MaxBoard ProtoAVR

The MaxBoard ProtoAVR is designed as the perfect base for all your ATMega Microcontroller projects. It has all the components required by the microcontroller, laid out properly for best performance, all attached to an 853 pin prototyping area where you can build your own circuit. Included are a 5v regulator, an 18.432MHz crystal perfect for high-speed serial communications, ISP and JTAG ports... Everything you need to get started. All you have to add are the component for your circuit and a little creativity!

We designed the ProtoAVR to be the ideal board for just about all users. Advanced users will love the fact that we don't drive up the cost and use up valuable I/O pins with features that you don't need. You'll also appreciate the careful design for reliable operation, even in noisy environments.

Beginners will love all those features, but you'll also love the fact that you don't need to debug the microcontroller hardware. It's hard enough to make sure the custom part of your circuit is wired properly without having to worry about whether your MCU is connected properly. To make the ProtoAVR an even better platform for beginners, you can add on an optional Breadboard kit and your ProtoAVR becomes the perfect learning tool for AVR microcontrollers. When you're done experimenting, just remove the breadboard and you're ready to build your final circuit!

The State-of-the-Art ATMegaxx4P series provides a far richer feature set than earlier ATMega Microcontrollers. Probably the most important new feature for most users is that every pin can be used as an interrupt. Other useful features are two USARTs (serial ports), Three Timer/Counters with compare & PWM, and lots more. In fact these microcontrollers are so feature packed that every single pin has at least one and often two alternative functions in addition to being IO pins and interrupts! To make these powerful features easier to use, the ProtoAVR has the pin legend printed right on it. You no longer have to reach for the datasheet just to figure out which pin has which feature.

The ProtoAVR is available in three different versions. All three are the same except for the processor, and the processors are the same except for the amount of memory. The following table shows the differences:

For a complete detail of the processor's features, see the 26 page summary datasheet (508k) or the 440-page full datasheet (6.6Mb)

The MaxBoard ProtoAVR is now compatible with the easy-to-use Arduino programming language. Compared to the Arduino Diecimila, the ProtoAVR has 12 more IO pins, 2 extra Analog pins, an extra serial port, 4 times the memory and more! Currently only the Atmega644p version supports the Arduino software, but we hope to have the other versions working soon. For detailed instructions, see Arduino on the ProtoAVR.

The ProtoAVR is sold as a partially assembled kit. All of the main components are surface mount, which are already assembled on the board. The remaining components are through-hole, and require soldering. Assembly instructions.

Dealer inquiries welcome.