The Arduino Due is a microcontroller board based on the Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 CPU (datasheet). It is the first Arduino board based on a 32-bit ARM core microcontroller. It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 12 can be used as PWM outputs), 12 analog inputs, 4 UARTs(hardware serial ports), a 84 MHz clock, an USB OTG capable connection, 2 DAC (digital to analog), 2 TWI, CAN bus, a power jack, an SPI header, a JTAG header, a reset button and an erase button. If you’re curious to what the erase button does well it…..hmmm….how can we put this?….it swiftly eliminates the sketch you’ve uploaded to it….and in other terms: it erases your sketch.
The board contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a micro-USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Due is compatible with Arduino shields that work at 3.3V and are compliant with the 1.0 Arduino pinout.
Some interesting applications for the Due:
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The Due has enough RAM to output VGA signals so you could use it to for a custom display on an LCD
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Potentially hook up the Due to your vehicle via the CAN-bus to log sensor data
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Create a DIY mini-synthesizer using the DAC outputs
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Run multiple processes (multi-threading) using a Real-time Operating System such as FreeRTOS, ChibiOS & RT RTOS
Features and Specs:
Microcontroller | AT91SAM3X8E | |
Operating Voltage | 3.3V | |
Input Voltage (recommended) | 7-12V | |
Input Voltage (limits) | 6-20V | |
Digital I/O Pins | 54 (of which 12 provide PWM output) | |
Analog Input Pins | 12 | |
Analog Outputs Pins | 2 (DAC) | |
Total DC Output Current on all I/O lines | 130 mA | |
DC Current for 3.3V Pin | 800 mA | |
DC Current for 5V Pin | 800 mA | |
Flash Memory | 512 KB all available for user applications | |
SRAM | 96 KB (two banks: 64KB and 32KB) | |
Clock Speed | 84 MHz |
The Due follows the 1.0 pinout:
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TWI: SDA and SCL pins that are near to the AREF pin.
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The IOREF pin which allows an attached shield with the proper configuration to adapt to the voltage provided by the board. This enables shield compatibility with a 3.3V board like the Due and AVR-based boards which operate at 5V.
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An unconnected pin, reserved for future use.
The Due has a dedicated forum for discussing the board. Here is the specification page for more info.
Note: You will have download the newer Arduino 1.5 and above in order to have the Due board available in the IDE. If you do any work with the ATtiny cores you will have to temporarily remove the “hardware” folder from your main Arduino Sketch folder or the Arduino 1.5.1 IDE will crash on boot. Since we work with the SB-FireFly all the time, this happened to us.
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