Which to buy? Arduino vs. Sainsmart

Welcome!

Arduino. There have been complaints about the Sainsmart products. Arduino's are available in the US,
at RadioShack even. Mouser.com also carries them, not far to ship (Texas) to you. $4.99 residential delivery. Good prices on replacement chips when you smoke one.
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=arduino
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Atmel/ATMEGA328P-PU/?qs=%2Fha2pyFadujcrAcowhVCzj0vtgCenYitTBfrdeSNJnmn1EI7EVhhFw%3D%3D

Sainsmart: "The biggest warehouse is in China, where most of the products are shipped from."
So that's not going to be fast.

The IDE is a good choice for a beginner programmer. Work thru the tutorials in the Learning section of the website, poke around in the Playground.

www.dipmicro.com (NIagara Falls, Canada, but ships quickly via USPS)
and www.taydaelectronics.com (Bangkok, Thailand, but ships locally from Colorado pretty quick too)
are good sources for thruhole components, not so many choices presented that one feels totally overwhelmed by what's available.

Ok, great! That's exactly what I needed to hear. So IDE is just the software then?

Two other great sites to check out:

Would you recommend buying off of ebay? I've seen some good starter kits on there for a decent price.

The last time I checked (earlier this week) Sainsmart was selling a counterfeit board (they claim it to be a genuine Arduino when it is not). I tend to avoid vendors that knowingly and deliberately lie.

Hembalaya:
Would you recommend buying off of ebay?

Most folks who buy Arduino compatible boards from ebay seem to be pleased with the outcome.

Please do not buy a board from ebay that displays the Arduino logo or is represented as a genuine Arduino.

I rarely buy anything from ebay. I don't like 3+week delivery times. Will pay a little more and purchase from a known supplier with a known support.

Arduino original board is so expensive. I want to purchase one from ebay because the price is much lower. However as the guy above said it must be fake. I bet it must came from China which is the biggest manufacturing country in the world. Then i prefer to choose one with brand even if it came from China for the good price and support.

Sun-YY:
Arduino original board is so expensive. I want to purchase one from ebay because the price is much lower. However as the guy above said it must be fake. I bet it must came from China which is the biggest manufacturing country in the world. Then i prefer to choose one with brand even if it came from China for the good price and support.

Arduino boards are good deals. Consider also the huge amount of effort that goes into developing and supporting the IDE, this forum, etc. etc. There are also good quality clones available from numerous reputable vendors (Adafruit, Evil Mad Science, PJRC, Modern Device to name just a few).

For the person just getting into microcontrollers, buying the original and supporting the Arduino organization is pretty much a no-brainer. The last thing I'd want when learning is to question whether a problem is mine or is the fault of some hardware of questionable origin.

Once some experience is gained, the Arduino Pro and Pro Mini ($15 and $10 from Sparkfun) are good values, or design your own custom boards. Let us know what it costs you to do that, and don't forget to factor in your time!

Buying a true Arduino does help continue development of the line. Having said that, I have noticed lately that Sain is selling its clones through Amazon, which handles fulfillment -- an important point, as that means Amazon stocks it in their own warehouses and ships it out with quick turnaround. The photo in the listing for their MEGA 2560 clone, found here: http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-MEGA-2560-Board-Arduino/dp/B00761NDCI/ref=pd_sim_pc_2 shows that they use their own brand name and not Arduino.

PJRC and their Teensy line are good, but they are not form-factor compatible. They are much smaller like the Nano.

realkyhick:
...shows that they use their own brand name and not Arduino.

You are supporting a company that sells a counterfeit board (not the one you referenced). They know it is counterfeit. Every few months, using extremely deceptive techniques, they try to use this forum to advertise. As far as I'm concerned, they are leaches.

That being Sain, Amazon, or both?

Sain.

If you are really a beginner with Arduino (and microcontrollers, embedded systems etc.) then buying the genuine Arduino is ideal. It works out-of-the-box with Arduino IDE (and rest of the software).

Once you gain some experience and confidence with Arduino, get to know all the basics, learn some more about the guts of Arduino board, you can definitely switch to boards that cost much less. Heck, you might even switch to an ATtiny85 microcontroller with few discrete components thrown together on a breadboard, that can take you far, for a tiny fraction of a full board cost. Or you could look at alternative boards -- Teensy, Jeenode etc.

Have no experience with sain, but have used a lot of east-asian goods (shipped from China, HK), and not once have I encountered problems. I buy off ebay, dx.com, seeedstudio and some not so famous places ! Of all of those, I prefer ebay for convenience, buyer-protection and low price. Seeedstudio stuff is actually reasonably good quality (better than a lot of what you can buy on ebay). However, as others (the gurus here) say, buying from someone who claims a board to be genuine Arduino, but actually isn't (i.e. are counterfeits) can leave you pretty frustrated.

Having said that, I am not sure if this discussion belongs in "Installation & Troubleshooting" sub-forum !!

I've been using a sainsmart, Has a dodgy chip that doesn't work with the Utouch class.

Here's an example I wrote with modified demo code of how to deal with the Touchscreen chip on the Sainsmart.

Allows the user to scroll between bmp images on a SD card using SD Class and Custom event handlers to suit the non genuine chip on the Sainsonic Screen.

I have a SainSmart Mega 2560... Works fine... Yes, they may be fake, but i don't have wads of cash to throw at a board, so.... Plus, they don't really lie, you are buying a SAINSMART MEGA 2560, not an ARDUINO MEGA 2560.... Which is, in retrospect, the same thing, have several Arduino shields and they all have worked out without a hitch...I say it's worth it...

Overall, you get what you pay for...
And I paid for a SAINSMART MEGA 2560...

(I'm don't work for SainSmart [I'm only 16])

I don't understand why you guys are using words like "fake" and "counterfeit". As per this YouTube video, it is my understanding, that Arduino technology is open source.

As others have stated, these 3rd party clones are not infringing the Arduino trademarks as they use their own markings. That said, I am a complete newbie to Arduino and haven't even bought my first kit yet, but what sparked my interest was that video above founder said Arduino it was open source and I thought that was really cool.

Monaco:
I don't understand why you guys are using words like "fake" and "counterfeit".

Says the newb on his FIRST post!!! Really? You want to go down that path with your FIRST post??

Welcome to Arduino, and good luck.

Graham

technomungo:
I've been using a sainsmart, Has a dodgy chip that doesn't work with the Utouch class.

As of yesterday, I would have said ah bol**cks, they are all the same under the covers.....

But an interesting point to note here. I have Sainshit MEGA2560, TFT shield, TFT_320QVT. Bought them cheap as my first venture into Arduino, since was cheap and didn't know what I was getting in to..... Yeah yeah I know now!!!! Waste of money, cheap shit, with crap support and supplying illegal libraries which are not correctly licensed.......... I KNOW that now!!!!

I have helped many people out with Sainsmuck hardware related problems, since I spent half a lifetime struggling on my own for weeks trying to get something to work when I received my new toys from China.

I can see the benefits of ordering cheap rip-off crap, I can see the pitfalls too!! If you are reading this you clearly understand the pitfalls now??!! :wink:

As of a few weeks ago, I thought I had a problem with my hardware, this evening, I have irrefutably proven that Henning's latest UTFT_Buttons has issues under AVR boards under IDE V1.5.x. So until it is resolved, I would suggest you use IDE V1.0.x as this works fine!

Merry christmas all,

Graham

I don't understand why you guys are using words like "fake" and "counterfeit".

They have knowingly sold a counterfeit board for years.

I use the word "counterfeit" because the board in question meets the dictionary definition of the word "counterfeit"...

1: made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive

...these 3rd party clones are not infringing the Arduino trademarks...

They are selling a board that is manufactured to look identical to a genuine Arduino. Doing that violates the Arduino trademark.