NERO-SP1 – Arduino UNO Compatible Board

ATmega328, FT231X NerO – MCU 8-Bit AVR Embedded Evaluation Board.

This is the NERO-SP1, an Arduino compatible module with short shield pin. This Nero module is a reference design for an energy efficient Arduino UNO compatible board based on the ATMEGA328 with the FTDI FT231X USB- UART delivers 5V at a full 1A without overheating.

The NERO-SP1 board, manufactured by Bridgetek, features a switching mode power supply to provide 5V power, instead of the usual linear regulator found in the vast majority of Arduino boards. Still, a linear regulator is used to provide 3.3V power.

Another difference is the use of an FT232RL chip instead of the ATMEGA8 we find on the official Arduino boards. The board is still detected as an Arduino Uno inside Arduino IDE, but the interesting thing is that the FT232RL goes into a low power mode when the USB cable is not connected.

Features

• NerO-SP1 with 2.54mm pitch female header with short shield pins
• 16MHz ATmega328 32-pin TQFP package microcontroller and FTDI FT231XS USB UART interface
• UNO R3 form factor
• 14 digital I/O pins (6 PWM outputs)
• 6 analogue inputs
• A micro-B USB connects to PC connect or provides power supply over USB for board
• VIN input voltage range from 7V to 20V, hardware reset button provided
• CE and FCC certified
• Optiboot bootloader preloaded, Arduino SW (IDE) & UNO library compatible, Arduino shield compatible

The NERO-SP1 is available for ~20 USD from various distributors online.

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