Ximimark 3pcs ATTINY85 General Micro USB Development Board for Arduino

Despite all the negative reviews, these worked out of the box just fine. Simply download the drivers from the digispark site and follow their simple instructions. Program uploading is different than a regular arduino, but only slightly. You do not need to select a com port and have the board plugged in before uploading. This bit confused me at first, but if you follow their step by step instructions it works perfectly.

after literally 8 straight hours of research, assuming the problem was a pebcak error, I have only now realized it was not .... 3 out of 3 were dead on arrival and could not be recognized by Windows or Arduino nor can a bootloader be burned onto them so these have been expensive trash .......I think a refund is in order

It's not plug-and-play like some might think, but the Digispark drivers work well. Ran my neopixel sketch perfectly.

These boards are different than your typical Arduino board. You actually tell the Arduino IDE to upload the program before connecting them. You are then prompted by the software to Plug the unit in, it will then instantly have the program ready to upload. This is because the board is only programmable for a few seconds immediately after powering on, then it goes about doing what it was programmed to do, and it won't listen for programming again until you unplug it and plug it back in at the proper time.

Two of my 3 boards were not able to be programmed at all, the power LED lit up but they weren't detected by the arduino IDE or device manager. One of the boards was detected and I was able to upload a sketch to it, the sketch ran as long as the board was plugged in after programming. After unplugging the board and powering it up again, the sketch would not run. Either the sketch was forgotten or the bootloader was in a loop, not sure. Seller refunded my purchase without issue and I ordered another set.. hoping for better luck on these.

First off, I am not in any way or form sponsored by anyone. I bought these with my own hard earned cash.All over Amazon, these little guys have a bad rep, on average 2-3 stars with most of the comments being that they don't work or they don't hold a program. Against popular opinion, I purchased these because 1) I needed the ATTINY85 chip only. I needed them right away and couldn't wait a week for Mouser (or equiv source), so the popular issues to me were moot and 2) I've been wanting to play around with these development devices for a few year now and it was never a priority.I've been working with microcontrollers for well over 20 years, before Arduino was a thing and C for microchips was a "what?", so I'm quite comfortable with working with raw programmable devices, and whatever issues besides being DOA, should be overcome easily.Anyway, I did not want to venture into custom or open source tool chains because I did want to write this review and experience what others experience, and find solutions that anyone can do. It's quite easy and well... not much to it. The hardest part is plugging them in and seeing what they do, or don't do. I was expecting them to do nothing, but they did something worse than nothing. Granted, everyone's computer is set up differently so your mileage may and probably will vary, but for me, they communicate with the OS (Windows 7, yeah... lean towards old school) and says "I'm here, but that's all I'm telling you" for about 5 seconds then disappears for about a second or two, then does it again.My next step was to install a generic driver via ZDiag to force a driver and make the device stay put and grab a COM assignment, but it did exactly the same thing.The next thing to realize is that these are cheap Chinese clones of SOMETHING... and that something is by Digispark. Go to their website for driver and board file instructions. Instructions on their website are not awesome, but pretty good and include the link to the json URL. That's basically it. Keep in mind, these are not programmed via COM port so selecting a COM port in the Arduino IDE is unnecessary. It's like programming an Arduino Nano without a bootloader, so to speak.Now, it is true that you don't leave these guys in the USB port when you're not using them. As someone else mentioned, they work differently. Once you click upload, there is a prompt to plug in the device. Plug it in and everything else is normal.I believe all the comments about these devices not holding a program is because it does contain a bootloader, how else can you program via USB without a bootloader? I normally use the ICSP connector to program my Arduinos, so this is a non-issue for me most of the time, so I hadn't experienced bootloader delay in quite some time. At any rate, I did upload a blink sketch, or a variant of one, and it uploaded without a hitch. After unplugging it, leaving it for a few seconds and plugging it back in, sure enough, the LED was still blinking. Anyway, there is about a 5 second delay while it loads the bootloader and waits for incoming communication before giving up and running it's program, so there is a sense of "not holding a program", but this is pretty normal for Arduinos, or any other micro with a bootloader. Just wait about 5 seconds.Next, I didn't want to be THAT GUY WHO DIDN'T CHECK ALL OF THEM, so I performed the exercise with all 3 units and they all behaved exactly the same, so anyone with two out of three or one out of three, or any combination thereof, there's a possibility you've gotten defective ones. Fortunately for me, all three of mine work. Also, these modules also don't connect and disconnect like they once did, so the issue from out of the box must have been something to do with whatever sketch THEY originally loaded, which is not a blink sketch as you might expect, or it is a blink sketch that blinks on the USB_D+ or USB_D-. Either way, the old sketch is gone and Device Manager is calm.Again, I'm quite comfortable with raw micros so as long as they appear to work in their raw form, meaning I will be removing at least one chip from the PCB for an application anyway, they should do what they are meant to do, based on the datasheet.Normally I would stick to a 328 chip, but all I need is to generate a continuous clock pulse. This was the quickest way to throw together a quick clock generation sketch, plug in a USB stick, upload the sketch and connect an oscilloscope to it, verify, desolder the chip, and put it in my application. I know, a raw chip from Mouser and program with a clip might have been better, but I need it ASAP and finally getting a chance to play with these was worth the extra cost.So, for anyone with a similar need or just wanting to play around with something that you can just plug into your USB port without adding power or dangling programming cables, this is a cool gadget. I recommend it. I also recommend throwing yourself into a "what is going on here" situation to learn more, rather than plug-and-play and everything works out of the box while you learn very little, but that's me.Buy it, learn it, play with it. I highly recommend it. It's best to pay a little more for the original to support the developers, but if you're unsure and you're the type to "blow things up", these cheapies are a good way to go. Trust me, I know plenty of people and I have a few employees who have tendencies to blow things up so I tend to buy the el cheapo versions of things.Good luck!

These chips were deprecated several years ago, so the journey you must go through to write code on them via the Arduino IDE will be challenging. In order for these to work I needed to use a PC (MAC will not present the right driver via the IDE), and even then I had to dig myself for the ATTiny85 driver that would allow an interface with the chips.

Saw the reviews claiming issues with programming and had my doubts. Only $10 for 3 of them so not much to risk. My project needs a ultralow power timer to wake up a remote server. I have programmed the original DigiSpark ATtiny85 and used that configuration for the Ximimark ATtiny85’s.