Arduino Mega 2560 Board

Arduino board is an open-source microcontroller board which is based on Atmega 2560 microcontroller. The growth environment of this board executes the processing or wiring language. These boards have recharged the automation industry with their simple to utilize platform wherever everybody with small otherwise no technical backdrop can start by discovering some necessary skills to program as well as run the Arduino board. These boards are used to extend separate interactive objects otherwise we can connect to software on your PC like MaxMSP, Processing, and Flash. This article discusses an introduction to Arduino mega 2560 board, pin diagram and its specifications.

What is an Arduino Mega 2560?

The microcontroller board like “Arduino Mega” depends on the ATmega2560 microcontroller. It includes digital input/output pins-54, where 16 pins are analog inputs, 14 are used like PWM outputs hardware serial ports (UARTs) – 4, a crystal oscillator-16 MHz, an ICSP header, a power jack, a USB connection, as well as an RST button. This board mainly includes everything which is essential for supporting the microcontroller. So, the power supply of this board can be done by connecting it to a PC using a USB cable, or battery or an AC-DC adapter. This board can be protected from the unexpected electrical discharge by placing a base plate.

The SCL & SDA pins of Mega 2560 R3 board connects to beside the AREF pin. Additionally, there are two latest pins located near the RST pin. One pin is the IOREF that permit the shields to adjust the voltage offered from the Arduino board. Another pin is not associated & it is kept for upcoming purposes. These boards work with every existing shield although can adjust to latest shields which utilize these extra pins.

Arduino Mega Specifications

The specifications of Arduino Mega include the following.

• The ATmega2560 is a Microcontroller
• The operating voltage of this microcontroller is 5volts
• The recommended Input Voltage will range from 7volts to 12volts
• The input voltage will range from 6volts to 20volts
• The digital input/output pins are 54 where 15 of these pins will supply PWM o/p.
• Analog Input Pins are 16
• DC Current for each input/output pin is 40 mA
• DC Current used for 3.3V Pin is 50 mA
• Flash Memory like 256 KB where 8 KB of flash memory is used with the help of bootloader
• The static random access memory (SRAM) is 8 KB
• The electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) is 4 KB
• The clock (CLK) speed is 16 MHz
• The USB host chip used in this is MAX3421E
• The length of this board is 101.52 mm
• The width of this board is 53.3 mm
• The weight of this board is 36 g

Arduino Mega Pin Configuration

The pin configuration of this Arduino mega 2560 board is shown below. Every pin of this board comes by a particular function which is allied with it. All analog pins of this board can be used as digital I/O pins. By using this board, the Arduino mega projected can be designed. These boards offer flexible work memory space is the more & processing power that permits to work with different types of sensors without delay. When we compare with other types of Arduino boards, these boards are physically superior.

Pin 3.3V & 5V

These pins are used for providing o/p regulated voltage approximately 5V. This RPS (regulated power supply) provides the power to the microcontroller as well as other components which are used over the Arduino mega board. It can be attained from Vin-pin of the board or one more regulated voltage supply-5V otherwise USB cable, whereas another voltage regulation can be offered by 3.3V0-pin. The max power can be drawn by this is 50mA.

GND Pin

The Arduino mega board includes 5-GND pins where one of these pins can be used whenever the project requires.

Reset (RST) Pin

The RST pin of this board can be used for rearranging the board. The board can be rearranged by setting this pin to low.

Vin Pin

The range of supplied input voltage to the board ranges from 7volts to 20volts. The voltage provided by the power jack can be accessed through this pin. However, the output voltage through this pin to the board will be automatically set up to 5V.

Serial Communication

The serial pins of this board like TXD and RXD are used to transmit & receive the serial data. Tx indicates the transmission of information whereas the RX indicates receive data. The serial pins of this board have four combinations. For serial 0, it includes Tx (1) and Rx (0), for serial 1, it includes Tx(18) & Rx(19), for serial 2 it includes Tx(16) & Rx(17), and finally for serial 3, it includes Tx(14) & Rx(15).

External Interrupts

The external interrupts can be formed by using 6-pins like interrupt 0(0), interrupt 1(3), interrupt 2(21), interrupt 3(20), interrupt 4(19), interrupt 5(18). These pins produce interrupts by a number of ways i.e. Providing LOW value, rising or falling edge or changing the value to the interrupt pins.

LED

This Arduino board includes a LED and that is allied to pin-13 which is named as digital pin 13. This LED can be operated based on the high and low values of the pin. This will give you to modify the programming skills in real time.

AREF

The term AREF stands for Analog Reference Voltage which is a reference voltage for analog inputs

Analog Pins

There are 16-analog pins included on the board which is marked as A0-A15. It is very important to know that all the analog pins on this board can be utilized like digital I/O pins. Every analog pin is accessible with the 10-bit resolution which can gauge from GND to 5 volts. But, the higher value can be altered using AREF pin as well as the function of analog Reference ().

I2C

The I2C communication can be supported by two pins namely 20 & 21 where 20-pin signifies Serial Data Line (SDA) which is used for holding the data & 21-pin signifies Serial Clock Line (SCL ) mostly utilized for offering data synchronization among the devices

SPI Communication

The term SPI is a serial peripheral interface which is used to transmit the data among the controller & other components. Four pins like MISO (50), MOSI (51), SCK (52), and SS (53) are utilized for the communication of SPI.

Dimensions

The dimension of Arduino Mega 2560 board mainly includes the length as well as widths like 101.6mm or 4 inch X 53.34 mm or 2.1 inches. It is comparatively superior to other types of boards which are accessible in the marketplace. But, the power jack and USB port are somewhat expanded from the specified measurements.

Shield Compatibility

Arduino Mega is well-suited for most of the guards used in other Arduino boards. Before you propose to utilize a guard, confirm the operating voltage of the guard is well-suited with the voltage of the board. The operating voltage of most of the guards will be 3.3V otherwise 5V. But, guards with high operating voltage can injure the board.

In addition, the distribution header of the shield should vibrate with the distribution pin of the Arduino board. For that, one can connect the shield simply with the Arduino board & make it within a running state.

Programming

The programming of an Arduino Mega 2560 can be done with the help of an IDE (Arduino Software), and it supports C-programming language. Here the sketch is the code in the software which is burned within the software and then moved to the Arduino board using a USB cable.

An Arduino mega board includes a boot loader which eliminates an external burner utilization to burn the program code into the Arduino board. Here, the communication of the boot loader can be done using an STK500 protocol.

When we compile as well as burn the Arduino program, then we can detach the USB cable to remove the power supply from the Arduino board. Whenever you propose to use the Arduino board for your project, the power supply can be provided by a power jack otherwise Vin pin of the board.

Another feature of this is multitasking wherever Arduino mega board comes handy. But, Arduino IDE Software doesn’t support multi-tasking however one can utilize additional operating systems namely RTX & FreeRTOS to write C-program for this reason. This is flexible to use in your personal custom build program with the help of an ISP connector.

Thus, this is all about an Arduino Mega 2560 datasheet. It is a substitution of the older Arduino Mega board. Because of the number of pins, usually, it is not utilized for general projects however we can discover them in complex projects such as temperature sensing, 3D printers, IOT applications, radon detectors, monitoring of real-time data applications, etc. Here is a question for you, what are the specifications of Arduino mega 2560 board?

Image Sources: Arduino