2560 With my PCB

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi,

In the past i've developed my own PCB numerous times for ATMEGA328 with the Arduino bootloader. I now have a much more complicated project, which I believe would benefit from the ATMEGA2560. I have a few questions,

  1. Aside from soldering the TQFP, is there any more complexity to using this micro as opposed to the 328?
  2. Flashing the bootloader is done in the exact same manner through SPI?
  3. This is probably the most important, is the programming of the 2560 the same as the 328?

Thank you!

2

  1. As far as I know, it is fundamentally the same, except for possible issues with pointer arithmetic.

  2. Yes, I've flashed the bootloader a few times.

  3. You use the same development environment. Some things, like timers, are going to be a bit different if you address the registers directly. Some libraries may not work with it, until you tweak them. They may assume certain pins do certain things (eg. I2C, SPI) and may need adjusting.

3

Thanks Nick,

Are these issues related directly to the 2560? I had read that timers are slightly different in the 2560. Assuming it will do what I need, is there less complication with the 1280?

4

I would think they are about the same. Same datasheet.

The timers are different in the sense they have more of them, and possibly their configuration at the bit level might be different.