Arduino Mega 2560

Note: This product has been replaced by the newer Arduino Mega 2560 R3.

Overview

The Arduino Mega 2560, the successor to the Arduino Mega, is a microcontroller board based on a ATmega2560 AVR microcontroller. It has 70 digital input/output pins (of which 14 can be used as PWM outputs and 16 can be used as analog inputs), a 16 MHz resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an in-circuit system programming (ICSP) header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.

The Mega 2560 differs from the preceding Mega in that it does not use the FTDI USB-to-serial driver chip. Instead, it features the Atmega8U2 programmed as a USB-to-serial converter. This auxiliary microcontroller has its own USB bootloader, which allows advanced users to reprogram it.

The Arduino has a large support community and an extensive set of support libraries and hardware add-on “shields” (e.g. you can easily make your Arduino wireless with our Wixel shield), making it a great introductory platform for embedded electronics.

Summary

• Microcontroller: ATmega2560
• Operating voltage: 5 V
• Input voltage (recommended): 7-12 V
• Digital I/O pins: 70 (of which 14 provide PWM output)
• Analog input pins: 16*
• DC current per I/O pin: 40 mA
• DC current for 3.3V pin: 50 mA
• Flash memory: 256 KB of which 8 KB used by bootloader
• SRAM: 8 KB
• EEPROM: 4 KB
• Clock speed: 16 MHz

*The Arduino Mega 2560 has 70 total available I/O lines; all of them can function as digital I/O lines, and sixteen of them can be used as analog inputs.

More information about the Arduino Mega 2560 is available on Arduino’s website.

Note: The Arduino Mega 2560 does not include a USB cable, batteries, or a DC power adapter. No external programmer is required.