A few months ago, Borderless Electronics sold a $12 Arduino Leonardo clone ($9 + $3 shipping), and a Chinese company called Itead Studio, which also makes Iteauino Plus board (AllWinner A10), has just launched an Indiegogo campaign for an $8 Arduino “nearly-fully-compatible” board, and yes, that includes shipping.
The board is similar to Arduino UNO, but with a different MCU in order to reduce costs:
- MCU – Logic Green LGT8F88A @ 16MHz with 8KB flash (0.7KB used by bootloader), 1KB SRAM, and 504 byte EEPROM.
- Operating Voltage – 5V / 3.3V
- Input Voltage – Recommended: 7-20V, Limits: 7-24V
- Digital I/O – 14 pins of which 6 provide PWM output.
- Analog Input – 6 pins
- DC Current per I/O – Pin80 mA
- DC Current for 3.3V – power supply 250 mA
- USB – microUSB for power, programming and debugging
Arduino Uno is based on Atmel ATmega328, but this baord uses LFT8F88A, which is similar to ATmega88A. You can read a comparison with ATmega88A. ATmega328 comes with 32KB flash, 1KB EEPROM, 2KB SRAM, whereas LGT8F88A features 8kb flash, 504 bytes EEPROM, and 1KB SRAM.
According the company, the board also features some extra features such as 3.3V & 5V compatibility, lower power consumption thanks to a DCDC circuit, and extra I/Os. The schematics are available for download in PDF format.
The board can be programmed with Arduino IDE 1.0.5, but not 1.5.x, which needs to be patched to support Iteaduino Lite.
An $8 pledge will get you one Iteaduino Lite, but if you are ready to order in quantities, i.e. 40 pieces or more, the price per unit falls to $5 including shipping. The board will ship with 2x 2.54mm 8pin female header, 1x 2.54mm 6pin female header, and 1x 2.54mm 10pin female header that you have to solder yourself. Delivery is expected for January 2014. However, parcels will be shipped via Hong Kong Post or China Post by airmail without registration, so you won’t get any tracking number. In my experience, this type of package is somewhat likely to never arrive to your location. Another option is to use DHL, but it’s only available for 20 boards or more.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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