New(?) fake Uno R3 boards.

[Spongey]

I've messed around with various Arduino boards over the years but I never had an Uno R3 with a 16U2 chip. I decided to try some from Aliexpress (yes I know, not the most reliable but I'd had good experiences with other boards in the past).

A friend also got an Uno R3 in December as part of a starter kit. I got a similar kit in January same supplier. I got two additional R3 boards from a different supplier.

The boards in the starter kits were clones. The others had countefeit Arduino logos on them.

All of my boards didn't like some USB ports (previous boards had no problems with the same ports). Ports on a laptop and via a hub worked fine, others wouldn't connect and failed with a "device descriptor request failed" error. Uploading a few sample sketches worked fine though.

Next I ran few tests on the 16U2 chip. First I tried entering DFU mode: no joy, no reponse from "16U2" to reset. The friend who had the other R3 didn't have any problems.

I tried connecting a programmer to the 16U2 ICSP port: no response, can't even read chip ID.

Checking the 16U2 ICSP port showed several of the pins didn't connect to the 16U2 at all.

I strongly suspect the 16U2 chip is fake to reduce costs. Maybe a dedicated USB/serial chip or some other cheap processor. Most people using these boards wont know or care about DFU mode and will never notice any difference.

I got my friend to take images of the working board and compared them to mine (see below).

The area round the 16U2 is noticably different.

The most obvious difference is that the chip number is vertical on the good board and horizontal on the bad ones.

[brucehoult]

I've messed around with various Arduino boards over the years but I never had an Uno R3 with a 16U2 chip. I decided to try some from Aliexpress (yes I know, not the most reliable but I'd had good experiences with other boards in the past).

There is nothing wrong with Aliexpress.  Aliexpress is an order-taking site for 99999 different vendors. Choose a good vendor -- rather than whichever one is the cheapest today -- and you'll never have any kind of problem.

In my experience ELEGOO stuff is good. Here is the official ELEGOO store on Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911364001?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.12.25b695b1GqaQhJ

[Spongey]

There is nothing wrong with Aliexpress.  Aliexpress is an order-taking site for 99999 different vendors. Choose a good vendor -- rather than whichever one is the cheapest today -- and you'll never have any kind of problem.

As I said my friend had no problems with the first order but the second from the same supplier a month later had the fake 16U2. I'm wondering if this is a new kind of fake (which the supplier might not even realise) which will appear more often or if people have one already and don't know.

In my experience ELEGOO stuff is good. Here is the official ELEGOO store on Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911364001?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.12.25b695b1GqaQhJ

Thanks, I may give them a go. Has anyone tried the serial number test on those?

[janoc]

Thanks, I may give them a go. Has anyone tried the serial number test on those?

If you care about getting the genuine article, then pay for the genuine boards (or a known good clone from reputable vendors like SparkFun, Seeed Studio, Adafruit, etc.) instead of playing roulette on AliExpress to save pennies. It is not like you are going to buy 1000 of those boards that the price difference is going to matter much.

[edavid]

In my experience ELEGOO stuff is good. Here is the official ELEGOO store on Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911364001?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.12.25b695b1GqaQhJ

Not very helpful to OP since they don't sell R3 clones.

If you care about getting the genuine article, then pay for the genuine boards (or a known good clone from reputable vendors like SparkFun, Seeed Studio, Adafruit, etc.) instead of playing roulette on AliExpress to save pennies. It is not like you are going to buy 1000 of those boards that the price difference is going to matter much.

SparkFun doesn't sell R3 clones, only Arduino boards for $28 each (vs. $3-4 for generic AliExpress clones).

Seeed's R3/16U2 clone is $7.60, so only twice as much as a generic one - good tip.

Adafruit doesn't seem to sell any boards with a 16U2.

[HwAoRrDk]

Why do you specifically want an Uno R3 board with a 16U2? Why is that important?

Can't say I've ever had any problems with the Uno R3 clone boards that typically have a CH340G.

I strongly suspect the 16U2 chip is fake to reduce costs. Maybe a dedicated USB/serial chip or some other cheap processor. Most people using these boards wont know or care about DFU mode and will never notice any difference.

I got my friend to take images of the working board and compared them to mine (see below).

The area round the 16U2 is noticably different.

The most obvious difference is that the chip number is vertical on the good board and horizontal on the bad ones.

I have a genuine Arduino Uno R3 here in front of me, and I can confirm that the 16U2 markings are vertical, towards JP2, and pin 1 mark is bottom-left.

Whatever that fake chip is, it's not a 16U2. The fact it is rotated 90° from the genuine article, that the pin 1 marking doesn't correspond correctly to the text (it should be next to the 'A' of 'Atmel', not the diagonally-opposite corner), and that the connected traces are a different layout, says that the pin-out is different.

I don't think it's a clone FT232 disguised as an Atmel chip, because although those come in QFN32 package, the pin-out doesn't match up (this chip has the crystal connected to pins 1 and 2, but those are VCCIO and RXD on the FT232).

[brucehoult]

In my experience ELEGOO stuff is good. Here is the official ELEGOO store on Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911364001?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.12.25b695b1GqaQhJ

Not very helpful to OP since they don't sell R3 clones.

Of course they do. They've been the only Uno R3s I've bought in the last 6+ years.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005150567293.html

$13. More than a complete rando no-namer, but a lot less than an Arduino-branded one.

[edavid]

In my experience ELEGOO stuff is good. Here is the official ELEGOO store on Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/911364001?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.12.25b695b1GqaQhJ

Not very helpful to OP since they don't sell R3 clones.

Of course they do. They've been the only Uno R3s I've bought in the last 6+ years.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005150567293.html

$13. More than a complete rando no-namer, but a lot less than an Arduino-branded one.

Interesting, I get a 404 on that page.  I guess they don't sell them to US customers.

[brucehoult]

Interesting, I get a 404 on that page.  I guess they don't sell them to US customers.

Sux to be u.

[ralphrmartin]

I've always found KEYESTUDIO boards from Aliexpress to be OK:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006313785554.html

They have 16U2 variants if you specifically want that.

[Spongey]

Why do you specifically want an Uno R3 board with a 16U2? Why is that important?

I want to mess around with reprogramming the 16U2 with custom firmware and seeing what I can do with it.

Whatever that fake chip is, it's not a 16U2.

I agree. It does show the expected USB VID/PID for the 16U2 with standard R3 firmware.

[edavid]

Interesting, I get a 404 on that page.  I guess they don't sell them to US customers.

Sux to be u.

That's a strange thing to say, but I do have a Geeetech R3 clone with a real 16U2 on it that cost me $6 (but is also no longer sold (at least in the US)), and otherwise I'm happy with the various no-name CH340 versions that I've bought for $3 each, so I feel like I'm doing fine.

I hope OP comes back and tells us what he does with the 16U2, I still don't understand the use case.

[Ian.M]

Possibly https://github.com/NicoHood/HoodLoader2

[Andy Chee]

I've reprogrammed the 16U2 to appear in Windows as a native MIDI device. 

Another possible use case is to reprogram the 16U2 to appear as a native Windows HID device.

[Spongey]

Possibly https://github.com/NicoHood/HoodLoader2

That's the kind of thing I wanted to try out yes.

I started this topic also to make people aware of this kind of weird counterfeit chip and see if anyone else had come across it before or maybe had one of these without realising it.

[westfw]

I get a 404 on that page.  I guess they don't sell them to US customers.

How about this one:  https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806579030895.html

[brucehoult]

I get a 404 on that page.  I guess they don't sell them to US customers.

How about this one:  https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806579030895.html

Same price as my ELEGOO link.

I see some "Uno R3" for as low as $1, reduced from $6.50.



But note "Max 1 pcs/shopper".

Others at around $2 each say max 3 pcs, also reduced from around $6.50 to $7.50 prices.

And in all these such cases that I've found just now, if I scroll down I find it very explicitly stated...

 "Replace the 16u2, so that the cost reduced to half, consumers get the most benefits"

No trickery there -- they're telling you why the standard price is $6.50 or $7.50 instead of $13.

And the $1 or $2 thing is loss-leader, getting a new customer, you can only buy 1 or 3 or whatever. Much like the supposedly $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, which wasn't really, and you could only buy one. Thay've changed that these days (once the Zero 2 was introduced?) and the price is higher now and if you want to buy 10 or 100 or 1000 you can.

[edavid]

I've reprogrammed the 16U2 to appear in Windows as a native MIDI device. 

Another possible use case is to reprogram the 16U2 to appear as a native Windows HID device.

Is there an advantage to doing this kind of project with the 16U2 on an R3 vs. using a Leonardo clone with a 16U4?

[Spongey]

Update.

Got an Elegoo board in the end and it arrived yesterday.

Initial tests are very promising.

No fake logos, no misleading descriptions. It clearly says it's compatible and doesn't pretend to be original.

It has an impressive build quality, high quality soldering and PCB. I like the printing of port details on the side of the connectors.

Unlike the other ones this one works with all USB ports I've tried it on.

It can enter DFU mode and my usbasp programmer can detect the 16U2 and read the flash with no problems.

Only minor issue is that the AtMega328P does not pass the serial number test. It could be a clone chip which surprised me. Apparently some of these can't enter HV programming mode but I don't have anything to test that at present and I'm unlikely to need it.

Aliexpress have refunded me for the two counterfeit boards.