It's handy to know the names for parts of a cow when talking about cuts of meat!

Here we'll take a tour and point out the names of the Arduino. You'll want to refer back to this page a ton, so keep it handy when we say something like "DC Jack" or "RX and TX LEDs"

The Parts of an Arduino

Here's a rough version of the parts of an Arduino we'll refer to. First up is the Arduino UNO R3, at the time of writing it's the most popular Arduino. Each part is covered in more detail in the next sections

Here is an Arduino compatible, Adafruit Metro.

You'll notice that some things are the same

  • Same overall board size and shape
  • Same location of holes (used for attaching the board to something)
  • Reset button in the same location
  • High and Low Digital Header in the same location
  • Power and Analog Header in the same location
  • DC Power Jack in the same location

Some things are similar

  • Both have a USB Jack, but the UNO has a large style USB jack, the Metro has a USB Micro jack
  • Both have a Fuse but in different locations and different look
  • Both have a 5V power supply, but in different locations and organized a little differently
  • Both have four LEDs: Pin 13 LED, RX and TX LED, and ON LED. But they are in different locations. The UNO has them in the middle of the board, the Metro they are all on the left.
  • Both have the same Headers but Metro may have the headers soldered on the top whereas the UNO has the pins go through the board and soldered to the bottom.

Some things are different!

  • Both have a USB Interface chip, but they are different parts. They act almost the same but the driver is different. This only matters the first time you install the software
  • UNO has a large silver Crystal, but the Metro does not (the USB interface chip on the Metro doesn't use a crystal)
  • UNO has a large socketted ATmega328 chip. Metro has a slimmer square version that is not in a socket.
  • Metro has an On/Off switch, this lets you turn off the power when plugged into DC power. UNO does not have one, its not required just a nicety

This guide was first published on Jul 14, 2016. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Take a Tour!) was last updated on Jun 27, 2016.

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