upload. This setup has other implications. When the Duemilanove is connected to either a computer running Mac OS X or Linux, it resets each time a connection is made to it from software (via USB). For the following half-second or so, the bootloader is running on the Duemilanove. While it is programmed to ignore malformed data (i.e. anything besides an upload of new code), it will intercept the first few bytes of data sent to the board after a connection is opened. If a sketch running on the board receives one-time configuration or other data when it first starts, make sure that the software with which it communicates waits a second after opening the connection and before sending this data. The Duemilanove contains a trace that can be cut to disable the auto-reset. The pads on either side of the trace can be soldered together to re-enable it. It's labeled "RESET-EN". You may also be able to disable the auto-reset by connecting a 110 ohm resistor from 5V to the reset line; see this forum thread for details.

USB Overcurrent Protection

The Arduino Duemilanove has a resettable polyfuse that protects your computer's USB ports from shorts and overcurrent. Although most computers provide their own internal protection, the fuse provides an extra layer of protection. If more than 500 mA is applied to the USB port, the fuse will automatically break the connection until the short or overload is removed.

Physical Characteristics
The maximum length and width of the Duemilanove PCB are 2.7 and 2.1 inches respectively, with the USB connector and power jack extending beyond the former dimension. Three screw holes allow the board to be attached to a surface or case. Note that the distance between digital pins 7 and 8 is 160 mil (0.16"), not an even multiple of the 100 mil spacing of the other pins.

Listen to the name

This is how you can pronounce the board's name in proper Italian, download the sound file in the format that better suits you: WAV, OGG, MP3, FLAC, WMA