Virtuabotix Bareduino Plus- Arduino Compatible Microcontroller with Power Regulator

I got the Bareduino with Power Regulator. Everything works great, and I was able to program it by both plugging it into the Arduino Uno board I have, and also by connecting some wires from the Uno board to this one. I only had to change my settings in the Arduino IDE to treat it as a "duemilanove", and then the sketches uploaded without any problems.The power regulator I felt was a waste. Maybe it is fine for really simple things that you don't plan to keep plugged in all the time, but if you are having to drop some serious voltage down to 5V (I am using 12V power, which is in the working range of the regulator) and you plan on keeping it plugged in for long, I would skip out on this. You should get a Buck Converter instead. Buck Converters are ~95% efficient. The Power Regulator is about 40% efficient at 12V. That can mean a lot of heat. I nearly burned my fingers when touching the regulator, and it was only controlling the Arduino and 3 other chips.Overall: Great kit, very economical, works well. Just wish I had spent $3 on a Buck Converter instead of $1 on the Power Regulator upgrade.

I have purchased several Bareduino's. My son and I have had lots of fun assembling them and using them. With a perfboard (not included) you can build a rather useful portable computer that runs on common batteries.The company provides great support, including replacement parts as need be. We had quite a few questions reflecting our limited knowledge of electronics. The company answered them all and we have since built many Bareduino's.A few useful notes. You will need a breadboard and plug wires (not included) to build test Bareduino's. More permanent versions can be constructed using a perfboard and a soldering iron. Once you have a constructed a Bareduino, you can program it with three wires (TX, RC, and reset) and an Arduino. The Arduino platform has many, many (free) libraries that can be used with a Bareduino.I would also suggest obtaining a multimeter before starting any project of this kind.Enjoy!

I'm very happy I bought this - just for the experience of putting together a fully functional Arduino from a fairly simple kit. I followed the instructions on Virtualbotix website and referred back to the schematic that came with the kit. I used the regulator and a 9 volt battery to run the board. Since the 'up charge' for the regulator was what I would have paid for the regulator chip alone at Radio Shack, I'm good with buying the version I did.Instead of anything fancy, I uploaded my sketches using a $5 DB9 Serial to terminal strip TTL converter. Pretty sure that I didn't change any voltage levels, but it sure made making the proto board connections easier. Send, Receive, Vcc, ground.This is so cool that I wished I would have bought a few more.

I could not get this thing working. It finally clicked that the reason it was not being seen properly by the Arduino IDE software is because there was no data on the chip. After some research we used a working Arduino Uno with a homemade burner circuit built on a bread board. Bill Westfield created the optiLoader scripts that will burn a blank chip like what we received. I am giving this a three because I blew an entire day trying to get this working. It is not for the faint of heart if you receive a blank chip like I did. I hope future ones will have the boot loader on it as advertised. If so, I will raise this rating to a five.

This is a easy little kit that contains everything (except for breadboard, which the kit is clear about) you need to build your own Arduino.Only gripe is that I built it in accordance with the instructions on their website, which I did but kept it all clean by trimming all leads to length. Only problem is when you add in the power components you have to move the 22pF caps to differently spaced pin location, which I can no longer do since they were cut to length. A few 20 cent caps later and it's fine, but it was definitely annoying when I realized it.Overall a great product and I'd definitely pick up a few more if/when needed for projects.

Just what I needed for a simple project. I immediately updated to the Uno bootloader, though; I don't understand why these are still being shipped out with the old software. Great for when you don't need the entire Arduino-sized board, or want to move an Arduino experiment into a more permanent installation.

Awesome kit if you want to make your own Arduino clone for cheaper than the Uno. You would be hard pressed to buy the components individually for this price. Plus, it comes with instructions and a schematic and a pin mapping of the ATMEGA328 to Arduino. The only thing I needed to add was a 28-DIP socket so I wouldn't need to solder in the microcontroller; this allows me to remove it to program with my Uno.

This is a convenient kit with all the essential parts for a DIY Uno clone. Saves you from sourcing the parts yourself and programming the Atmega processor or ordering a more expensive kit. I had originally been disappointed because I thought it came with the pictured breadboard, but the seller absolutely made it right and went as far as rewording the ad!!! I would definitely recommend it for any Arduino Uno (Duemilanova) based project.