Review on 🔧 Mega R3 Board by ELEGOO - ATmega 2560 + USB Cable - Ideal for Arduino IDE Projects - RoHS Compliant by Javarie Malick

This is a very very good clone compared to some other Mega 2560 clones I've bought on Ebay. It has a real crystal oscillator for the master clock, as well as EN-RESET tracing and a real ATmega16U2 for the USB<>serial interface. This last point is important if your project requires the Arduino to appear as a different type of USB device. In addition, 16U2 can be flashed separately from the ATmega itself. The 16U2 chip is supported directly by the Arduino, eliminating the need for third-party drivers to load onto the board like cheaper clones using the CH340 chip. Compare this to a clone I recently bought on Ebay. The ISP connector is soldered at an angle, the clock uses a cheap resonator instead of a crystal, there is no EN reset pad (although a cap can be unsoldered for it), it uses a cheap CH340 USB <> serial chip from Atmel instead. The bootloader on Elegoo appears to be the newer STK500v2. The bootloader is configured so that the onboard LED will NOT blink while waiting for a boot. It waits 7 seconds after reset before jumping to user code unless it detects non-Arduino IDE serial connections on the USB port. In this case, once it detects that the IDE isn't using the serial port, it jumps to user code in less than a second. Excellent purchase. I will order again. Worth adding the $2 I paid.