my arduino's gold part is gold but it doesn't say 502 or something it is just the infinity symbol, but it is gold and black?
Not sure if that's a tell or not.
Post a good photo of the front and back of the board.
In the past the gold polyfuse was unique, but nowadays some fake boards have the gold polyfuse as well.
Did you buy it from a known seller (Arduino shop, Adafruit, Sparkfun) ? Then it is okay.
If you bought it at Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress, and it was not in a box, then it is fake.
Koepel:
In the past the gold polyfuse was unique, but nowadays some fake boards have the gold polyfuse as well.Did you buy it from a known seller (Arduino shop, Adafruit, Sparkfun) ? Then it is okay.
If you bought it at Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress, and it was not in a box, then it is fake.
Oh shoot. I thought mine was legit because of this gold fuse.
Mine came in a small box same size as the arduino uno, 4 gel-tablets, some stickers that say "DIY", "HACKED" and some heart logo and an open source sticker + a pamphlet.
I got the same Infinity symbol too.
Most of the clones and fakes don't come in a box - though there's of course the issue of the rogue arduino (the .org guys) boards, which do come in boxes.
Personally, I've never bought an official Arduino board, I do all clones (I disagree with a major design decision on the Uno/Mega, namely forcing a 16u2 into service as a USB adapter - they're a worse serial adapter, and are less resistant to electrical abuse and thus fail more often), and I even out the karma by donating some of the money I saved by using clones to the Arduino project - the clones almost always work, and are much cheaper.
DrAzzy:
Personally, I've never bought an official Arduino board,
Me too. Not due to arduino or anything.... it's just that I once thought that what I was ordering from ebay were arduinos! Was oblivious to it. But none of my heaps of clones have ever failed on me so far.
One hassle I had - at one time was...... the 'ol power jack getting in the way of mounting a pololu shield....
This was when I discovered that sometimes it really can make a difference between a real arduino and a clone................click here
Also only now realised that I made a small typo when I wrote "and am encountered a small hurdle"
I ended up needing to physically remove the power jack from my clone arduino UNO R3.
David121:
Oh shoot. I thought mine was legit because of this gold fuse.Mine came in a small box same size as the arduino uno, 4 gel-tablets, some stickers that say "DIY", "HACKED" and some heart logo and an open source sticker + a pamphlet.
I got the same Infinity symbol too.
That's the stuff that comes with an official Arduino. Now, depending on where you bought it from, does it say Arduino or Genuino? They are both legit, but in different spheres.
I have clones with the gold polyfuse. I consider them acceptable. That fuse is becoming more and more common, both on clones and counterfeit boards.
The key point is that a clone should never be labelled "Arduino" or "Genuino", although "UNO" or "Mega2560" are acceptable, I believe.
I bought a couple of (what I thought were) clones recently, an UNO for $8 and a Mega2560 for $15, and counterfeit boards arrived, both labelled "Arduino". ("Arduino" and "Genuino" are registered trademarks.)
The eBay listing showed boards without the trademarked name.
Anyway, the point of my reply was to post this link. It shows a few things to look out for, to determine whether a board is real or counterfeit:-
How to spot a counterfeit Arduino
Edit: I saw a board the other day that said, on the back, "DESIGN IN ITALY". Genuine boards say "MADE IN ITALY". It seems that's another way to tell the difference, but the map of Italy is the most common giveaway.