Arduino
Eco-system of microcontroller dev boards for Learning, Making and Prototyping
Pakronics is an official distributor and stockiest of Arduino and Arduino Educational products in Australia. Almost all the Arduino products are made in Italy and support Windows & MaC devices. At Pakronics you can buy genuine hardware and professional support for your project or an idea. If you are an educator then you can reach us out for educational workshop & PD for learning Digital Technology. All the product includes Australian standard warranty.
What is Arduino?
Arduino is a hardware and software eco-system for education and quick prototyping of electronics. The hardware is mainly around micro-controller family that now is expanding with more powerful ARM MCUs. The software is Integrated Development Environment (IDE) supporting complete family of 50+ official boards + 1000s of third party variant boards.
How Arduino works?
Arduino hardware eco-system is consisting of Arduino main boards & shields that allows you to add various functionality to your main board depending on your unique needs. Each Arduino boards have unique features to accommodate various functionality like WiFi, Bluetooth (BLE), low power, LoRa and Narrow Band (NB). You can stack multiple shield on one main board as long as you are making sure they are not using same input and output pin at the same time,
Main board
Shield
Wiring
Arduino board comparison
Arduino Boards can be categories into form (size) factor as well logic voltage level. These are critical parameters to device before developing your projects. If you are looking for exploration and learning then UNO board are most popular as they are medium in size and includes enough number of IOs to get started. The MKR series designed for quick prototyping solution, it includes large range of io boards to offer various functionality to your solution. While the Nano series is idea for small footprint projects.
Parameters
Operating Voltage (V)
Weight (grams)
Footprint profile
Uno & others
3.3 and 5 volts variants
10 to 30 grams
Medium & Large
MKR
3.3 volts
Greater than 30 grams
Small
Nano
3.3 and 5 volts variants
less than 10 grams
Very small
Arduino UNO
Arduino UNO board are most popular and oldest board in Arduino family. They have content rich as well a lot of DIY tutorials and resources to get you started. If you are beginner or using this for teaching then it is ideal platform. Also, a variant UNO board have microcontroller removable. That makes easy to replace microcontroller if damage as well also easy to make your own board to reuse it. There are more than 1000s of shields and sensors for the UNO board.
Cost effective under $50
Removable Microcontroller chip*
Largest eco-system of third party shields and sensors
Stackable shields
Ideally for learning and entry level
Arduino Nano
Arduino Nano series is a small footprint boards. They are ideally for prototyping or product development of the portable device. They can be configured as low power device and can run on battery for a long time. The Nano series includes microcontroller from Atmega328p, Atmega4809, nRF52840& Atmega4809chip.
Starts from $21
Various on-board connectivity available BLE, WiFi, IoT
Available in 5v and 3.3v IO compatible
Latest Nano 33 family also surface mountable
For small footprint design as well entry level
Arduino MKR
MKR series widely used in industrial rapid prototyping and IoT. The unique connectivity solutions like MKR1000 and MKR NB are my favorite in this range.
The MKR series not like other Arduino boards which also have rich ecosystem of shields and carrier boards.
Industrial quality for quick prototyping and development
BLE, WiFi, LoRa and cellular connectivity
Based on SAMD21 Cortex®-M0+ , Intel Cyclone 1CL016
- Ethernet, CAN, Vidor, 485 shields available
- Ideally for serious & reliable solution
All other boards
There are many other Arduino like Mega, Due, Leonardo, Yun, Micro that are available for application specific solution like more number of IOs, ethernet connectivity, more memory, higher speed and small size.
Application specific boards
Open Source Hardware (OSHW)
Control from Bluetooth* smart phone
Ideal for expert users