Protoduino -- trimmable, solderable, standalone prototype board for Arduino / ATMEGA8/168
from Eastham Labs
If you've got an Arduino project that you want to take one step beyond a temporary breadboard, but don't want the hassle and expense of creating a custom PCB, Protoduino is for you. In a carefully designed general purpose PCB, all IO pins are exposed, and there's plenty of room for additional components including another 20 pins worth of DIP. The board is designed for easy customization -- traces can be cut to give additional flexibility, and unneeded parts of the board can be trimmed away.
The Protoduino contains the minimum necessities for a standalone ATMEGA deployment: a 5VDC regulated power supply and a 16MHz oscillator circuit. It also carries a resistor network for easy assembly of status LEDs.
To use, program and test your ATMEGA on an Arduino or Freeduino board (or some other programmer), then move the chip to Protoduino to create a permanent implementation.
Sample application: RS-232 to dimmable 10-LED readout, top half of board trimmed away.
Kit contents -- everything you need except the ATMEGA chip:
Circuit layout
Specifications:
Input voltage (Vin): 7.5-9 VDC
On-board power supply output: 5 VDC at 100mA max
(500mA max w/ appropriate heatsink -- not included)
Clock speed: 16MHz
Resistor network: 150 ohm, 100mW max per element
Warnings and Caveats:
- This is a kit.
You will need to do basic soldering to
assemble it. There are no surface-mount components nor
anything else that's difficult to solder.
- You cannot easily program the ATMEGA chip on this board, since there's no USB controller. Program the ATEMGA on an Arduino or Freeduino board then transfer the chip to the Protoduino.
- There's no reverse-polarity protection on the input voltage, so be careful. Extreme heat or fire will result if connected backwards.
- The 7805 regulator can get extremely hot, especially at high currents and/or voltages, or if reverse polarity is applied. Injury or fire may easily result -- be careful, and add a heatsink if exceeding 100mA or the regulator is getting hot.
- Wear eye and respiratory protection if/when you trim the circuit board. Fiberglass dust is hazardous.
- You cannot easily program the ATMEGA chip on this board, since there's no USB controller. Program the ATEMGA on an Arduino or Freeduino board then transfer the chip to the Protoduino.
- There's no reverse-polarity protection on the input voltage, so be careful. Extreme heat or fire will result if connected backwards.
- The 7805 regulator can get extremely hot, especially at high currents and/or voltages, or if reverse polarity is applied. Injury or fire may easily result -- be careful, and add a heatsink if exceeding 100mA or the regulator is getting hot.
- Wear eye and respiratory protection if/when you trim the circuit board. Fiberglass dust is hazardous.
Assembly/Customization Instructions:
Detailed instructions are here.
Questions? Contact me at eastham@gmail.com.
Want one?
You can build one or have one built with these eagle files. Or you can buy one below. Shipping for 5 items or less is $3 First Class or $6 Priority Mail. Sold in the US only for now, sorry.Protoduino Gallery
My inspiration for Protoduino was all the projects that I've had to demolish off my breadboard (a ProtoShield from SparkFun) in order to make room for the new one. It nearly killed me to take apart my nice i2c/EEPROM-based GPS logger. Also, I often found myself wanting a smaller form factor than the Arduino + ProtoShield.
My first project for Protoduino is an Angle-of-Attack readout for my airplane. It takes RS-232 data from a flight-data system and then converts it to a bargraph of LEDs that are easy to see in my line-of-sight. The LEDs are shown dimmed here:
