Arduino Nano V3.0 with ATMEGA328P Module FGUK No USB

[Hands0n]

Oh what a jolly jape that was!

If you are going to use one of these cheap Chinese made Arduino Nano on a Mac with OS X and have troubles connecting with USB then you may want to check out this thread on the Arduino forum for a fix.

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=261375.15

Basically, the Chinese have got the cost down by using a Chinese manufactured "FTDI" serial chip that is most certainly not the FT232RL that is stated on the specifications. 

The chip is a WCH CH340G and you will need to install very specific drivers for it - either from the WCH website (very slow) or one of the forum members has linked a local copy of the file also.

Correctly installed, when you plug in the Arduino Nano you will see a device using Terminal called /Dev/tty.wchusbserialXXX (where XXX is a 3-digit number).

[Revs]

Is his something to do with a recent FTDI driver update bricking counterfeit chips? Caused quick a stir, that.

[Hands0n]

Is his something to do with a recent FTDI driver update bricking counterfeit chips? Caused quick a stir, that.

It might be - although I';m more inclined to think that it is to avoid being prosecuted by FTDI for any number of infringements.  But it doesn';t help with the sellers not making the driver set available.

The above issues do not occur in Windows (up to 7 at least) or Linux which has kernel support for this chipset.

[Revs]

Ah right. This was an update which people got through Windows auto-update which, as far as I understand, disabled the chip itself by changing some code so it wouldn';t function. But it only affected non-FDTIchip chips.

Bad move by FTDIchip. The majority of people wouldn';t know a thing about it. Just that one day their stuff stopped working. It vexed a lot of people, including Microsoft. They';ve pulled the driver now.

[tupoar]

Thanks for the notice mate, I';ve just checked my Nano purchase and it has the same chip. 

[Revs]

D';oh!

More about it here.. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/24/ftdi_bricking_driver_response/

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ftdi+brick

[Hands0n]

Thanks for the notice mate, I';ve just checked my Nano purchase and it has the same chip. 

You';ll be okay fella as long as you';re not using OS X.  If you are, however, the solution us to use the correct drivers from the Chinese website (or that link above). 

The FTDI faux pas that @Revs mentions is not this one - although be careful if you do have a "fake" FTDI chip on board. I';d suggest checking the silkscreening on the chip itself to make sure of what it is.  The chip is on the underside of the Arduino Nano.

[tupoar]

I';m using Mac and pc though am thinking of building a dev laptop. May just do that now...