How to fix bad Chinese Arduino clones

Hi,

So you purchased a cheap Chinese Arduino clone and what to do to get it working;

From Instructables; Have you ever wondered if a cheap Chinese Arduino clone will actually work? You pay only a few bucks and get the same product. Sounds to good to be true right? The truth is that some work and some won't. Follow the rest of this instructable and I'll explain you how to make them all work in no time. Here is where I got my Cheap Arduino clone

Good instructable to get a great UNO value working.

Look at:
$2 Arduino. The ATMEGA328 as a stand-alone. Easy, cheap and very small. A complete guide.

In this instructable you will learn how to use the Arduino ATMEGA328 microcontroller chip as a stand-alone microcontroller. They cost only 2 bucks, can do the same as your Arduino and make your projects extremely small. We will cover the pin layout, how to make it ready for the Arduino software by burning a bootloader and how to upload sketches. Watch the rest of this instructable to find out how you can make your Arduino projects smaller and cheaper in no time.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

I've bout several "clones" (are they really "clones" when they are built to an open hardware spec?) from SainSmart and haven't had any problems with them.

Hi,

The problem with some Chinese Arduino clones is the CH340 chips used;

From http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...rduino-clones/ I use an Arduino Uno for this example but it is the same process for most Arduino models. So here we have a genuine Arduino and a Chinese clone. Let's do the test. My Arduino environment has been installed and is working properly. First I plug in the genuine Arduino. Everything works just fine. Now I use my cheap Chinese copy and.... the computer does not recognise the hardware. The problem is that the clone does not use the standard serial to usb chip but a chip marked CH340. Your computer will not recognize these CH340 chips on your computer. To fix this is very easy.

The CH340 chips is not a standard serial to USB chip and the author provides the work around to get this going. Some times the host system will recognize the CH340 while other systems will not. Good article to solve the issue!

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!