I got three Nano board clones on Amazon, two of them were working great but one of them had problems to receive the blink test program. I tried Selecting Tools>Processor>ATmega328(Old Bootloader) and then tried again but wasn't working. I did reinstall the Bootloader in the Nano board and nothing. I did took a magnifier and I started to inspect carefully the pins and the solder...Voila! between pin RX0 and pin TX1 was a ball of solder making short. I removed it, I tried again with the test program and the board was responding great.
For my future purchases of these boards I gonna check them and clean them carefully before use them.
I hope my experience is gonna be useful for the newbies in this great experience of the microprocessors, Arduino and Electronic in general.
The clones are a great cheap alternative to create Arduino Projects, but the quality inspection is not the same as Arduino original boards.
Good advice and I would also add that if buying direct from China, avoid buying any that have the numbers filed off or erased from the UART chip, or that mention "FTDI" or "FT232R" in their descriptions. These unknown UART chips are known to be problematic. Those with a CH340G chip work fine. Don't be surprised it you don't get exactly what you saw in the product photo. Check what MCU you actually have on board (328P, 328PB or 168PA in some cases).
When I buy inexpensive modules from places like Amazon, Ali Express, etc I always have a test strategy for when I get them. You don't need to test everything but make sure the basics work. A simply resistor string attached to the ADC inputs can quickly check that the operation is reasonable. One of the sample sketches can verify LCD displays work. Decide on simple tests for your possible use and have them ready.
I haven't bought anything from Ali Express lately, but when I did there was about a 30% failure rate. In the early days you just told them and they would give a refund. I suspect that unscrupulous people took advantage of that because over time they became more strict about refunds. For under $1 parts it is not worth my time to do a short video, but for more expensive items it is worth jumping through a few hoops. I haven't had problems getting a refund after documenting the problem.
Windows could have problems with fake FTCI chips.
And de-faced CH341 chips.
Mac or Linux could be different.
I have a few boards where Win11 auto updates from working- to non-working drivers.
Leo..
The context of the discussion is clone Nano boards, but to clarify, some branded boards do have genuine FTDI FT232R UART chips onboard. I am not suggesting staying away from those. However, most of the clone boards purchased directly from China that claim to have an FTDI or FT232 chip on them and have had the part number removed are unlikely to be genuine. The chip to look out for and avoid comes in a SOIC-16 package which has a different look to the genuine chip. To illustrate:
That board from RS? A major distributor selling clones?
I take it that's an unmarked chip on the right. Have you just edited the RS reference?
Whatever, it doesn't detract from the general discussion that if you go down the attractive route of cheaper copies, then you take your chances.
Quite often that's going to be someone on a limited budget who be be disappointed on their first outing.
The worrying thing about these chips is that they could find their way into things like medical equipment. Omron for instance, a trusted supplier of all things industrial and medical, now outsource manufacturing to PRC.
From news accounts, I believe US solar farms have recently been found to have Chinese "kill" switches incorporated in inverters complete with communication facilities.
To be fair, the availability of cheaper goods from mainland China has been positive, but comes with risks.
Some clones boards are really great, but some ones are piece of crap. To buy clones is good practice check the reviews first and avoid those ones that you receive more boards for less money than the other clones.
I do the same. I test the board with the blink program, but I forgot the visual inspection to find weak solder points, shorts between pins, remains of flux, etc. With this first experience with my Nano board failing I learned the lesson. We have to understand that this clones belongs to electronic class I, the cheapest electronic.
