Description
The Arduino Mega 2560 is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega2560 (datasheet). It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 14 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Mega is compatible with most shields designed for the Arduino Duemilanove or Diecimila.
The Mega 2560 is an update to the Arduino Mega, which it replaces.
Schematic, Reference Design & Pin Mapping
EAGLE files: arduino-mega2560_R3-reference-design.zip
Schematic: arduino-mega2560_R3-schematic.pdf
Pin Mapping: PinMap2560 page
Technical Specifications
Microcontroller |
ATmega2560 |
Operating Voltage |
5V |
Input Voltage (recommended) |
7-12V |
Input Voltage (limits) |
6-20V |
Digital I/O Pins |
54 (of which 14 provide PWM output) |
Analog Input Pins |
16 |
DC Current per I/O Pin |
40 mA |
DC Current for 3.3V Pin |
50 mA |
Flash Memory |
256 KB of which 8 KB used by bootloader |
SRAM |
8 KB |
EEPROM |
4 KB |
Clock Speed |
16 MHz |
Power
The Mega 2560 can be powered via the USB connection or with an external power supply. The power source is selected automatically.
External (non-USB) power can come either from an AC-to-DC adapter (wall-wart) or battery. The adapter can be connected by plugging a 2.1mm center-positive plug into the board's power jack. Leads from a battery can be inserted in the GND and Vin pin headers of the POWER connector.
The board can operate on an external supply of 6 to 20 volts. If supplied with less than 7V, however, the 5V pin may supply less than five volts and the board may become unstable. If using more than 12V, the voltage regulator may overheat and damage the board. The recommended range is 7 to 12 volts.
The power pins are as follows:
Memory
The ATmega2560 has 256 KB of flash memory for storing code (of which 8 KB is used for the bootloader), 8 KB of SRAM and 4 KB of EEPROM (which can be read and written with the EEPROM library).
See the mapping between Arduino pins and Atmega2560 ports:
Each of the 54 digital pins on the Mega can be used as an input or output, using pinMode(),digitalWrite(), and digitalRead() functions. They operate at 5 volts. Each pin can provide or receive 20 mA as recommended operating condition and has an internal pull-up resistor (disconnected by default) of 20-50 k ohm. A maximum of 40mA is the value that must not be exceeded to avoid permanent damage to the microcontroller.
In addition, some pins have specialized functions:
See also the mapping Arduino Mega 2560 PIN diagram.
The Mega 2560 has 16 analog inputs, each of which provide 10 bits of resolution (i.e. 1024 different values). By default they measure from ground to 5 volts, though is it possible to change the upper end of their range using the AREF pin and analogReference() function.
There are a couple of other pins on the board:
Programming
The Mega 2560 board can be programmed with the Arduino Software (IDE). For details, see thereference and tutorials.
The ATmega2560 on the Mega 2560 comes preprogrammed with a bootloader that allows you to upload new code to it without the use of an external hardware programmer. It communicates using the original STK500 protocol (reference, C header files).
You can also bypass the bootloader and program the microcontroller through the ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming) header using Arduino ISP or similar; see these instructions for details.
The ATmega16U2 (or 8U2 in the rev1 and rev2 boards) firmware source code is available in theArduino repository. The ATmega16U2/8U2 is loaded with a DFU bootloader, which can be activated by:
Communication
The Mega 2560 board has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another board, or other microcontrollers. The ATmega2560 provides four hardware UARTs for TTL (5V) serial communication. An ATmega16U2 (ATmega 8U2 on the revision 1 and revision 2 boards) on the board channels one of these over USB and provides a virtual com port to software on the computer (Windows machines will need a .inf file, but OSX and Linux machines will recognize the board as a COM port automatically. The Arduino Software (IDE) includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to be sent to and from the board. The RX and TX LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the ATmega8U2/ATmega16U2 chip and USB connection to the computer (but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1).
A SoftwareSerial library allows for serial communication on any of the Mega 2560's digital pins.
The Mega 2560 also supports TWI and SPI communication. The Arduino Software (IDE) includes a Wire library to simplify use of the TWI bus; see the documentation for details. For SPI communication, use the SPI library.
Physical Characteristics and Shield Compatibility
The maximum length and width of the Mega 2560 PCB are 4 and 2.1 inches respectively, with the USB connector and power jack extending beyond the former dimension. Three screw holes allow the board to be attached to a surface or case. Note that the distance between digital pins 7 and 8 is 160 mil (0.16"), not an even multiple of the 100 mil spacing of the other pins.
The Mega 2560 is designed to be compatible with most shields designed for the Uno and the older Diecimila or Duemilanove Arduino boards. Digital pins 0 to 13 (and the adjacent AREF and GND pins), analog inputs 0 to 5, the power header, and ICSP header are all in equivalent locations. Furthermore, the main UART (serial port) is located on the same pins (0 and 1), as are external interrupts 0 and 1 (pins 2 and 3 respectively). SPI is available through the ICSP header on both the Mega 2560 and Duemilanove / Diecimila boards. Please note that I2C is not located on the same pins on the Mega 2560 board (20 and 21) as the Duemilanove / Diecimila boards (analog inputs 4 and 5).
Automatic (Software) Reset
Rather then requiring a physical press of the reset button before an upload, the Mega 2560 is designed in a way that allows it to be reset by software running on a connected computer. One of the hardware flow control lines (DTR) of the ATmega8U2 is connected to the reset line of the ATmega2560 via a 100 nanofarad capacitor. When this line is asserted (taken low), the reset line drops long enough to reset the chip. The Arduino Software (IDE) uses this capability to allow you to upload code by simply pressing the upload button in the Arduino environment. This means that the bootloader can have a shorter timeout, as the lowering of DTR can be well-coordinated with the start of the upload.
This setup has other implications. When the Mega 2560 board is connected to either a computer running Mac OS X or Linux, it resets each time a connection is made to it from software (via USB). For the following half-second or so, the bootloader is running on the ATMega2560. While it is programmed to ignore malformed data (i.e. anything besides an upload of new code), it will intercept the first few bytes of data sent to the board after a connection is opened. If a sketch running on the board receives one-time configuration or other data when it first starts, make sure that the software with which it communicates waits a second after opening the connection and before sending this data.
The Mega 2560 board contains a trace that can be cut to disable the auto-reset. The pads on either side of the trace can be soldered together to re-enable it. It's labeled "RESET-EN". You may also be able to disable the auto-reset by connecting a 110 ohm resistor from 5V to the reset line
Use Overcurrent Protection
The Mega 2560 has a resettable polyfuse that protects your computer's USB ports from shorts and overcurrent. Although most computers provide their own internal protection, the fuse provides an extra layer of protection. If more than 500 mA is applied to the USB port, the fuse will automatically break the connection until the short or overload is removed.