the chip used in the arduinos is old
recently a replacement with more
features appeared on aliexpress does it
really outperform the grandpa atmel 328p
how compatible is it
and what is its most significant
advantage
gritty youtubers here is the guy with
the swiss accent with a new episode and
fresh ideas around sensors and
microcontrollers
remember if you subscribe you will
always sit in the first row
the atmel 328p chip is used in the
arduino uno and in the nano
it is an 8-bit mcu and the whole
generation learned to program with this
chip
and it is still handy if we need low
power consumption and no wi-fi
already a few years ago arduino created
the nano every board and used the atmeka
4809 chip
this sport was not very popular because
it is different from the original nano
recently i discovered more and more
boards using the smallest sister chip of
this family the atmeka 4808
it seems a natural next level for some
of our projects so in this video we will
compare this new chip with the existing
families check on how it can be
programmed
look at some goodies
check its power consumption
look at compatibility aspects and
finally look at the typical application
for such a chip a loravan node
let's start with the comparison
both old arduino boards run on 5 volts
only
and the esp32 as well as the pi pico use
3.3 volt chips
this nano every clone board with the
4808 chip is 5 volts if you get it but
you easily can change it by moving this
resistor to the 3.3 volts position
you can also provide 3.3 volts directly
to the board
under normal conditions the chip should
go up to 20 megahertz on 3.3 volts
officially probably only to 16 megahertz
but it is definitely faster than the 3.3
volt arduino pro micro which only runs
at 8 megahertz at 3.3 volts but not
comparable with the 32-bit mpus which
run much faster
in all other disciplines we only can
compare it with the other 8-bit chips
and not with the esp-32 or the pico
it has 1.5 times the flash of the uno or
standard nano and it has three times
more ram
this fact becomes essential for newer
projects like attn or helium node and it
helps because we do not need to save
space as we had with the older chips
pins are related to the board size the
arduino maker has a ton of pins the
smaller boards have much less of course
if it comes to the power consumption of
the development board the esp32 as well
as the mega consume around 100
milliampere the uno as well as the pico
are in the 40 milliampere the chinese
nano every clone is in a different
league 15 milliampere on 5 volts and 7
milliampere on 3.3 volts
this chart clearly shows that this chip
is ideal for small and low power 3.3
volt projects without wi-fi
it is the natural successor of the
atmeka 328p for the new 3.3 volts world
similar to the pro mini but with more
memory and a higher clock rate if you
need more pins you can use a 4809 in a
bigger package by the way
the next question is how is it
programmed here we have two
possibilities either through the usb
connector or the unified programming and
debug interface updi
fortunately my clones came with a
bootloader installed
and could be programmed through usb
in the menu are other selections an
interesting detail that can save you
time even if you use the initial
bootloader from china you must check no
bootloader
please do not ask me why
other essential selections are clock
rate the brown arch detector that
switches the cpu off if its voltage goes
below the selected value and the pin out
here you can select if you use the clone
board as i do or if you want to program
your own design with just the chip
if you select what you see here it
should run
an interesting detail for the clock
speed
these new chips have internal
oscillators that reduce your board's
design complexity a minimal
configuration is shown here an mpu chip
two capacitors and a pin header for
programming and serial done
maybe you add a reset switch if you do
not want to make the same mistake as the
pipeco team
i'll leave you a link to a video that
shows you how you can create a updi
programmer using an arduino
and a link to the tindy store where you
can get a ready-made pcb but because
updi is a single wire interface the
interface is simple
next come the goodies apart from the
things mentioned before
the chip offers three serial connections
very handy for sensors with serial
connections like a gps
and we can swap some interface pins
similar to the esp32
this swapping capability is limited but
helpful mainly if you create your own
pcb
we all know the speed of toggling output
pins is slow for all arduinos and we had
to use tricks to get it to a decent
speed
here we have new functions which are
fast by design
digital read fast and digital right fast
let's try it out using the standard
functions we can generate a square wave
signal of 320 kilohertz
using the fast write function we reach
nearly six megahertz at a clock rate of
16 megahertz
on 20 megahertz it is the same by the
way
strange
the power consumption is around 16
milliampere on 5 volts and 16 megahertz
if we change it to 3.3 volts it drops to
below 10 milliampere
so it is definitely lower than all other
boards
and it can deep sleep
we just need to use the low power avr 0
library
the deep sleep current of the board is 4
milliampere
fortunately i have this cheap
desoldering iron to remove the
unnecessary power led without it the
consumption is 2 milliampere still much
more than the below 1 microampere of the
datasheet as usual this value can only
be achieved when no additional chips are
on the board or if they are switched off
during my tests i did not find
compatibility issues other than a new
low power library
but i assume that libraries that use
registers will not work with this chip
currently i see broader support coming
for this chip family and i assume they
will eventually replace the
atmega328 based ports
so the library support should become
better over time
where should we use these boards
a colleague of mine tried a lorawan node
and it worked fine this is one of the
prominent applications of these chips
because other than the standard arduino
chips they offer enough memory for the
new lorawan generation
and other than the esp32 they are easy
to use with the elmig library because
they do not reboot after deep sleep
so maybe we will get a ready-made lora
board with such a chip and a lora module
and most important they can quickly run
on 3.3 volts we get fewer and fewer 5v
sensors and not everybody wants to work
with level shifters i will no more buy
old nanos because they have the same
price and are 5 volts only
i used the chinese clone board for this
comparison but arduino sells a nano
every 2.
there are a few differences though the
original board uses the 4809 chip with
more pins and it has an external chip
containing the bootloader
the arduino uno wi-fi uses this chip too
and there are a few other boards you can
buy if you have particular needs
that was all for today as always you
find all the relevant links in the
description i hope this video was useful
or at least interesting for you if true
please consider supporting the channel
to secure its future existence thank you
bye