I am building 3 devices and each of them needs an Arduino as its brains. I am about to order parts so pls tell me if the following strategy is the right one?

I am doing the development on board A (see pic below), its the usual arduino uno board with USB interface to download programs from PC
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/171167497907

B- I will order 3 of these boards as there are 3 products to build
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/200957063666

C- To download the program to each board B from the PC I will order 1 board C
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/141092401021
Once the program is downloaded and it works I will remove the board C

Is that the way to go or am I missing something here?

 

It is some applications. That allow the Arduino unit it self to be AVR controller programmer. This page may give you some ideas http://electronics.stackexchange.co...use-an-arduino-uno-as-an-atmega328-programmer
The point is to first download the Arduino bootloader into a blank chip. Then program it with whatever you have made with the Arduino system. After that the controller should work OK with only correct power and a correctly connected 16 MHz crystal. I am not Arduino user my self. So I might be wrong here

 

I've had mixed success with USB to serial converters. Personally, I'd use an older computer with a serial port and forget the converter. It may however work fine, let us know.

 

I've had great luck with FTDI USB to Serial converters. Also check out Atmel Studio for writing your code, and programming the chips.

http://www.atmel.com/microsite/atmel_studio6/

 

What you propose looks fine to me, I've had no problems with FTDI/serial converters.