Black Arduino Micro Clone

Not so great

I needed more Arduino Micros and the green Arduino Micro clones have been out of stock on Aliexpress for a while. The genuine Arduino Micros are more than $20 each. You can find these black Arduino Micro clones on Amazon in a three pack for under $20. They sell them with and without the headers installed. I got the ones without headers so I can solder on pins that can be socketed in an IC socket.

The one improvement that this clone has over the green and regular Arduino Micro is a micro USB connector that has mount supports that go through the board, not just stuck to the surface. This should make the connector harder to break off.

The major downside is the huge crystal they put on the bottom of the board. It sticks out 4mm. This makes it impossible to use with a low profile socket. The green Arduino Micro clone has no components on the bottom.

Side view showing how much the crystal sticks out the bottom. With a full height socket the metal case has less than 1mm clearance from touching the PCB.

I hope the green clones are eventually restocked. I have ordered some blue clones from Aliexpress, those have the same design as the genuine Arduino Micro, and have components on the bottom, but not a the huge crystal.