Upgrade from Arduino UNO

Hi guys I need a Board that's Faster than the UNO, has just as many or more Digital inputs and can accept Serial from a PC. I can be a mini board, but i need USB of some sort

No headers would be nice. so i can solder my connections.

Thanks for your help!!

Look at the Teensy boards:
https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/

If you want cheaper you could consider one of the STM32 boards. I don't know if the support in the Arduino IDE is quite as good as Teensy though but there are two different hardware packages available that have been around for a while.

I think the ESP32 has about the same number of inputs but I believe the Arduino core for it is still pretty fresh and there doesn't seem to be many people in the Arduino community using them yet.

I believe all the official Arduino boards come with the headers soldered.

The size istn really and issue, Nothing really over $50.

I really just want to copy and paste my Program from Uno to a new board is that possible?
Teensy would work but I think I need to keep 5v I/O for LEDs and relays on my project.
Here is what my research found to upgrade to? what do you think?

  • Arduino Zero

  • Arduino M0

  • Arduino M0 Pro

  • Intel Galileo

What is the big different between the M0 and M0 PRO?

StrikeforcePC:
I really just want to copy and paste my Program from Uno to a new board is that possible?

It depends on the program. The idea with Arduino is there is a standard API and the same code can be used for any board. The reality is that the Arduino AVR Boards have the best support by far. There are other boards that are faster, cheaper, newer and with better features but none of them have a decade of thousands of people writing code, tutorials, and answering questions.

When you switch to a new architecture you may find that your favorite libraries are not compatible. Maybe you can find a replacement, maybe there is none and you will need to write your own. You may find that example Arduino code you find doesn't work. You may find that there are bugs in the support code and nobody is working on fixing them. You may find that you ask questions here on the forum and nobody can help you because they have no experience with that hardware. Some people like to blaze their own trails and explore new hardware so this isn't a concern for them but some of us prefer an easier path to accomplishing out goals and thus don't mind spending a little more and making due with outdated 8 bit microcontrollers.

The Zero and M0 boards are a bit less prone to these issues than some of the other options because they are the most popular official alternatives to the AVR boards and Arduino pays developers to actively improve the support files and fix bugs. I think you will still encounter these issues to some extent though. These boards are all 3.3 V I/O. You will find that is the case with most of the newer boards.

Since it sounds like support is a significant consideration for you I would recommend avoiding the Galileo/Galileo Gen 2. Intel never did a good job of providing support or documentation for their boards and there has be absolutely no development for this board for the last 11 months. You can't even report bugs because they disabled the issue tracker. It's probably a bit over your price limit anyway.

Even though the Teensy boards are 3rd party hardware, the creator does a really good job of supporting them. You won't see many posts about those boards here on the forum but I think that is mainly because they have their own forum which I think it fairly active. All the non-AVR Teensys are 3.3 V.

There is some 5 V input tolerant options in the STM32 boards. I haven't used these and I suspect the support is not quite as good as the Arduino SAMD boards or Teensy but there is a decent community.

The two examples you use for needing 5 V I/O are not necessarily valid. You can certainly power an LED at 3.3 V. You do need to be aware that many of the newer boards do not support as high of maximum current draw as the AVRs so you might not be able to run your LEDs as bright if you're directly connecting them to the pins. Many 5 V devices can operate with 3.3 V signals, they will still see that as a logical HIGH. I would guess this to be the case with the relay. The exception I encountered is the WS2812 LED strips, which are not recommended for use with 3.3 V logic levels so I had to use a level shifter. Of more concern is communication in the opposite direction. If your input pin is not 5 V tolerant then you will damage it by receiving signals from a 5 V device. Even though 3.3 V logic levels are supposed to be the modern standard, I found that most of the common accessories used in the Arduino world are 5 V.

Wait... The teensy 3.5 has 5V tolerant digital pins did you see that?

https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy35.html

Also, the pins can sink or source (3.3V not 5V) up to 25mA if I read the datasheet correctly.

I think I need to keep 5v I/O for LEDs and relays on my project.
Here is what my research found to upgrade to? what do you think?

  • Arduino Zero, Arduino M0, Arduino M0 Pro, Intel Galileo

I don't think that any of those have 5V I/O...

Good tip about the Teensy 3.5 ron_sutherland! I don't have any experience with Teensy and only looked at the product page for all Teensy boards and saw it said 3.3 V IO on all the non-AVR boards.

I just need to make sure my 4 relays can work at 3.3v.

So i am Torn..

Teensy 3.5 or 3.2

or Arduino Zero, M0 or M0 PRO

IF i go arduino which one of those should i pick?

It's not just the Teensy 3.5 that's 5v tolerant. I think all of them are, apart from the 3.6 - certainly 3.1 & 3.2. Possibly not every pin, but most of them.

Ian.

So M0 or M0 PRO?