Get inspired with Arduino MEGA 2560

What is Arduino Mega 2560 ?

    The Mega 2560 is a micro controller board which is designed for more complex projects like 3D printers and robotics projects. It has

•  54 digital input/output pins - 15 can be used as PWM outputs
•  16 analog inputs
•  4 UARTs - referred to as universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter that translate data in asynchronous serial communication format
•  a 16 MHz crystal oscillator - used to create an electrical signal with a precise frequency.
•  a USB connection
•  a power jack
•  an ICSP header - referred to as in-circuit serial programming that used to programme micro controllers 
•  a reset button. 

It contains everything needed to support the micro controller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.

Programming

The Mega 2560 board can be programmed with the Arduino Software(IDE).
See the reference and tutorials to get more details.  

Power

The Mega 2560 can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply. The power source is selected automatically.

Memory 

The ATmega2560 has 256 KB of flash memory for storing code (of which 8 KB is used for the bootloader), 8 KB of SRAM and 4 KB of EEPROM (which can be read and written with the EEPROM library).

Input and Output

Each of the 54 digital pins on the Mega can be used as an input or output, using pinMode(), digitalWrite(), and digitalRead() functions. They operate at 5 volts. Each pin can provide or receive 20 mA as recommended operating condition.In addition, some pins have specialized functions

The Mega 2560 has 16 analog inputs. By default they measure from ground to 5 volts, though is it possible to change the upper end of their range using the AREF pin and analogReference() function.

Communication

The Mega 2560 board has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another board, or other micro controllers.It provides four hardware UARTs for TTL (5V) serial communication.The Mega 2560 also supports TWI and SPI communication. 

Automatic Reset

Rather then requiring a physical press of the reset button before an upload, the Mega 2560 is designed in a way that allows it to be reset by software running on a connected computer. 

Next I’ll post a simple Arduino project using Arduino Mega 2560.

If you enjoyed this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by sharing it on Facebook. Thank you!