Does anyone know if Arduino boards are used in commercial (serial production) devices?
Arduino's (ATmega chips with the arduino bootloader) are not normally used in commercial products as they are kinda in the middle regarding power.
If you want more power then you use an ARM processor and if you want something less powerful then there are ATTiny's and similar small low powered chips.
They are also more expensive in general for the chips than the alternatives.
They are however nice to use as a hobbyist.
I don't know of any commercial product with one in (apart from small scale 'arduino' stuff.
Mowcius
Well i think one would prefer a custom designed board with the atmega controller - if you use the regular boards it might get tricky with the external connections. However one option would be a well designed shield that will take care of the connections.
I still don't think anyone uses them in large scale 'commercial' products though due to the issues stated above...
Mowcius
ardiuno is more of a starting point, especially on the software side
If your wanting to develop a commercial product there is nothing stopping anyone from developing it using an arduino and then later on shuffling it over to (lets say) a QFP328 embedded in some larger application
And since its using the gcc compiler it can get "real" at any moment, with a safety net of (i dunno) shiftOut()
now are you going to open up a electronic keyboard and see an arduino board? nope probably not
The Atmega says it is five volts. Why can't it run off of a USB port? Why can't anyone put it on a circuit board that has a USB plug? I think it could work unless you have to power the other pins.
The Atmega says it is five volts.
Some are. Some are 3.3V.
Why can't it run off of a USB port?
You can.
Why can't anyone put it on a circuit board that has a USB plug?
No reason not to.
I think it could work unless you have to power the other pins.
It works, even if you power all the pins, as long as you don't exceed the current capability of the USB connection (500mA, I think, which is in excess of what you can power from an Arduino, anyway).
Paul didn't come right out and say it, but the standard Arduino board (duemilanove, etc) run just fine with ONLY the USB cable to your computer. No other power supply is required. This makes them very convenient... (some of the lower-priced Arduino-like boards (eg the "Arduino Pro" series from Sparkfun) do not include USB circuitry, but you can still power them from a USB port via one of the USB/TTL-serial cables...)