SARduino test boards, with Bus Pirate to program the bootloaders
The SARduino boards (v0.1) arrived, so we put together the test boards, programmed the bootloaders (standard Arduino and Sanguino, respectively), and soldered up the indicator LED (pin D13 on Arduino, pin D0 on Sanguino), to test out the bootloader and enough variations on the “Blink” sketch to satisfy us that they worked properly.
We built the SARduino to be a development board (for the ATmega8, ATmega168, and ATmega328 that folks are accustomed to using in Arduino-based projects, and the ATmega644 and the ATmega1284 for things that require a little more oomph) that we are willing to commit to an embedded project, unlike, say, our BoArduino or Arduino proper. It is meant to be cheap and flexible enough that we can implement a moderately complex target circuit right on the board (or, if necessary, on a perfboard shield). We’ve included some SMD breakout areas (SOIC-16, SOT-23-6, SC-70-6), to help make using those things more convenient.
The prototype has really shown us all the things we’d like to improve, and they’re listed in the Errata of the 328 and 644 versions. We’ll continue working on it, and expect to release an improved version in the near future. In the meantime, we have a few spare prototype PCBs, drop us a line if you’re interested in one, we’ll mail it to you (anywhere in the world) for $5.
