Any idea what range of temperatures an Arduino will tolerate?
I’m working on an outdoor installation that needs to withstand Toronto winters, so going down to at least -20 C.
I see in the ATMEGA328 datasheet it says that the chip will work from -55 to +125 C.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
Thanks!
David
Different components have different ratings. The ATmega328 may work down to -55C (does it?) but the oscillator probably won’t, and neither may some of the other devices. The FT232 should be good to -40C as should the voltage regulator. Yeah, I’d say the oscillator is the big question mark.
if it’s not exposed I bet it wouldn’t be an issue. If you think about something like my garage door keypad, it might not work at -37 but I bet it would be the battery that let it down. It’s only protection is its own cover and a little bit of wind shadow.
Thanks for the responses!
I wonder if maybe I should develop on the Arduino but spec out all the components separately for temperature tolerances and put them on a board. hm…
Is there any documentation for what parts I need to run an Arduino sketch on an chip not on the Arduino board?
D!
… I forgot to mention that it’ll be housed in a weatherproof box with some other equipment (like an audio amp) that’ll all be generating some heat.
D!
I ran a little test in my freezer running the blinking LED example sketch on an Arduino NG. It’s nestled right between some steak and the ice cube tray.
-18C and it seems to run fine. I can’t vouch for accurate timing, but it seems to blink on time. I’ll leave it in there for a week and see what happens. Shouldn’t affect the steak flavour, either.
D!
Yep had mine in the freezer for an hour at -18°degC. Powered by Li-Ion battery, continued to log the GPS position of my fridge (antenna hanging outside the door) and internal freezer temperature to an SD card.
Remember there will be condensation if you are moving from cold to warm temperatures quickly.