Hello,
What is the best Arduino Nano clone? The genuine is $24, and I'm looking for one under $15.
I've not found any difference between clones. Sometimes I suspect they are all from the same mfg. Amazon as a few you can get below your cost goal.
I have a few genuine Arduinos and a lot of clones (mostly pro mini's). I've worked in electronics all my life and I can't see any quality difference between the Arduino's and the clones.
1 Like
What is the best (reputable) seller?
I think that the biggest problem with clones is that the quality is not guaranteed.
And if you consider to buy from eBay and the likes, you run the risk that you not always get what is advertised.
So that is the risk that you take.
I sometimes buy clones but I do buy them locally.
Maybe you can still find one of these somewhere:
It is a Robotdyn.com Nano clone but the original link (now deleted) failed.
These are better than the original Nano with a real crystal for the ATmega328P, a decent 3.3 volt regulator and a micro USB.
EDIT
deleted dead link
I've had good luck with eBay. I believe a clone is a clone and the quality is no worse or better than the genuine article. I will concede the genuine Arduinos' may have a better crystal (but I doubt it).
If you look back on this forum you will find a gentlemen who bough a large group of Genuine Arduinos. He was fuming because they all had an assembly issue that prevented them from being used.
Most electronics of this type are assembled by contract assembly houses. In theory, it is possible for clones and genuine Arduino's to be mfg by the same assembly house. All the assembly is automated. Quality control is usually in the final testing. Both Genuine and clones have boot loaders installed (and maybe a simple test sketch) so my guess that is the sum of all the quality testing plus some general auditing of the solder, oven temperatures etc.
I sometimes buy clones but I do buy them locally
I'll bet a coffee (my betting limit) your local clones come from the same factory as my eBay clones.
Also note for those based on the ATmega328p, these chips have not been available sense before Covid. Yet there seems to be no shortage of Pro mini, pro micro etc. My guess is some company mfg a very large number of Arduino clones a while ago and are still selling them off. I'll bet they all have the old bootloaders.
I bought Pro Mini clones on Ebay before covid which turned out to have counterfeit 328P processors. I noticed something was wrong when their power-down sleep current was way too high. I sent one to Microchip, and they confirmed it was counterfeit. So bad chips are in the market. But I have to say - other than sleep current, they seemed to work fine.
But I've never run across that on a Nano clone. I've had good luck with Banggood in the past, but that may just have been luck. I don't think Amazon is necessarily any more reliable than any other source for parts like this. But my general experience is that clone quality is pretty good, even for some of the ESP8266 parts, although the clones tend to skimp a bit on voltage regulators.
IdeaSpark Nano V3 ATmega328P CH340 With 0.91" OLED Display 128x32 SSD1306 I2C | eBay
I resell a clone with a built-in OLED screen. (This is my listing, full disclosure)
It's a bit wider than a nano so it will not pair with the nano shields, but it's around half the price.
Interesting, I haven't had to use the sleep function so I may have counterfeit 328's. I'll have to make a test program and measure the current.
I was always curious about the cost benefit (to the vendor) of creating a clone of a microprocessor. Someone has to sell a lot of counterfeit chips to re-pay for the cost of creating a device.
I'm probably over thinking this counterfeit topic..... but,
This Sparkfun article. In their experience, no device worked. There is another post in this forum regarding an LM35 "counterfeit" but in the end it was a non functional and the output was an open circuit.
In your case the devices worked. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I wouldn't surprised if your "counterfeit" was made by Atmel but was part of a lot that "slipped through" QC or was found and "destroyed" but "somehow" made it to the market.
Do you recall the date code?
John
You can buy a 328 and relabel it to 328P at hardly any cost 
I worked very long ago in the testing industrie. We received unmarked memory chips from a certain manufacturer and tested them. After that we marked them (as an extra service). E.g. xxxx-10 for chips with 10ns access time and xxxx-12 for chips with 12ns access time or xxxx-15. Their manufacturing process was however so good that all the chips were 10ns chips.
Now the manufacturer had a problem as their customer needed 15ns chips and was not prepared to pay for 10ns chips. So we cleaned a batch and remarked them xxxx-15 
Yes but in your case, there was no "cheating". The parts marked -15 were indeed -15 with a design margin. No harm no foul.
True.
My point was that things are not always what they say they are.
1 Like
Huh. I had a past experience when I got some clones on Amazon for $25. Maybe I should try again.
To test sleep current properly, you have to eliminate power indicator LEDs, UART adapters and voltage regulators, so only the processor is drawing current. An Atmega328P configured properly will power-down sleep at less than a microamp.
I sent two of my bad examples to Kevin Darrah, who did three videos on them, including the result of decapping which showed they were not Atmel quality rejects. The last video provides a sketch that might be used to identify a counterfeit chip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlGycKwnsSw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0rEzcKYzGw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeDC1m7ANJI
I subsequently sent a bad chip to Microchip, and they confirmed that it was counterfeit.
If you buy from a random vendor, You are not guaranteed WHICH clone design you will get.
I was impressed by the single-sided nano clones with ch340e (10pin) usb chips, sold on aliexpress by “Baite electronics”, but then their shipping charges went through the roof and they disappeared 
(An interesting bit is that the Chinese nanos are sometimes substantially new designs, so they’re not really just “clones” any more. OTOH, the Chinese vendors seem really willing to clone each other’s designs, and it can be tough to figure out which vendors have “skimped” on parts. Especially now that there are at least two known “mostly compatible with atmega328p” chips that have been seen.)
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.