KS0342 Keyestudio MEGA 2560 Compatible Board Advanced

1. Introduction

Keyestudio Mega 2560 compatible Advanced is a microcontroller board based on the ATMEGA2560-16AU , fully compatible with Keyestudio Mega 2560 R3 board and ARDUINO MEGA 2560 REV3.

It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 15 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, 2 ICSP headers, and a reset button.

It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller. With its bootloader, program can be downloaded directly with USB and you don’t need to use other external programmer.

Just simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it via an external DC power jack (DC 7-12V) or via female headers Vin /GND (DC 7-12V) to get started.

Note: the most important difference between keyestudio MEGA 2560 compatible board Advanced and keyestudio MEGA 2560 R3 board is the voltage regulator chip used in the board.

The voltage regulator chip used in keyestudio MEGA 2560 R3 board is NSP1117. When connect the external power, output 5V, the drive current is 1A. However, keyestudio MEGA 2560 compatible board Advanced features the voltage-regulator chip MP2307DN. When connect the external power, output 5V, the drive current can be 2A.

The MEGA 2560 is designed for more complex projects. With 54 digital I/O pins, 16 analog inputs and a larger space for your sketch, it is the recommended board for 3D printers and robotics projects. This gives your projects plenty of room and opportunities.

keyestudio MEGA 2560 compatible board Advanced

keyestudio MEGA 2560 R3 board

voltage-regulator chip

MP2307DN

NSP1117

Power Output

5V

5V

Drive Current(external power)

2A

1A

Drive Current(USB power)

0.5A

0.5A

keyestudio MEGA 2560 R3 board:

keyestudio MEGA 2560 compatible board Advanced:

2. TECH SPECS

Microcontroller

ATMEGA2560-16AU

Operating Voltage

5V

Input Voltage (recommended)

DC7-12V

Digital I/O Pins

54 (D0-D53)

PWM Digital I/O Pins

15 (D2-D13; D44-D46)

Analog Input Pins

16 (A0-A15)

DC Current per I/O Pin

20 mA

DC Current for 3.3V Pin

50 mA

Flash Memory

256 KB of which 8 KB used by bootloader

SRAM

8 KB

EEPROM

4 KB

Clock Speed

16 MHz

LED_BUILTIN

D13

3. Details

  • Dimensions: 108mm x 53.5mm x 15mm

  • Weight: 33.6g

4. Element and Interface

Here is an explanation of what every element and interface of the board does:

Picture

Introduction

Digital I/O
Arduino MEGA has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 15 can be used as PWM outputs). These pins can be configured as digital input pin to read the logic value (0 or 1). Or used as digital output pin to drive different modules like LED, relay, etc.
Using pinMode(), digitalWrite(), and digitalRead() functions.

GND
Ground pins

AREF
Reference voltage (0-5V) for analog inputs. Used with analogReference(). Configures the reference voltage used for analog input (i.e. the value used as the top of the input range).

SDA
IIC communication pin

SCL
IIC communication pin

ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming) Header
the AVR, an Arduino micro-program header consisting of MOSI, MISO, SCK, RESET, VCC, and GND. Connected to the ATMEGA16U2-MU. When connecting to PC, program the firmware to ATMEGA16U2-MU.

USB Connection
Arduino board can be powered via USB connector.
All you needed to do is connecting the USB port to PC using a USB cable.

D13 LED
There is a built-in LED driven by digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the pin is LOW, it’s off.

ATMEGA 16U2-MU
USB to serial chip, can convert the USB signal into serial port signal.

TX LED
Onboard you can find the label: TX (transmit)
When Arduino board communicates via serial port, send the message, TX led flashes.

RX LED
Onboard you can find the label: RX(receive )
When Arduino board communicates via serial port, receive the message, RX led flashes.

Crystal Oscillator
How does Arduino calculate time? by using a crystal oscillator.
The number printed on the top of the Arduino crystal is 16.000H9H. It tells us that the frequency is 16,000,000 Hertz or 16MHz.

Voltage Regulator
Convert an external input DC7-12V voltage into DC 5V, then switch DC 5V to the processor and other components. Output DC 5V, the drive current is 2A.

DC Power Jack
Arduino board can be supplied with an external power DC7-12V from the DC power jack.

IOREF
This pin on the board provides the voltage reference with which the microcontroller operates. A properly configured shield can read the IOREF pin voltage and select the appropriate power source or enable voltage translators on the outputs for working with the 5V or 3.3V.

RESET Header
Connect an external button to reset the board. The function is the same as reset button.

Power Pin 3V3
Provides 3.3V voltage output

Power Pin 5V
Provides 5V voltage output

Vin
You can supply an external power input DC7-12V through this pin to Arduino board.

Analog Pins
Onboard has 16 analog inputs, labeled A0 to A15.

RESET Button
You can reset your Arduino board, for example, start the program from the initial status. You can use the RESET button.

ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming) Header
the AVR, an Arduino micro-program header consisting of MOSI, MISO, SCK, RESET, VCC, and GND.
It is often called the SPI (serial peripheral interface) and can be considered an “extension” of the output. In fact, slave the output devices to the SPI bus host.
When connecting to PC, program the firmware to ATMEGA2560-16AU.

Microcontroller
Each Arduino board has its own microcontroller. You can regard it as the brain of your board.
The main IC (integrated circuit) on the Arduino is slightly different from the panel pair. Microcontrollers are usually from ATMEL. Before you load a new program on the Arduino IDE, you must know what IC is on your board. This information can be checked at the top of IC.

Power LED Indicator
Powering the Arduino, LED on means that your circuit board is correctly powered on. If LED is off, connection is wrong.

5. Specialized Functions of Some Pins

  • Serial Communication: D0 (RX0) and D1 (TX1); Serial 1: D19 (RX1) and D18 (TX1); Serial 2: D17 (RX2) and D16 (TX2); Serial 3: D15 (RX3) and D14 (TX3).

Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data. Pins 0 and 1 are also connected to the corresponding pins of the ATmega16U2 USB-to-TTL Serial chip.

  • PWM Pins (Pulse-Width Modulation): D2 to D13, and D44 to D46.

Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.

  • External Interrupts: D2 (interrupt 0), D3 (interrupt 1), D18 (interrupt 5), D19 (interrupt 4), D20 (interrupt 3), and D21 (interrupt 2).

These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt on a low level, a rising or falling edge, or a change in level. See the attachInterrupt() function for details.

  • SPI communication: D53 (SS), D52 (SCK), D51 (MOSI), D50 (MISO).

These pins support SPI communication using theSPI library. The SPI pins are also broken out on the ICSP header, which is physically compatible with the Arduino Uno.

  • IIC communication: D20 (SDA); D21 (SCL). Support TWI communication using the Wire library.

6. Tips

  • Automatic (Software) Reset: rather than requiring a physical press of the reset button before an upload, the Mega 2560 board is designed in a way that allows it to be reset by software running on a connected computer.

  • The Mega 2560 board 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.

7. Detailed Use with ARDUINO Software as follows

7.1 Software Download

Open the browser and search: https://www.arduino.cc/en/software , we will take WINDOWS system as an example to show you how to download and install.

You just need to click JUSTDOWNLOAD,then click the downloaded file to install it. And when the ZIP file is downloaded,you can directly unzip and start it.

7.2 Installing Driver

Download drivers : drivers

Next, we will introduce the driver installation of UNO R3 development board. The driver installation may have slight differences in different computer systems. So in the following let’s move on to the driver installation in the WIN 7 system.

The Arduino folder contains both the Arduino program itself and the drivers that allow the Arduino to be connected to your computer by a USB cable. Before we launch the Arduino software, you are going to install the USB drivers.

Plug one end of your USB cable into the Arduino and the other into a USB socket on your computer. When you connect UNO board to your computer at the first time, right click the icon of your “Computer” —>for “Properties”—> click the “Device manager”, under “Other Devices”, you should see an icon for “Unknown device” with a little yellow warning triangle next to it. This is your Arduino.

Then right-click on the device and select the top menu option (Update Driver Software…) shown as the figure below.

It will then be prompted to either “Search Automatically for updated driver software” or “Browse my computer for driver software”. Shown as below. In this page, select “Browse my computer for driver software”.

After that, select the option to browse and navigate to the “drivers” folder of Arduino installation.

Click “Next” and you may get a security warning, if so, allow the software to be installed. Shown as below.

img

Installation completed, click “Close”.

Up to now, the driver is installed well. Then you can right click “Computer” —>“Properties”—>“Device manager”, you should see the device shown below.

7.3 Set Arduino IDE

Connect the UNO board to your computer using the USB cable. The green power LED should go on.

Select the development board and port.

Note: to avoid errors, the COM Port should keep the same as the Ports shown on Device Manager.

7.4 Upload the Program

Below is an example program for displaying the Hello World! Copy and paste the code to the Arduino environment IDE.

int val;//define variable val
int ledpin=13;// define digital pin13

void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(9600);// set the baud rate at 9600. When connected to a specific device, (e.g. bluetooth), the baud rate needs to be the same with the device.
    pinMode(ledpin,OUTPUT);// initialize digital pin 13 as output. When using I/O ports on an Arduino, this kind of set up is always needed.
}

void loop()
{
    val=Serial.read();// read the instruction or character from PC to Arduino, and assign them to Val.
    if(val=='R')// determine if the instruction or character received is an “R”.
    {  // if it’s “R”,    
        digitalWrite(ledpin,HIGH);// set the LED on digital pin 13 on. 
        delay(500);
        digitalWrite(ledpin,LOW);// set the LED on digital pin 13 off.    
        delay(500);
        Serial.println("Hello World!");// display“Hello World！”.
    }
}

Picture

Introduction

Check the code for errors

Upload the current Sketch to the Arduino

Display the serial data being sent from the Arduino

Then set the baud rate as 9600, enter an “R” and click Send, you should see the TX led on the board blink once, and then D13 led blink once, finally “Hello World!” is showed on the monitor, the RX led blink once.

img

8. Package Included

  • Keyestudio MEGA 2560 Advanced board * 1pcs

  • USB cable * 1pcs