Introducing Arduino Nano

Introduction

Arduino Nano is a small complete chip board based on ATmega 328 (v3.0) or Atmega 168 (v2.0). Every Arduino has the same functionality and the same features except the number of pins and size. One of the major flaws of this board is that it doesn't have any power jack. So, you can't supply power from any external power source like battery. Apart from this, more or less this board is quite similar to any Arduino board.

Figure 1 Arduino board

If you ask what the benefits of this board are then, I would say:

• Tiny size (or, compact) is one the major advantages of this board.
• Bread-board friendly.

But, when we talk about the cons of this board then, I would say:

• There is no direct power-source jack. So, you use any power source.
• But, the preceding statement is not quite true. Since, it's a low voltage board you can use a power source using the Vin Pin, but you need to take a few precautions. Otherwise it will burn the board.
• More or less, it is equivalent to an Arduino UNO.

Specifications

Microcontroller: Atmel ATmega 168(v2) or ATmega328 (v3)
Operating Voltage: 5v
Input Voltage: 7-12v
Digital I/O Pins: 14
Analogue Input Pins: 8
Flash Memory: 16Kb or 32Kb (depends upon ATmega board)
SRAM: 1Kb or 2Kb (depends upon ATmega board)
EEROM: 512Bytes or 1Kb
Clock Speed: 16MHz

Simple Test

We will light a Red LED using a digital pin. So, you need a few pre-requisites for this demo.

• A Red LED
• Arduino Nano
• 1kOhm Resistor
• Two jumper wires

Connection Layout

Figure 2 Connection Layout

Sketch

int LED = 5;

void setup() {

    pinMode(LED, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(LED, HIGH);

}

void loop() {
    // nothing
}

And, it will turn on the LED constantly.


Figure 3 LED Constantly

Conclusion

It is one of the most compact and smallest Arduino board. So, you can use this tiny board in your prototype more often than Uno or mega. It is however better to avoid it if you have a bulk of code or more input/output operations.