Tomas Kovacik Launches NanoXX4, FullMega Arduino-Compatible Boards at Just $1 a PCB
Ultra-cheap introductory price for those willing to supply their own parts, while the kit form and assembled units aren't exactly expensive.
Bratislava-based engineer Tomas Kovacik has launched two Arduino-inspired development boards designed to offer an increased quantity of IO pins compared to the Arduino Nano and Mega on which they are based — and he's selling the bare PCBs for just $1.
Kovacik's NanoXX4 and FullMega are unashamedly based on the popular Nano and Mega development boards, but born of a desire to get more out of each by increasing the number of input/output (IO) pins available to use. In the case of the FullMega, the result is an impressive 16 additional pins — including two more hardware interrupts, five more pin-charge interrupts, and two exposed timer inputs.
While both designs include additional IO over the original Arduino versions, compatibility has not been abandoned: The FullMega is compatible with any and all Arduino Mega shield add-ons, while the NanoXX4 only needs a little more space on a breadboard than the Arduino Nano would require.
The boards are part of a family of designs created by Kovacik. "I was in need for drop-in replacement for Arduino nano with more functionality (pins, UARTs, I2C...)," he explains, "so I made a few boards for a few different/updated chips and while I was playing with this I designed more than what I needed (I mostly use breadboard compatible version).
"I designed this set of boards: ATmega328P/PA/PB board compatible with Arduino Nano; ATmega328P/PA/PB board compatible with Arduino Uno; ATmega324P/PA/PB board compatible with Arduino Nano; Older ATmega324P/PA board compatible with Arduino Nano; Atmega324P/PA board compatible with Arduino Mega; ATmega2560 board compatible with Arduino Mega with all pins routed to pin headers."
All the designs are available for download from Kovacik's GitHub repository under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence; boards can be purchased from his Tindie store priced at just $1 for a bare PCB rising to $20 for a fully assembled version.