MULTICOMP MC-NOVE technology data

MC-NOVE

Arduino™ Duemilanove Compatible Development Board

Page <1> 28/05/10 V1.1

http://www.farnell.com
http://www.newark.com
http://www.cpc.co.uk

Overview

The MC-NOVE is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328 (datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can
be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an 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.

Microcontroller ATmega328

Operating Voltage 5V

Input Voltage (recommended) 7 to 12V

Input Voltage (limits) 6 to 20V

Digital I/O Pins 14 (of which 6 provide PWM output)

Analog Input Pins 6

DC Current per I/O Pin 40mA

DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50mA

Flash Memory 32KB of which 2KB used by bootloader

SRAM 2KB

EEPROM 1KB

Clock Speed 16MHz

Summary

Power

The MC-NOVE can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply.
The power source is selected automatically.
External (non-USB) power can come either from an AC-to-DC adapter (wall-wart) or battery. The adapter can be connected by
plugging a 2.1mm centre-positive plug into the board's power jack. Leads from a battery can be inserted in the Gnd and Vin pin
headers of the POWER connector.
The board can operate on an external supply of 6 to 20 volts. If supplied with less than 7V, however, the 5V pin may supply less
than five volts and the board may be unstable. If using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and damage the board.
The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts.

MC-NOVE

Arduino™ Duemilanove Compatible Development Board

Page <2> 28/05/10 V1.1

http://www.farnell.com
http://www.newark.com
http://www.cpc.co.uk

The power pins are as follows:

• VIN. The input voltage to the board when it's using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB
connection or other regulated power source). You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage via
the power jack, access it through this pin.

• 5V. The regulated power supply used to power the microcontroller and other components on the board. This can
come either from VIN via an on-board regulator, or be supplied by USB or another regulated 5V supply

• 3V3. A 3.3 volt supply generated by the on-board FTDI chip. Maximum current draw is 50mA.

• GND. Ground pins.

Memory

The ATmega328 has 32 KB of flash memory for storing code (of which 2 KB is used for the bootloader) The ATmega328 has 2 KB
of SRAM and 1 KB of EEPROM (which can be read and written with the EEPROM library).

Input and Output

Each of the 14 digital pins on the MC-NOVE can be used as an input or output, using pinMode(), digitalWrite(), and digitalRead()
functions. They operate at 5 volts. Each pin can provide or receive a maximum of 40 mA and has an internal pull-up resistor
(disconnected by default) of 20-50 kOhms. In addition, some pins have specialized functions:

• Serial: 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). Used to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data. These pins are connected to the
corresponding pins of the FTDI USB-to-TTL Serial chip.

• External Interrupts: 2 and 3. These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt on a low value, a rising or falling edge, or
a change in value. See the attachInterrupt() function for details.

• PWM: 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.

• SPI: 10 (SS), 11 (MOSI), 12 (MISO), 13 (SCK). These pins support SPI communication, which, although provided by the

underlying hardware, is not currently included in the Arduino™ language.

• LED: 13. There is a built-in LED connected to digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the
pin is low, it's off.

The MC-NOVE has 6 analog inputs, each of which provides 10 bits of resolution (i.e. 1024 different values). By default they
measure from ground to 5 volts, though is it possible to change the upper end of their range using the AREF pin and the
analogReference() function. Additionally, some pins have specialized functionality:

• I

2

C: 4 (SDA) and 5 (SCL). Support I2C (TWI) communication using the Wire library.

There are a couple of other pins on the board:

• AREF. Reference voltage for the analog inputs. Used with analogReference().

• Reset. Bring this line LOW to reset the microcontroller. Typically used to add a reset button to shields which block the one

on the board.

Communication

The MC-NOVE has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another Arduino™, or other microcontrollers. The
ATmega328 provide UART TTL (5V) serial communication, which is available on digital pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). An FTDI FT232RL
on the board channels this serial communication over USB and the FTDI drivers (included with the Arduino™ software) provide a
virtual com port to software on the computer. The Arduino™ software includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to
be sent to and from the board. The RX and TX LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the FTDI chip and
USB connection to the computer (but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1).
A SoftwareSerial library allows for serial communication on any of the MC-NOVEs digital pins.
The ATmega328 also support I2C (TWI) and SPI communication. The Arduino™ software includes a Wire library to simplify use of
the I2C bus; see the documentation for details. To use the SPI communication, please see the ATmega328 datasheet.