MakerBot Industries

With the recent release of the Arduino MEGA, I’ve been getting quite a few questions about the differences between the various boards. The differences are actually pretty simple, so I figured I’d write a post about it to make it clear.

Basically, from a purely capabilities standpoint, its like this:

Arduino < Sanguino < Arduino MEGA

If you’re going from a price perspective, its more like this:

Sanguino w/o USB to TTL cable < Arduino < Sanguino w/ USB to TTL cable < Arduino MEGA

If you’d prefer to get into the nitty gritty, here’s a table with the various functionalities of the boards broken out:

Of course, each board serves its own particular niche: If you need a simple, easy, small board for a basic project, the standard Arduino is usually more than enough. If you need just a bit more memory/space/pins, then the Sanguino could be right for you. If you want to have the most powerful, or you need a ton of pins, or you just like awesomeness, then the Arduino MEGA could be right for you.

Have you made your decision? If so, you’re in luck, since we’re the only store in the world that sells all three! We have the Arduino Duemilanove w/ atmega328, the Sanguino, and the Arduino MEGA in stock. Grab your favorite, or collect all three!

Long live open source hardware!

Finally, there’s probably something I left out or got wrong, so please feel free to correct me if I messed up.

You’ve seen the sneak peek photos, and now it has finally arrived!  Here at MakerBot, we’ve managed to get ahold of some of the first production runs of the Arduino MEGA, and we’re really excited about this board.  It’s really come a long way since the very early prototype I saw last year, and this baby is looking really sweet!  Its basically a Sanguino on steroids which is in turn an Arduino on steroids.  That makes the Arduino MEGA some sort of monster hybrid open source hardware microcontroller board of awesome!!!

Anyway, here are the specs:

• 53 I/O Pins
• 8K RAM
• 4K EEPROM
• 128K Flash space
• 4 Hardware Serial interfaces
• 14 PWM pins
• 16 analog input pins

You can buy the Arduino MEGA in our online store, but act fast as quantities are limited.  They’re probably going to be swamped with orders so it may take a minute or two to restock once we sell out.

Finally, here’s a funny anecdote: When I was originally designing the Sanguino, I was going to call it the Megarduino. I met up with Tom Igoe and Dave Mellis to chat about the design and they gently suggested I change the name. I asked why, and they showed me an early prototype of what is now the Arduino MEGA. This board is truly deserving of that name.

I am a MakerBot.  I make things.  What can I make for you?  Take me home please.

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