There are lots of avr boards on the market - some of them are quite good
Can i use the arduino gui to program them ?
If not why not ?
Which ones are you looking at?
Can i use the arduino gui to program them ?
You can use the Arduino GUI to program a naked ATmel, say an Atmega328. You can do this with or without the bootloader installed in the chip.
But Arduino (environment) will only support Atmel microcontrollers that have a "core" files and an entry in boards.txt ... Therefore, you could find yourself venturing into unsupported territory.
Development boards generally showcase technology that the manufacturer of the board wishes to advertise... This could be the microcontroller, or some peripheral controller or subsystem. Such hardware may have no Arduino support or available libraries.
Ray
There are 2 ways to program: via ICSP, and via serial port.
Programming via ICSP requires an AVR Programmer, such as Atmel AVR ISP MKii.
If you can access the pins either directly, or by some kind of adapter cable, you can program a part.
If you can program a part, then you can install a bootloader, and if the serial pins are accessible then you can program via the serial port. If the board does not have a USB/Serial adapter chip, then an offboard USB/Serial module can be connected.
The Arduino Gui directly supports select AVRs: ATmega168, 328P, 1280, 2560. Support for others can be added pretty easily: 324/644/1284P are 40-pin variations, and
www.avr-developers.com had a list of other 8-bit AVR chips.
Chips often have A, P, or PA suffixes, the A reflects different revisions of the processor, and P represents Pico Power, a slighty lower version. These differences are shown in the Signature Bytes for the parts.
Packaging options are -PU (plastic DIP), -AU (TQFP), and -MU (leadless). These do not affect the signature bytes.
The 'core files' are written to support clock frequencies of 8 MHz and 16 MHz. User have made changes available to support other frequencies (20 MHz for example).
8 MHz was selected because many of the chips have an onboard 8 MHz oscillator.
16 MHz was selected for internal hardware reasons: 1/16000000 = 62.5nS. 16 clocks is 1 microsecond. An interrupt is created every microsecond, and a lot of code is then based around that. (There's a better description available involving timers and overflow counters if you want to get into it more).
Thanks for the advice. So it is to do with the bootloader
item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=310809713308
Does that board work with arduino ?
Or maybe this one
item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?itemId=130868001822&cmd=VIDESC
The first one maybe, could be '328P based.
The 2nd one, would need IDE additions.
Check olimex.com or whatever their site is to find more details on the boards.
please can you check and tell me if any of these can work with arduino ?
please can you check and tell me if any of these can work with arduino ?
AVR
New "boards" are produced daily, many saying "Arduino compatible" but you must do the final decision making unless it is an Official Board: see Products tab at top of browser window.
We may be able to help, but most of us shun web-research on behalf of members; sure, we are all family but you have chores to do, also.
The more popular boards are here:
Always feel free to drop an email or web-inquiry to merchants. That way, you have their written response in case of a need to return/refund.
Ray
You seem to be somewhat new to this.
Yes, you can get Arduino running on most of those OLIMEX boards. However, if you are asking the questions you are asking, I think you might end up over your head trying to set it up.