I heard that the ON LED is supposed to be green...
Also, it seems to already have the Blink sketch uploaded, but whenever I try to upload another sketch, it doesn't work, saying:
"avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding"
I have set the board and serial port correctly.
I use Mac OS X Mountain Lion, and I got the board off amazon from UkTechParts for £15.92
Is it a fake? It does have the "MADE IN ITALY" text and logo on the back, and all the text seems the same on my board and the official pictures.
The blue colour of the board does seem ever so slightly bluer, but it might just be me...
Please let me know if you need extra info/photos!
Thank you!
P.S. Oh and I do have a replacement chip if necessary; the chip that is already on the board is "ATMEGA328P-PU"
Macro206:
I heard that the ON LED is supposed to be green...
It is.
Also, it seems to already have the Blink sketch uploaded, but whenever I try to upload another sketch, it doesn't work, saying:
"avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding"
I have set the board and serial port correctly.
Probably has a different bootloader installed than the one you are expecting. Or no bootloader is installed.
...and I got the board off amazon from UkTechParts for £15.92
Were I in your shoes, I would send it back and use the fact that they violated the trademark as leverage to try to get a refund on shipping.
The R in 'Platform' on the back looks wrong. Also the screen printing is not very good so there is a good chance that it is a fake. Compare it carefully with:-
Also their web site is down so they might have done a runner.
Given that the on LED is red as well I would say it was a fake.
One really doesn't need to go all technical on if a offered arduino board is counterfeit or not. The vast majority of the ones violating trademark sell for ridiculously less then the real deal. If it's selling for more then 20% less or more you can be pretty certain.
Maybe in the USB serial converter chip as part of the USB identification/enumeration thing? Seems to me the older boards that used the FTDI chip seemed to know what com port number was assigned to each board I've ever attached to it, as each board would always attach as the same com port number and never were two boards ever assigned the same com port number, always seemed magic to me. But I'm pretty certain that the 328P's EEPROM is not used for anything other then by users.
(Even if there was a serial number in there, since EEPROM is EE, that would only help if part of it could be made read-only. What we really need is a globally unique number like a MAC, kindof thing.)
(Even if there was a serial number in there, since EEPROM is EE, that would only help if part of it could be made read-only. What we really need is a globally unique number like a MAC, kindof thing.)
The theory is that the counterfeiter is too lazy or ignorant to program the EEPROM when they program the bootloader. Doesn't matter. There is no serial number.