Finally I finished the first draft of my next book Son of Far Inside The Arduino* along with writing and testing about 35 example programs, almost all of which had to be tested on Arduino boards using the four different AVR microcontrollers the book covers. I think I spent more time on the example programs than I did writing the book!
I certainly learned a lot about these boards, microcontrollers, and a few peripheral devices. I didn’t use many different peripheral devices, but what I used I consider to be eccentric, so each was a learning experience for me, even after my 4+ decades long engineering career.
I did find a niche for every different Arduino board. While I still feel the Nano Every offers the most “bang for the buck” and the ATmega4809 is the most advanced AVR microcontroller in any Arduino board, there is significant grief in the incompatibilities that microcontroller has.
On the other hand, the ATmega32U4 (Arduino Leonardo, Arduino Micro, and the Pro-Micro) have earned newfound admiration. Especially for the examples in the new book, having a free USART is a big win over the Arduino Uno and Nano boards. And they, in their official boards, are attractively priced.
I still have a pile of Arduino Megas, which are nice to use but for their size. And I just bought another Uno board because the connectors were finally wearing out of the one I had been using.
Although not covered in this book, I’m starting to look at the ARM-based Arduino boards, those with the Atmel SAMD21 microcontrollers. These include all the new “MAKR” series of boards, as well as the Nano size “Nano 33 IOT” board, the Uno size “Zero” and the Mega size (with a more powerful but incompatible microcontroller) “Due”. Not only do these have a completely different architecture, they also run on 3.3 volts, which can be an issue.
*Not the real title!