So I am running a club at my school where we are planning to use arduinos to make robots and other fun stuff. Arduinos are pretty expensive so I decided to go with some fake arduino nanos instead. the arduino nanos work on my personal computer no problem, but for some reason when I try to upload a sketch it wont connect.
The nanos I am using have the CH340 chip and I have the drivers installed, I have also checked with the school tech people to make sure there wasn't some antivirus thing stopping communication with usb devices.
Any Ideas? Is there anything else I need to do that I forgot about?
Official: Authorized by Arduino to be sold using Arduino's trademarks (Arduino, Genuino). Purchase of these products financially support the Arduino company.
Clone: Identical hardware to an official board, but not sold using Arduino's trademarks. This is perfectly legal and acceptable because the Arduino boards are open source hardware. Purchase of these products do not financially support the development work done by Arduino employees, which we all benefit from.
Counterfeit: Boards sold using Arduino's trademarks without authorization. In addition to not financially supporting the Arduino company, these may cost them money due to the users asking for customer support from Arduino.
Derivative: Similar to an official board, but with some modifications. These are more in the spirit of open source hardware than a clone, since the official design was improved upon (for some definition of "improvement"), rather than just doing a copy/paste.
3rd Party Original: A unique design not based on an official board.
When you say "fake", that implies a counterfeit. However, I have never seen a counterfeit Nano. What I have seen is lots of Nano derivatives. These are derivatives because they use the CH340 USB to TTL serial chip rather than the FT232 chip used on the official Nano. The benefit of that change is the board can be made and sold for a lower price because the CH340 is cheaper than the FT232. Recently I have also been seeing a Nano derivative with all the components on the top of the board, which reduces manufacturing cost.
I like to see people support the Arduino project by buying official products. I also understand that, when working with a limited budget, the unofficial boards are very attractive. I own some official Arduino boards but I also buy clones because I have very little money to spend on my electronics hobby. There are more ways to support the Arduino project than buying stuff from them. I'm confident that the value of the volunteer work I do for Arduino far exceeds the profit on a few official boards. You can also directly donate to Arduino.
I do think it's a good idea to not support the people who sell counterfeits. If you're going to buy an unofficial board, it's much better to buy from the people who are following the rules instead of trying to pull a scam. What kind of quality and support can you expect from someone manufacturing and selling counterfeits?
I'm happy to try to help anyone, regardless of what kind of board they're using. Are you using the Arduino IDE, the Arduino Web Editor, or the Arduino Create Chrome App? What exactly do you mean by "it won't connect"?
Do they show up in the device manager of the school PCs?
If you're using a recent IDE, are you selecting the "ATmega328P (Old Bootloader)" CPU option in the "Tools/Board" menu? (that one has bitten a lot of people.)
I have never seen a counterfeit Nano.
They used to exist - pretty much exact copies of the original Gravitech design, FTDI chip and everything.
What I have seen is lots of Nano derivatives.
The current set of chips (including anything with a CH340) are derivatives. Perfectly legitimate as long as they're not labeled as "Arduinos."
In fact, I've been pretty impressed by the evolution of the Nano derivatives - the first to appear were pretty exact clones, but "they" rapidly evolved toward different USB/Serial chips, solder-it-yourself headers, and single-sided PCBs - design changes that actually reduce manufacturing costs, rather than just underselling the official boards. And they've mostly caught on to NOT using the Arduino name, too. My main complaint is that most vendors don't do very well on the "share alike" part of the Arduino license - it's pretty rare to find a schematic for one of the derivatives, and I don't think I've EVER seen CAD files...
And they've mostly caught on to NOT using the Arduino name, too.
When I first started with Arduino, the counterfeits were all over eBay and Amazon but now I almost never see them. Even in the listing titles they're using the approved "Nano ATmega328P ... for Arduino" wording instead of the prohibited "Arduino Nano".
license - it's pretty rare to find a schematic for one of the derivatives, and I don't think I've EVER seen CAD files...
Good point. The Chinese manufacturers of this sort of thing just don't seem to get the concept of open source. There are definitely some people working hard to change that. We are seeing some progress in the 3D printer world with the modified Marlin firmwares but I think that's mainly driven by the community putting heavy pressure on the manufacturers. And that's software. The open source hardware thing is still so nebulous.
Probably the old/new bootloader thing. Depending on version of ide and avr board package, you may need to select the (old bootloader) option from tools ->processor.
Clones almost all have the old bootloader, since feb 2018 official ones have a new bootloader. Older ide versions that predate this dont have this option (its always "old bootloader")
Do you have any hardware attached to them, such as components on a breadboard?
I have occasionally had problems with certain IO pins. I'm afraid I can't remember the details, but I did find pulling out a jumper wire allowed the upload of the sketch. It may have been using the lowest IO pin. It was a bit of trial and error but worked fine once I found out what I needed to do.
DaveHKent:
It may have been using the lowest IO pin.
On the Arduino AVR-based (ATmega) boards without native USB (e.g. Nano, Uno, Mega), pins 0 and 1 are used for uploading. Connecting anything to those pins can interfere with uploads.
need more details.
Can your IDE recognize the port that the NANO is connected to ?
you have to make sure you are connected/selected to the correct port.
that points to the driver.
if it recognizes, but the upload fails, change the upload speed.
One solution, make a LiveCD with Ubuntu and use that.
when you are using the IDE, it does not make much difference which OS you use.
and Ubuntu has the CH340 driver.
and of course, you need to make sure the cable works.
others pointed out things like what else is connected to the NANO could effect communication