Arduino Hacks

Introduction

The 'brains' of the Arduino is a microcontroller called an ATmega. It is a product line from AVR (a Norweigen chip company). Just like Intel & AMD release new & better chips each year, so does AVR. The first versions of the Arduino (up to the NG) used an ATmega8 - a chip with 8K of flash memory and 1K of RAM. Then AVR released the ATmega168, a drop-in replacement with 16K of flash and 1K of RAM - a really big improvement! Now there is the ATmega328 with 32K of flash and 2K of RAM.

Updating and replacing your Arduino is easy and painless and costs only a few dollars. Your sketches will work just as before but with a little more breathing room.

In order to perform this upgrade you will have to either purchase a preprogrammed chip or program it yourself with a AVR programmer or by 'bitbanging' it.

Replace the chip

First, gently pry the Arduino microcontroller from its socket using a small flat screwdriver or similar. Try to make sure the pins dont get bent. Put it in a safe place. Preferably in an anti-static bag.

Next, prepare the new chip. The pins of ICs are a little skewed when they come from the factory, so they need to be bent in just a tiny bit, to be parallel. Grip the chip from the ends and use a table.

Finally, replace the old chip, lining up all the pins and making sure that the notch in the chip matches the notch in the socket!

Download an Arduino IDE with ATmega328 compatibility

I'm working on adapting the latest V12 but until then, grab version 11 for Windows (51M!) (mirrored from spiffie) that supports the new chip