Fastest Serial connection, Sending to Arduino

Projects Interfacing w/ Software on the Computer
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I have seen threads (mostly on the old forum) about setting non standard baud rates up to 500kbps. All those threads were about sending from the arduino to the PC. I want to go the other way.

I have a project in mind where I would like to be able to stream 368640 bps. Thats how much data there would be. I understand that there would be overhead that needs to go on there as well. But that still is below the 500k mark.

Is this possible? If not, what is the fastest speed I can reliably send data to an arduino?
I have a duemilanove not the Uno.

Thanks

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If not, what is the fastest speed I can reliably send data to an arduino?

The fastest SUPPORTED speed is 115200. Higher speeds may work, but at some small (but increasing, as the speed goes up) risk. 230400 and 345600 are possible.

This assumes that you are connecting the Arduino and PC using a wire. Wireless? 115200.

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You should also consider how long time it takes to do what you need to do with all that data.

It really dosent matter if you can transmit it, if you do not have time to deal with it.

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wrt non standard high speeds:

  • they work substantial better if they are divider of the clockspeed 16Mhz. e.g. 500.000 baud is (1/32) so the clockpulses can be made quite accurate

If that divider is not a whole number rounding errors are made in the clock frequency and these add up for every bit. (9 or 10 bits to send a byte)

(OK one could make smart timing code to adjust but that takes extra flash/ram)

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MikMo:
You should also consider how long time it takes to do what you need to do with all that data.

It really dosent matter if you can transmit it, if you do not have time to deal with it.

With this question in mind I have made another post in the LEDs and Multiplexing area.http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,72474.0.html I am sorry for the cross post. As this all ties in with the matrix library I am using I will keep it all there.
Thank you for answering. I will try sending at these higher baud rates and see if I can get the data moving at that speed reliably for my purpose.

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From reliability point of view you better try 400000 than 368640 as 400K is a divider from the clock