Arduino Uno guide - fochica/fochica-wiki GitHub Wiki

An Arduino® Uno is an electronics board that is one of the most popular boards in the Arduino eco-system. The board has a micro controller, connectors, circuitry for power and connectivity. The board can be programmed to perform various tasks and has all the components to allow easy start for beginners. Arduino® is an open-source electronics platform that provides all the software code and hardware designs needed for using Arduino devices.

There were several Arduino Uno revisions, but nowadays revision 3 is the only one that is relevant.

If this is your first Arduino you should strongly consider ordering an Arduino starter kit. This way you will get the board and lots of different components that will be useful for your projects. Search for "Arduino Uno starter kit" and sort by "Best match". Choose one that fits your budget but make sure it contains an Uno (if you don't have one already).

Buying an official board

You can buy an official Arduino board from the company behind Arduino. Expect to pay around $25 in the USA. It is a great way to support the Arduino eco-system.

You can also get official boards from https://www.adafruit.com/, https://www.sparkfun.com/ or other online stores.

Buying Uno clones on eBay or similar sites

Arduino boards are open hardware, so their designs are available to everybody. Various parties make their own boards according to the specification. Since Arduino is a registered trademark, those boards are often not carry the name "Arduino".

Search for "Arduino Uno R3 ATmega328P board". Sort by price.

You might get listings showing price ranges rather than a specific price. This is due to an eBay feature where one listing could be showing different models. Unfortunately, this is often abused by sellers who add a cheap item to a listing so that the listing is shown at an attractive lower price. When you are ordering, be careful to buy an Uno board and not one of the "cheap filler items". For Uno, you might want to specify only listings where the price starts at $3 to filter out spammy listings.

Points to check before ordering:

• Does it come with a USB cable? Which type? Unless you have one available, it might be important to get one. Check that it is mentioned in the text of the listing, even if the image shows a USB cable.
• Does it have female headers (black connectors) soldered on already? Some listing might offer a kit and you are expected to solder it. Some listing offer extra male headers and that is ok.
• Does it have a CH340 chip or a Atmega16U2 chip for USB connectivity? CH340 is cheaper but sometimes it means it won't work out of the box and you need to install an additional driver. This is not a significant reason to not buy a CH340.

Good price for an Uno clone is between $3.9 and $4.5