How to use cheap Chinese Arduinos that come with with CH340G / (Windows & Mac OS-X) Personal

al blog by Konstantin Gredeskoul

13/3/16 9:01 p.m.

How To Use Cheap Chinese

Arduinos That Come With With
CH340G / CH341G Serial/USB
Chip (Windows & Mac OS-X)
Posted on Wednesday, 31 Dec 2014
Updated Nov 22, 2015 with the new signed driver for OS-X
El Capitan and Yosemite.
Updated Jan 9, 2016 with Windows Drivers.
My golden rule is that if something took me longer than 15
minutes to @gure out, then it's worth documenting in a tiny
blog post so that it would save time to others, just like many
other similar posts saved me million hours by providing
simple clear instructions.

Introduction What Is CH340G?

(/images/nano-ch340gbottom.jpg)
Recent versions of cheap Chinese
clones of Arduino boards
(http://www.ebay.com/itm/381019048475) have been coming
with a different USB/Serial chip, which replaces the usual
FTDI. I read somewhere that licensing costs of FTDI make it
prohibitive to companies selling boards for as little as $3, so I
assume this is the main motivation. To be honest, as long as I
can talk to my Arduino and buy it for $3 a piece, who cares? :)
Below you'll @nd links to drivers for both Windows and Mac to
make these work. Please leave a comment, if it worked or
didn't work for you, especially if you had to do anything
http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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special or hacky to make it work :)

Windows
A fully signed drivers for Windows can be found below:
2011 Driver version 3.3.2011.11 for Windows 7
(http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/ScopedViewRedirect.aspx?
updateid=032a878e-8ca0-40d2-b7b1-936640b0eecb)
2014 Driver version 3.4.2014.8 for Windows 8+
(http://www.arduined.eu/ch340-windows-8-driverdownload/)

Mac OS-X
Mac OS-X El Capitan
(Added: Nov 22, 2015)
Many instructions down below were written for the old driver,
which was not signed, and therefore was not working out of
the box on OS-X Yosemite and El Capitan. The latest driver
appears to be signed, and should work out the box. The new
driver is here: CH34x_Install.zip (111Kb)
(/downloads/CH34x_Install.zip).
Acknowledgements: thanks to Bjrn's Techblog
([http://blog.sengotta.net/signed-mac-os-driver-for-winchiphead-ch340-serialbridge/) for posting the driver.

Inside the driver is a brief README with the following

instructions:

Driver README
CH34X USB-SERIAL DRIVER INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
Version: V1.0 Copyright (C) Jiangsu Qinheng Co., Ltd. Support
System: OSX 10.9 and above
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Installation Process: * Extract the contents of the zip @le to a

local installation directory * Double-click CH34x_Install.pkg *
Install according to the installation on procedure * Restart
after @nishing installing
After the installation is completed, you will @nd serial device
in the device list(/dev/tty.wchusbserial*), and you can access
it by serial tools.
If you cant @nd the serial port then you can follow the steps
below:
1. Open terminal and type ls /dev/tty* ande see is there
device like tty.wchusbserial;
2. Open System Report->Hardware->USB, on the right side
USB Device Tree there will be device named VendorSpeci@c Device and check if the Current is normal. If the
steps upper dont work at all, please try to install the
package again.
Note: Please enter System Preferences Security & Privacy
General, below the title "Allow apps downloaded from:" you
should choose the choice 2 "Mac App Store and identi@ed
developers" so that our driver will work normally.

Older Driver
This older version requires some hacking in order to get it to
work. I am leaving instructions just in case someone needs it,
or the new driver does not work for someone.

Download The Driver

There are two main sites that people mention in the
discussions about the driver:
Chinese company that developed it:
http://www.wch.cn/downloads.php?
http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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name=pro&proid=178
(http://www.wch.cn/downloads.php?
name=pro&proid=178)
This driver appears newer than on the second link,
and is from Dec 2013.
Note: for me that site took a long long time to load,
and then it took forever to download this tiny driver,
so I put up a copy here CH341SER_MAC.ZIP
(256Kb) (/downloads/CH341SER_MAC.ZIP), so
that you don't have to wait. Hopefully they won't go
after me for mirroring their driver :)
Second site is the Russian company that sells the USB
programmer based on this chip:
http://www.5v.ru/ch340g.htm
(http://www.5v.ru/ch340g.htm) but this site only has an
older version of the driver, from 2012, so I do not
recommend downloading it.
(/images/nano-ch340g-top.jpg)

Pre-Installation
Note: the following preinstallation steps are only
required on the two most recent versions of OS-X Yosemite
and El Capitan. It is because the driver is not signed properly
from Apple's perspective. We are waiting on the developer to
update the driver so that these pre-installation steps are no
longer needed.

OS-X El Capitan Steps (Only For The Older

Driver!)
These are not needed for the newer driver above.
Reboot and press -R immediately after the chime to
enter Recovery Mode
http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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Open Terminal from the recovery mode

run the command csrutil enable --without kext
Reboot.
Acknowledgements: thanks to this post (http://tzapu.com/2015/09/24/makingch340-ch341-serial-adapters-work-under-el-capitan-os-x/) for these instructions.

OS-X Yosemite Steps

Open Terminal Application (it's located in
/Application/Utilities) and type this command once you
see a prompt:
sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"

Reboot.
Acknowledgements: see this post (http://www.cindori.org/enabling-trim-on-os-xyosemite/) if you wish to know more details.

Installation
Download the driver from here: CH341SER_MAC.ZIP
(256Kb) (/downloads/CH341SER_MAC.ZIP)
Double click the ZIP @le do unzip it
Open the folder ~/Downloads/CH341SER_MAC
Run installer found in that folder
Restart when asked.

Usage
If the driver properly loaded, you should see the device in you
/dev folder (this is for advanced command-line users of OSX
only). On my machine it was called
/dev/cu.wchusbserial1441140

This port is showing up correctly in Arduino 1.0.6 and Arduino

1.5.8.

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However, if you are using the Eclipse Plugin, it is not smart

enough to list this port in the list of available serial ports
(either in project properties, or in the serial monitor). You will
have to type the entire thing yourself:
/dev/cu.wchusbserial1441140 and then Eclipse can
upload your sketch.
That's it! You should be ready to use the drivers and the board.

References
Arduino Forums (http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?
topic=261375.0)
http://www.5v.ru/ch340g.htm
(http://www.5v.ru/ch340g.htm)
http://www.wch.cn/downloads.php?
name=pro&proid=178
(http://www.wch.cn/downloads.php?
name=pro&proid=178)
http://www.cindori.org/enabling-trim-on-os-x-yosemite/
(http://www.cindori.org/enabling-trim-on-os-x-yosemite/)
http://www.arduined.eu/ch340-windows-8-driverdownload/ (http://www.arduined.eu/ch340-windows-8driver-download/)
http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/ScopedViewRedirect.aspx?
updateid=032a878e-8ca0-40d2-b7b1-936640b0eecb
(http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/ScopedViewRedirect.aspx?
updateid=032a878e-8ca0-40d2-b7b1-936640b0eecb)

Posted on Wednesday, 31 Dec 2014

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How to use cheap Chinese Arduinos that come with with CH340G / (Windows & Mac OS-X) Personal blog by Konstantin Gredeskoul

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jasonturcotte

9 months ago

Great! Thanks for posting this! Worked for me.

2

Reply Share

Adam Potts

10 months ago

THANK YOU! This is exactly what I needed. I thought I

bought a bunch of junk because nothing would show up
under my Port menu. You get to be my favorite person
today.
2

Dan Todd

Reply Share

a year ago

just saved me a ton of time and eort. Thanks.

2

Reply Share

Konstantin Gredeskoul > Dan Todd

a year ago

Thanks for the comment! Glad this was helpful.

1

Chongkai Jiang

Reply Share

3 months ago

Thanks so much for saving my life after I have struggled for

a couple of weeks!!! I'm on OSX El Capitan and the new
driver works like a charm. Later on I would think before
updating my OS :)
http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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updating my OS :)
1

Reply Share

Felix Kipper

3 months ago

THAAAAANK YOUUUU! Greetings from Germany

1

Reply Share

Erik Buene

3 months ago

Awesome! Life saving :)

1

Reply Share

Ari Kontiainen

3 months ago

Thank you very much!

1

Reply Share

Rob Morrill

3 months ago

Great that you're posting this kind of thing, but it would have
been helpful to break it down into idiot-proof terms for
inexperienced people like me. I don't understand any of the
items in "Usage," (dev folder, port, Eclipse plugin, etc.). I'm
trying to use the Mbot with students. So frustrating. Again
though, thanks for taking the time to post this.
1

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> Rob Morrill 3 months ago

Feel free to reach out to me personally if you need

some clarification for you and your students; You can
reach me at kigster AT gmail.com.

Reply Share

Meredith Field > kigster

2 months ago

I do no understand any of this either. I am new

to it all and trying to teach my son. I have the
ultimate robot kit same company as the bot
also trying to learn arduino and I can not get
these channels things to come up on my
computer at all. Any way I could get some
clarification? I can not get the above to work.
I have a Mac that runs with el captan.
thanks. i have tried the old driver, the new and
the "sengotta" link you mention below before
I found this blog. Do I need to try and remove
something I have already done?

Reply Share

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How to use cheap Chinese Arduinos that come with with CH340G / (Windows & Mac OS-X) Personal blog by Konstantin Gredeskoul

Alex Telfar

13/3/16 9:01 p.m.

3 months ago

thank you!!
1

Reply Share

Wanula Dreaming

3 months ago

thanks !
1

Reply Share

David Hoshor

3 months ago

The CH340 CH340G driver works with El Capitan 10.11.2 !

The "Whoohoo New Driver!" link worked for me when after
Apple upgraded my MacBook Pro to 10.11.2 yesterday, my
Arduino Nano 3.0 clones with the CH340G chip stopped
working. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
1

Reply Share

J.Teigland

3 months ago

yyyyayyyy works like a wet dream :P

1

Reply Share

Douglas

3 months ago

Thanks! I just spent the best part of an hour trying various

drivers before I found this site. After trying the driver you
linked to I had both my Nano's up and running within
minutes. Much appreciated.
1

Reply Share

giacomo892

3 months ago

I get a kernel panic as soon I plug the arduino on El Capitan

10.11.1
The same board work very well under windows (even on VM
removing the usbserial.kext on osx) and linux !
What can be wrong?
Thanks
1

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> giacomo892 3 months ago

When you say "it works under Windows" do you

mean another hardware machine? If it forces Kernel
Panic on Mac, I wonder if this is at the hardware
level. Also - try to plug the board directly into the
Mac, instead of using a USB hub. Also try
rebooting your Mac with the board inserted.
1

Reply Share

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Victor Manuel

13/3/16 9:01 p.m.

Reply Share

3 months ago

Many thank. This post was really helpful. it work for mi whit
the driver CH34x_Install.zip
Using a mac book pro retina. Thank.
1
kusmi

Reply Share

4 months ago

It looks like this guy got a signed driver for El Capitan from
whc:
http://blog.sengotta.net/signe...
I have not tested it yet - so please be careful!
1

Reply Share

Ben Simms > kusmi

4 months ago

Just took the gamble and it paid o :) Just deployed

my script to my Arduino Nano fine :) Thanks Kusmi
for the heads up!
1

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> Ben Simms 4 months ago

Awesome! I also installed it, removed the "-without kext" hack and it seems to work.
I've updated this post to reflect this info.
1
Thomas Kilian

Reply Share

4 months ago

As mentioned I had contacted wch and got immediate

feedback (as of 2015-10-21) from the new developer (the
other one had left). So he told that he would expect to
deliver a new (and signed) driver within 2 weeks. Ok so,
that's now 4 weeks. If everybody who's working with El
Capitan could send a complaint via the sales channel
(Amazon has a customer feedback) this would probably
increase the pressure.
1

Reply Share

Gary White

5 months ago

Like everyone else I searched for hours before arriving here

and this page got me up and running in 5 minutes. Thank
you ever so much!
1

Reply Share

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How to use cheap Chinese Arduinos that come with with CH340G / (Windows & Mac OS-X) Personal blog by Konstantin Gredeskoul

jacobvalenta

13/3/16 9:01 p.m.

6 months ago

Thank you, first time with a 'duino, this was very helpful!
1

Horai

Reply Share

7 months ago

For ocial signed Windows drivers, they are at Microsoft's

Update Catalog site:
http://catalog.update.microsof...
1

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> Horai 4 months ago

Thanks! I will add that to the post.

Thomas Lum

Reply Share

2 days ago

Thank you so much for posting this! You got my Mega up

and running on my PC and my Mega and Genuine Uno
running on my Mac. I cannot believe I searched and tried so
many useless "solutions" before finding your tiny blog post.

Reply Share

Pave

7 days ago

So many positive reactions, so I must do something wrong.

Downloaded the newest file, tried others too, installed it and
rebooted my macbook with el capitan. In terminal I cannot
find it and in system preferences/usb there is no such thing
either. Have overread something? What did I do wrong

Reply Share

Fiftyseven

20 days ago

Using a cheap CH340G on OSX with El Capitan on a late

2009 Macbook Pro with USB 2.0 and THIS WORKS!
Thank you thank you thank you :D

Reply Share

Yi Liu

21 days ago

Great instruction. I really like your rule: "if something took

me longer than 15 minutes to figure out, then it's worth
documenting in a tiny blog post." Thanks for your eorts!

carrie

Reply Share

22 days ago

can you please help me step by step? My son got a

http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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redboard kit for christmas and i am trying to help him do it. i

have been on the stupid %*^*%**@%(%@ apple mac with el
capital for 3 hours now trying to down the driver or whatever
it is to make this work. I have found your blog, but then i
don't know how to go forward as the instruction book gives
step by step instructions for arduino. help!!

Reply Share

Apurv Jawle

a month ago

Console output on El Capitlan 10.11.2, after installing new

driver. Arduino Nano. I dont see any vendor specific USB in
Hardware after driver installation. Any ideas?
** I have tried everything in the comments section already.
2/9/16 11:36:48.000 AM kernel[0]: 000246.078233
HS01@14100000:
AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to
create device, disabling port
2/9/16 11:36:48.000 AM kernel[0]: 000246.078257
HS01@14100000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying
enumeration in 100 ms
2/9/16 11:36:48.000 AM kernel[0]: 000246.412577
HS01@14100000:
AppleUSB20XHCIPort::resetAndCreateDevice: failed to
create device, disabling port
see more

Reply Share

Tyla-joe Connett

a month ago

may i link to this page on my website?

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> Tyla-joe Connett a month ago

Of course :)

bin

Reply Share

a month ago

really thank a lot!

Reply Share

mm1

a month ago

Possible issues with latest Mac OS 10.11.3?

http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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13/3/16 9:01 p.m.

Possible issues with latest Mac OS 10.11.3?

First of all, thanks for writing this post, it's been very helpful
and the new driver has been working well ... until recently.
When I plug in a Nano w ch340 chip, the machine
crashes/reboots immediately. No problems if I just plug in
the cable, or when using it for other devices. I've upgraded
to 10.11.3, but I'm not sure if the issues started at the same
time.

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> mm1 a month ago

Have you tried another nano, or do you just have

one? If this problem persists with more than one
board, it is likely to be a software issue. But this
could be a hardware issue, and the only way to find
out is to test with another nano first.
Reply Share

mm1 > kigster

a month ago

I rewired my project and reinstalled the driver,

and it's working again. Not sure which one
did the trick.

Dan McCreary

Reply Share

2 months ago

Thanks! Makes our job teaching with Arduino a lot easier!

Reply Share

Eoin Campbell

2 months ago

Does anyone know how to get an ESPDuion

running/recognised on the Arduino app , please?(1.6.7) I've
been trying for a week...

Reply Share

Eoin Campbell

2 months ago

Worked for me! Many MANY thanks for the support! ;~)

Reply Share

Falux-Bkk

2 months ago

Cheers, I owe you a beer or 5 ;)

Reply Share

Miha Susteric

2 months ago

Hey i still cant get it working... It worked like a charm on my

macbook air, but cant get it working on retina 2013. What
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macbook air, but cant get it working on retina 2013. What

arduino suit are you guys using . I have 1.6.7.
Thanks in advance!

Reply Share

kigster

Mod

> Miha Susteric 2 months ago

Can you give more details? What version of OS-X

you are on? What driver are you installing? Does it
succeed? Did you reboot? When you boot and then
connect the board via a USB cable directly to your
MacBook Pro, then open Terminal, and run this
command "ls -alrt /dev/cu.wsh*" (remove double
quotes) what do you see? If you see something that
looks like `/dev/cu.wchusbserial24120` it is probably
working just fine. If the output is dierent (i.e. blank)
when you unplug the board, most likely the driver is
working.
So what do you use to upload the sketch to the
board? Arduino IDE? Eclipse? Something else? Do
you see the port in Arduino IDE?
Have you tried more than one board? Sometimes a
board can be defective.

Reply Share

Miha Susteric > kigster

2 months ago

I'm running El Capitan 10.11.2. I tried with the

signed one and old unsigned one. I enabled
csrutil and rebooted.
ls -alrt /dev/cu.wsh*
ls: /dev/cu.wsh*: No such file or directory
I'm using Arduino IDE, and i have tried more
than one board, including ones that worked
on Yosemite just fine and all the boards work
on windows, so that can't be a problem.

Reply Share

Meredith Field > Miha Susteric

2 months ago

i am running on the 10.11.2 as well

and I am having the same issues. If
you have any developments will you
please share?
http://kig.re/2014/12/31/how-to-use-arduino-nano-mini-pro-with-CH340G-on-mac-osx-yosemite.html

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please share?

Reply Share

kigster

Mod > Meredith Field

2 months ago

Another thing you can try is this:

- disconnect the card
- Open application called "Console" by
searching for it in spotlight
- Make sure that on the left "All
Messages" is selected
- press the "Clear Display" button in
the navbar.
- now connect your Arduino
- you should start seeing some
messages appear, once the card is
connected. It's possible you'll see
errors. Copy what you see after
refresh, and paste it here.
Thanks!

Reply Share

Meredith Field > kigster

2 months ago

1/16/16 9:52:24.064 AM
com.apple.kextd[46]: kext-dev-mode
allowing invalid signature -67062
0xFFFFFFFFFFFEFA0A for kext
"/System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext"
1/16/16 9:52:24.341 AM
com.apple.kextd[46]: kext signature
failure override allowing invalid
signature -67062
0xFFFFFFFFFFFEFA0A for kext
"/System/Library/Extensions/usb.kext"
1/16/16 9:52:24.000 AM kernel[0]:
OSMetaClass: Kext wch.usb.usb class
wch_usb is a duplicate;kext
com.wch.usbserial already has a class
by that name.
see more

Reply Share

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13/3/16 9:01 p.m.

Reply Share

Meredith Field > Meredith Field

2 months ago

Thanks for taking a look at this.

Reply Share

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