ELEGOO Nano Board 3pcs CH 340 Compatible with Arduino Nano V3.0

Rather than buy the official I used these for a variety of projects. They work well and function with the Arduino IDE. Requires a small driver install but apart from that they were good to go out of the box. For the price an ideal alternate version.

I bought these instead of the arduino nano as they were significantly cheaper, they function just as well and are completely conpatable with the arduino software. Only thing to remember is that you'll need to find a mini-USB cable (not mini USB)! I haven't had to use one in ages so I ended having to order one.

Not bad value and work perfectly. Warns of needing drivers for CH340 chip instead of FT232, but worked fine with the standard Arduino software on my Mac M1.

Initially very impressed with the high quality packaging and construction of these Arduino-compatible boards, which I hadn't realised were quite so TINY (see photos)! I'll certainly be able to use them in pretty much any project in terms of their size - hopefully one will even fit in my ageing Aduki mood light along with a few WS2812s, to give it a new and more colourful lease of life! All three work perfectly. [update: After a bit more thought, I've reluctantly decided to drop my review to 4 stars - I would have given it 4.5 stars if I could. It seems trivial, but the fact that all four LEDs are red instead of the standard green and amber of the official Arduino board, and are also very bright and right next to one another so quite difficult to resolve, is a little disappointing - surely using the correct colours with a green power light wouldn't have cost significantly more? That, plus the incomplete guide and the fact that the original nano appears to be obsolescent now, being superseded by the more capable Nano Every which is available direct from Arduino at a competitive price, makes me wonder if I shouldn't have gone for an official board instead, supporting the Arduino project. However I do realise that this Elegoo clone doesn't claim to be an Arduino, and is quite legitimate and certainly not one of the fakes that do exist. A few points that might help others: 1) many earlier reviews say these have the old boot-loader (in fact some of the bad reviews are probably from people who didn't realise that, and thought it was faulty or wrongly assumed it has no boot-loader). Elegoo's FAQ also explains how to set the IDE to the old boot-loader. On that basis I set the Arduino IDE to the old boot-loader, but couldn't upload an example sketch. So at a guess, I switched to the standard boot-loader and it then worked perfectly! So presumably Elegoo are now supplying these with the new boot-loader, and there's no need to switch the IDE setting or even re-flash the loader. 2) Connecting a nano to my Win 10 laptop recognised the device but showed it as unknown in device manager (as expected). However, simply using "update driver" downloaded and installed the correct CH340 driver automatically, and everything worked (though before I realised the boot-loader issue mentioned above, I did try manually installing the CH340 drivers from the Elegoo site in case they were newer and fixed the "problem", but Windows said they were already installed so evidently they're the same version) 3) the Arduino IDE is decidedly clunky in my experience so far. I have great trouble in getting it to open the main window on startup - it runs and shows the flash screen, but then nothing more, even though it's still running on the taskbar and shows a blank sketch window preview there. Maybe the window's invisible or off-screen somehow? - even when it does work it certainly doesn't seem to handle my high-DPI windows 10 screen very well at all. The problem seems intermittent, and running as admin didn't fix it, contrary to some suggestions on the web. So far the only solution I've found is to run the debug exe, which of course will slow it down significantly but does open the main window correctly. Sadly this sort of problem seems common in some cross-platform applications. Still, I'm new to the Arduino IDE (though not to IDEs in general, being a retired software developer), so I'll persevere and do lots of googling - maybe I'm doing something stupid and all will become clear ;-) [update: installing the IDE version from the Windows Store seems to solve this problem, but having tried the Web-based IDE that seems even better in terms of clarity of display and ease of use, so I'd recommend that] 4) The "Elegoo Nano board user instruction" PDF from their website is a reasonable starting point I suppose, but seems incomplete. It tells you how to open the IDE's built-in serial monitor, but gives no examples of what you might use that for - yet if you're someone who needs to use it, you're unlikely not to know or be able to work out how to open it, or use a better alternative, so it seem pointless even mentioning it in a starter document like this. Then "Lesson 3" claims to show you how to open, compile and upload the example blink sketch as a first step, but apart from a breadboard diagram for wiring up an LED (which isn't explained and of course isn't even necessary for the nano since there's one on-board), and a listing of the source code, it doesn't actually show you the steps to edit, compile or upload your sketch to see the result, which is the whole point! It feels like they missing off a few pages from the end of the document. Of course, most people would be able to work that out even if they were new to coding and IDEs, and there are countless guides and tutorials on the web, but a nice clear step-by-step guide to connecting up the nano and uploading a modified example sketch would have been really helpful for any complete newbies.

These are nice low cost alternatives to the official devices and ideal for experimenting with. I had problems at first trying to upload programs on all of the 3 devices. I found the support pages on the Elegoo site that pointed me in the right direction. These devices contain the new boot loader and the version of my IDE devices library was too low. I ran an update and all worked perfectly after that. I’ve managed to burn out one so far by poor wiring. It was my fault when I connected the power lines on a breadboard, but these are cheap enough not to worry too much. So, nice devices that I plan to buy more of soon.

All perfect. No problems and all work.

Having bought 'a pack of three' to run from my Imac computer and looking forward to the pleasure that they would bring me, I was initially sorely disappointed and considered throwing them out of the window! However some 4 hours of reading and computer fiddling later I am now older and wiser and a happy boy as I can blink! I had not played with Arduino before. The lessons learnt might help others. The date is the 28th. of January 2021, I am using a large Imac computer from 2013 using Catalina 10.15.7 and Elegoo Arduino Nano boards with an ATmega328P processor and with a CH340G communication chip though the box omits the last G. Using a magnifying glass on the board gave the last G. Firstly!!!! the Catalina software has the ability to talk to the CH340G chip, there is no need to go hunting dodgy looking downloads or trying to find the one on the Elegoo site which does not exist! Secondly using an USB to mini USB cable - most cables for recharging torches etc only have two wires a plus and minus for power and lack the data cables! You must have a proper cable. It is said that 80% of initial problems in communication are due to people having two wire only cables! That should have just saved you hours of grief and profanities. Download the Arduino software from Arduino.cc. Move the zip file from the downloads folder to applications. Double click and install it. Bin the zip programme when successful. Plug in the Arduino nano. Run the programme. On the top line of the Arduino programme go to tools, then port and look for something starting with USB and this should be the port to the Nano. Click on this then return to the top line. Open the programme mine said version 1.8.12. in the central block click it and a top line menu should appear. Choose File, then example, then basic, then Blink which you click on. Another central screen box appears with the blink sketch appears, click on the right arrow key after a small delay the message appears Upload done (from memory or similar). The Nano is now programmed. The IDE as it is called from Arduino.cc allows code to be written on the computer known as a sketch or they can be found on the net already written. This is a sort of text based language. To send it the Nano it must be converted to binary code ie. 0 and 1s before it is sent to the Nano. This is the step called compiling. If after the blink sketch you wish to load another programme I think the Arduino IDE sends a first line allowing the existing programme to be overwritten. The same USB cable can power the Nano for the blink sketch when not running the Arduino software (IDE). It needs a resistor a LED and two bits of wire. Solder or duPont clips can be used. I think the clips for JST are the same? Best of luck. Dronebotworkshop on youtube has good instructions.

Two are in use and working well, and the third one is ready in case I break one!