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Review-Freetronics EtherMega
by John Boxall
Overview
In this review we take a look at what is possibly the most fully-featured Arduino compatible board on the market today – the Freetronics EtherMega. This board combines the functionality of an Arduino Mega2560, a microSD card shield, and an Ethernet shield that supports power over Ethernet with optional 802.3af standard. So instead of having these three mashed together at a great expense:
Which saves space, time and money. Firstly, the specifications:
- 100% compatible with the Arduino Mega2560. So you have the ATmega2560 microcontroller, 54 digital I/O pins with 14 PWM-capable, 256KB of flash memory, 8KB of SRAM and 4KB of EEPROM to play with, the Atmel 8u2 micrcontroller taking care of the USB interface;
- However unlike the original, the EtherMega contains a switchmode power supply that allows operation from a DC power supply of between 7 and 28VDC without overheating;
- Complete c0mpatibility with the Arduino Ethernet shield, using the Wiznet W5100 controller just like the original;
- Network status LEDs on both the socket and the PCB;
- Fixed SPI behaviour on Ethernet chipset;
- Complete microSD card compatibility with SD library, and chip-select is on digital pin 4 so Ethernet and microSD can work together on the same sketch;
- optional 802.3af power over Ethernet support at up to 48V using the optional regulator board which mounts on the EtherMega;
- mini USB connector instead of the larger standard USB socket which can interfere with shields – and a USB cable is included
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