hi all,
hope this is ok.. and yes its regarding the arduino mega.. i have been looking at a copy of the scematic, as i am looking at creating some new items with the arduino, and the basic arduino is not good enough.. now.. here is the schematic im looking at.
hope that shows..
ok.. on the right hand side of the schematic, chip IC6, has four outputs/lines
pins 11,9,10,6
they all go to a Icon (i dont know) and it says X3 above it..
what is this? as its appears to go no where else on the schematic, is this some sort of connector on the board. and is there supposed to be three of them, I have been looking at an arduino mega, i can find no such connections on it.. Am i missing something?
answers much appreciated..
cheers
keith
Hi,
First off, does your schematic refer to a Mega board you actually have ?
The current Mega and many clone boards use the ATmega 16 U2 chip as the USB interface and that has a different layout.
Regarding those pins you mention, if you look at the FT232 datasheet you will see its a device capable of communticating via several different methods, USB being one, the others base on more direct usart lines like RS232 etc.
Probably the X3 connector is just a termiator to keep the diagram neat or possible future use.
hth
Hi,
firstly i dont have a board, i was looking at google images, and some proper arduino boards, so in escence they are the same board,
thanks for the info..
cheers
keith
X3 is a header connector. Those lines are the serial handshaking lines for a UART. The chip converts USB to serial and those lines are associated with a full implementation of a serial port. The Arduino does not need them to work, but they have been brought out to pads in case you want to use them.
krappleby:
i am looking at creating some new items with the arduino, and the basic arduino is not good enough..
answers much appreciated..
cheers
keith
Perhaps post what you are trying to do with it. There are some pretty smart people on here that like the challenge if you give them the info.