Communication
The Arduino Mega has a lot of way for communicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other microcontrollers. The ATmega2560 gives 4 hardware UARTs for TTL (5V) serial communication. An FTDI FT232RL on the board channels one of these over USB and the FTDI drivers (included with the Arduino software) provide a virtual com port to software on the computer. The Arduino software includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to be sent to and from the Arduino board. The RX and TX LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the FTDI 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's
The Arduino Mega has a lot of way for communicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other microcontrollers. The ATmega2560 gives 4 hardware UARTs for TTL (5V) serial communication. An FTDI FT232RL on the board channels one of these over USB and the FTDI drivers (included with the Arduino software) provide a virtual com port to software on the computer. The Arduino software includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to be sent to and from the Arduino board. The RX and TX LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the FTDI 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's