With Arduino Uno R3 currently at $24.95 it’s hard not to wonder if those $10 off brands are worth a try. A few years ago I bought a SparkFun RedBoard just simply because they had a deal and I picked it up for $9, normally they are $19.95. I took the liberty of buying three other off brands recently to look at the quality.
So, for comparison we have
- $9.69 – LANMU Uno R3 (With USB)
- $9.99 – IEIK Uno R3 (With USB)
- $10.68 – ELEGOO Uno R3 (With USB) <– Winner for cost worthy, quality alternative
- $19.95 – SparkFun RedBoard
All of the aforementioned boards are sporting the same ATMega328P with the Uno R3 bootloader. However, it’s worth noting that the SparkFun RedBoard uses a different package of the ATMega chip but it’s the same functionally.
LANMU
LANMU provides the most cosmetic resemblance to the Arduino version with it’s blue color but more specifically with the white and blue bottom and an Arduino style symbol. This board appears to have quality craftsmanship aside from some questionable solder joints. I only received one board so this may be a fluke but if all of their boards have the same solder quality I wouldn’t buy from them again so time will tell.
IEIK
IEIK changes it up a bit with their red board, certainly not the first to do it but still different. Soldering quality on this board is good, my only complaint here is that the headers were not properly aligned, nothing some slightly forcible fingers won’t fix. I would say that the quality of this one is worth the $10.
ELEGOO
ELEGOO has the best solder quality of all, I don’t see any flaws and no joints with excess solder. The headers are also aligned well (the picture actually makes it look worse than it is) and I like that they printed the pinout on the side of the headers. If you are looking for an Uno board for around $10 then this would definitely be my suggestion based on the quality.
SparkFun
SparkFun’s board is definitely the best quality of all however, admittedly it is not technically a $10 board. As mentioned I got this board during a sale to pitch their new line of RedBoards. It is an off-brand and this article isn’t necessarily about “cheap” off-brands. The glaring detail(s) you may notice is that the bottom has no contacts and the ATMega chip seems to be missing. This board would be the equivalent of Arduino’s more recent SMD version which uses surface mounted components. The major benefit here is that since there are no contacts on the bottom you can place the board on a conductive surface and not be too concerned that something will short. This board also features a USB mini port which is better, in my opinion, than the USB A port but I would still prefer a USB micro over the mini. On the other hand, with an Uno board I much prefer having the ATMega DIP package which is the full size chip you see on the other boards. The reason is that if you happen to burn out a chip you can easily pop a new one in. Finally, the last difference is that SparkFun uses the FTDI brand USB to serial chip which I like, I’ve seen more than one UART chip get burned out on Arduino Unos. Arduino replaced the FTDI chip used on the older Duemilanove boards with the ATMEL UART chip when the released the Uno (which replaced the Duemilanove).
Conclusion
For a cost worthy board around $10 I would definitely recommend the ELEGOO version although bear in mind that I only received one of each brand but I will say that even the picture of the IEIK board on Amazon shows a missing solder joint so you get what you pay for (See image below). While not included in the photos, I will also say that ELEGOO spent more time and effort on packaging as well as they static wrapped the board, put it in a box and then static wrapped the box, with the USB cable and a thank you card explaining how to write a review and how to contact them if you have a problem.
Very well researched, thank you