How to use Atmega328p-PU from an Uno, on a breadboard without a crystal

Question

How do you use Atmega328p-PU from an Uno, on a breadboard without a crystal?

Answer 1

If you buy your ATmega as supplied by Microchip, through one of the large electronic parts resellers, it will come with its default fuse configuration:

• clock source: internal 8 MHz RC oscillator
• clock prescaler enabled at ÷8, yielding a 1 MHz system clock
• bootloader disabled

You could use it in this configuration, but you will probably want to disable the prescaler. This can be done by changing the right fuse or, alternatively, by some code running early in setup(). Note that, with no bootloader, you will need an ISP programmer in order to load the code. If you want the convenience of serial downloading (i.e. you would use an FTDI cable rather than an ISP programmer), you will have to burn the bootloader using an ISP programmer, and adjust the fuses to enable it and set its size.

If you take the ATmega from an existing Uno board, or buy one preconfigured with the bootloader, the fuses will be set differently:

• clock source: external crystal
• clock prescaler disabled
• bootloader enabled and sized to 0.5 KiB

In this case you will have to change the clock source.

In any case, you would tell the IDE you are using an Arduino Fio, or a Pro or Pro Mini with a 328P clocked at 8 MHz. And you will need an ISP programmer to load either your program or the bootloader. You could use an Arduino running the “Arduino as ISP” firmware for this.

Check the datasheet for the details on configuring the fuses. You can also use one of the online fuse calculators, like this one or this one.

Answer 2

You can use another IC like the 555 timers as an external oscillator.