Highlights

• VIN. The input voltage to the Arduino board when it’s using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB connection or another regulated power source). You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage via the power jack, access it through this pin.
• 5V. This pin outputs a regulated 5V from the regulator on the board. The board can be supply with power either from the DC power jack (7 – 12V), the USB connector (5V), or the VIN pin of the board (7-12V). Supplying voltage via the 5V or 3.3V pins bypasses the regulator, and can damage your board. We don’t advise it.
• 3V3. A 3.3 volt supply generated by the onboard regulator. Maximum current draw is 50 mA.
• GND. Ground pins.
• IOREF. This pin on the Arduino board provides the voltage reference with which the microcontroller operates. A properly configured shield can read the IOREF pin voltage and select the appropriate power source or enable voltage translators on the outputs for working with the 5V or 3.3V.

Memory

The Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) 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).

Input and Output

Each of the 50 digital pins on the Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) 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 a maximum of 40 mA . has an internal pull-up resistor (disconnect by default) of 20-50 kOhm. In addition, some pins have specialized functions:

• • • Serial : 0 (RX) and 1 (TX), Serial 1: 19 (RX) and 18 (TX), Serial 2: 17 (RX) and 16 (TX), Serial 3: 15 (RX) and 14 (TX). Use to receive (RX) and transmit (TX) TTL serial data. Pins 0 and 1 are also connected to the corresponding pins of the ATmega8U2 USB-to-TTL Serial chip.
    • External Interrupts: 2 (interrupt 0), 3 (interrupt 1), 18 (interrupt 5), 19 (interrupt 4), 20 (interrupt 3), and 21 (interrupt 2). These pins can be configured to trigger an interrupt on a low value, a rising or falling edge, or a change in value. See the attachInterrupt() function for details.
    • PWM: 2 to 13 and 44 to 46. Provide 8-bit PWM output with the analogWrite() function.
    • SPI: 50 (MISO), 51 (MOSI), 52 (SCK), 53 (SS). These pins support SPI communication using the SPI library. The SPI pins are also broken out on the ICSP header, which is physically compatible with the Uno, Duemilanove, and Diecimila.
    • USB Host: MAX3421E.

MAX3421E

communicate with Arduino with the SPI bus. So it uses the following pins:

• Digital: 7 (RST), 50 (MISO), 51 (MOSI), 52 (SCK).
  Note: Please do not use Digital pin 7 as input or output because is used in the communication with MAX3421E
• Non broken out on headers: PJ3 (GP_MAX), PJ6 (INT_MAX), PH7 (SS).
• LED: 13. There is a built-in LED connected to digital pin 13. When the pin is HIGH value, the LED is on, when the pin is LOW, it’s off.
• TWI: 20 (SDA) and 21 (SCL). Support TWI communication using the Wire library. Note that these pins are not in the same location as the TWI pins on the Duemilanove or Diecimila.

The Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) has 16 analog inputs, each of which provides 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:

• AREF. Reference voltage for the analog inputs. Use with analogReference().
• Reset. Bring this line LOW to reset the micro-controller. Typically used to add a reset button to shields which block the one on the board.

Communication

The Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other micro-controllers. The ATmega2560 provides four hardware UARTs for TTL (5V) serial communication. An ATmega8U2 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 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 ATmega8U2/16U2 chip and USB connection to the computer (but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1). A Software-serial library allows for serial communication on any of the MEGA ADK’s digital pins. The ATmega2560 also supports TWI and SPI communication. The Arduino software includes a Wire library to simplify the use of the TWI bus, see the Wire library for details. For SPI communication, use the SPI library.

The USB host interface given by MAX3421E IC allows the Arduino MEGA ADK to connect and interact to any type of device that has a USB port. For example, allows you to interact with many types of phones, controlling Canon cameras, interfacing with keyboard, mouse and games controllers as Wiimote and PS3.

Programming

The Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) can be the program with the Arduino software (download). For details, see the reference and tutorials. The ATmega2560 on the MEGA ADK comes preburn with a boot-loader (the same on Mega 2560) that allows you to upload new code to it without the use of an external hardware programmer. It communicates using the original STK500v2 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 ATmega8U2 firmware source code is available in the Arduino repository. The ATmega8U2 is load with a DFU bootloader, which can be activated by:

• On Rev1 boards: connecting the solder jumper on the back of the board (near the map of Italy) and then resetting the 8U2.
• On Rev2 or later boards: there is a resistor that pulling the 8U2/16U2 HWB line to ground, making it easier to put into DFU mode. You can then use Atmel’s FLIP software (Windows) or the DFU programmer (Mac OS X and Linux) to load a new firmware. Or you can use the ISP header with an external programmer (overwriting the DFU bootloader). See this user-contributed tutorial for more information.

Automatic (Software) Reset

Rather then requiring a physical press of the reset button before an upload, the Arduino MEGA ADK 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 nano-farad capacitor. When this line is asserted (taken low), the reset line drops long enough to reset the chip. The Arduino software uses this capability to allow you to upload code by simply pressing the upload button in the Arduino environment.

This means that the boot-loader 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 ADK 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 MEGA ADK. 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 open.

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 for a second after opening the connection and before sending this data. The MEGA ADK contains a trace that can be cut to disable the auto-reset. The pads on either side of the trace can be solder together to re-enable it. It’s the label “RESET-EN”. You may also be able to disable the auto-reset by connecting a 110-ohm resistor from 5V to the reset line; see this forum thread for details.

USB Over-current Protection

The Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) 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.

Physical Characteristics and Shield Compatibility

The maximum length and width of the Mega R3 Android Accessory Development Kit (ADK) 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 ADK is designed to be compatible with most shields design for the Uno, Diecimila or Duemilanove.

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. Further, 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 ADK and Duemilanove / Diecimila.

Please note that I2C is not located on the same pins on the MEGA ADK (20 and 21); as the Duemilanove / Diecimila (analog inputs 4 and 5).