News

The first production run of the Freetronics TwentyTen is complete and we're in the process of getting stock over to our resellers Little Bird Electronics and Toys Down Under as quickly as we can. In the meantime feast your eyes on this little beauty:

The TwentyTen has been specifically designed to be a successor to the Arduino Duemilanove ("2009") design, and maintains all the great things about the Duemilanove while applying a few fixes and improvements. There's plenty more information on the TwentyTen page, but some of the highlights are:

• USB port switched to mini-B connector. No more problems with shorting out against shields! We even bundle in a free mini USB cable.
• Prototyping area so you can use the TwentyTen in many permanent projects without requiring a prototyping shield.
• LEDs brought out onto the edge tab so you can see them when a shield is mounted on top.
• PCB markings on the top and the bottom so you can easily see what you're connecting to.
• Retained the DIP-format MCU so you can unplug it.
• Bit-bang programming headers (marked "X3") as header pads for maximum convenience when using the TwentyTen as an AVR programmer.
• Pin 13 LED is driven by a MOSFET so you can use it as a digital input.

 At long last the first batch of TwentyTen ("Duemiladieci") boards have arrived from the assembler, and it's like Christmas morning. But better!

That's 26Kg of Arduinos. Just getting it in the door was a tight fit.

Most have already been pre-ordered by our resellers and there are a few destined for extra-special people including the Arduino core team, but in a little while I'll be setting the stock level on the site to a non-zero value and they'll be available for order.

Happy days!

After a couple of delays caused by problems with PCB manufacture the TwentyTen is now rolling off the line at the assembler, and this morning they emailed through the first ever pics of it fully populated and ready to go:

The Arduino bootloader has been burned, test sketches have been loaded and operation verified, and they’re now going full steam ahead with assembling the full first batch.

It’s nearly here, folks!

To make the Freetronics site a bit more useful we’ve just started writing up short tutorials on specific Arduino-related topics. The first one is about how to solder headers (both regular and stackable) onto Arduino shields and make sure they go on straight, which can be harder than it sounds. The tutorials section is accessible using the “Tutorials” navigation link on the side of every page on the site.

To start with we’re just going to take some wild guesses about the sorts of things that people may find interesting, but we’re definitely open to suggestions (and maybe even bribes!) so if you want us to write up a specific topic please zap an email at us.

I received the shipping notification from PCBcart on Sunday, and Tuesday morning the PCBs for ProtoShield v3 and the 433MHz receiver shield were delivered by Fedex.

Unbelievably fast service.

We’re waiting on a pack of 2000 stackable shield headers that are on their way from Taiwan, but all the other parts are now in stock so hopefully by later this week we’ll have fully-assembled v3 ProtoShields and 433MHz RX shields available for sale. We don’t have the packaging sorted out yet, but that’s in the works.

I just received notification that the first batch of PCBs for v3.0 of the ProtoShield and the first ever version of the 433MHz receiver shield have shipped from PCBcart in China. I expect to see them late this week, and then I’ll be busy doing assembly with 0603 surface mount parts to get them ready to go on sale.

Yes, I really need to buy a stereo microscope!

In the meantime we’re clearing out the remaining stock of v1.0 and v2.0 ProtoShields that are left over from when I was working on Practical Arduino. There are only a few left so if you’re interested you should get in fast.

After Practical Arduino came out we were surprised by how much demand there was for kits and other hardware associated with the book, so a cunning plan was hatched. Freetronics is the result. Stay tuned!