Hi Rich-

The bricking issue is only on the 32u4 based boards; 328-based
boards are far more reliable. So, my answer is, buy a 328-based
board! My personal preference runs to the SparkFun RedBoard,
not solely because it's our design, either. The current "base" Arduino,
the Uno R3, uses an AVR that's been programmed as a USB to
serial bridge. The RedBoard uses the venerable FT232RL. I trust
that FTDI have their act well together on that chip.

We buy our blank PCBs from Gold Phoenix, in China, but all the
population and testing (we test 100% of our outgoing products)
is done in Colorado, in our own facility.

Finally, I'd advise against the higher end Arduino boards, at least
to start out. That's the Mega, the Due, the Tre, and the Yun. They
all have their place, but cutting your teeth in the Arduino world is
not it.

Mike H


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Richard R. Pope <mechanic_2@charter.net>
wrote:

> Mike,
>      That isn't good about being able to easily brick a board. You can
> do the same thing with certain PICs. So how do you keep from bricking an
> Arduino?
>      When your a hobbyist and you are practically trapped in your home
> what is a few seconds here or there. But I can see that if you are
> working against a timeline where this can be a huge problem.
>      I don't buy by price. I look at value. My dad thought me a long
> time ago that you get what you pay for and he was correct. I try to buy
> locally as much as possible. I pay a little more but it helps my family
> and friends. Where does Sparkfun have their boards made?
> Thanks,
> rich!
>
> On 7/3/2014 10:24 AM, Mike Hord wrote:
> > I urge you to avoid the 32u4 based Arduinos (Leonardo, for instance), a=
t
> > least
> > as a beginner.
> >
> > The entire 32u4 implementation in Arduino is somewhat flawed, which
> allows
> > users to "brick" their boards fairly easily. In addition, between a pre=
ss
> > of the
> > reset button and execution of code, 8 seconds elapses, which is a
> lifetime
> > if you find yourself resetting the boards at all during development. It
> > also puts
> > a floor on the code loading time which may or may not be acceptable to
> you.
> >
> > As Russell mentions elsewhere, boards can be found cheaply hither and
> > thither;
> > quality is often suspect for those (e.g., expect to get shoddy solder
> > joints, if
> > not outright counterfeit chips) but may be good enough. Of course, if y=
ou
> > value
> >
>
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