There are some standard components that have been so continuously refined as to have become if not perfect then about as good as they’re going to get. Take the Arduino Uno for instance, and compare it with its ancestor from a decade ago. They are ostensibly the same board and they are compatible with each other, yet the Uno and its modern clones have more processing power, memory and storage, a USB interface rather than serial, and a host of small component changes to make them better and cheaper.
You’d think that just another Arduino clone couldn’t bring much to the table then. And you’d be right in a broad sense, just what is there left to improve?
[Clovis Fritzen] has an idea for an Arduino clone that’s worth a second look. It’s not an amazing hardware mod that’ll set the Arduino world on fire, instead it’s a very simple design feature. He’s created an Arduino that mounts vertically on a single row of pins. Why might you find that attractive, you ask? A SIL vertical Arduino takes up a lot less breadboard space than one of the existing DIL Arduinos. A simple idea, yet one that is very useful if you find yourself running out of breadboard.
[Clovis] took the circuit of an Arduino Uno and simplified it by removing the USB interface, so this board has to be programmed through its ICSP header. And he’s made it a through-hole board for easy construction by those wary of SMD soldering. The resulting board files can all be found on GitHub.
Every now and then along comes a hack so simple, obvious, and useful that it makes you wonder just why you didn’t think of it yourself. Many of us will have used a DIL Arduino and probably found ourselves running out of breadboard space. This board probably won’t change the world, but it could at least make life easier in a small way for some of us who tinker with microcontrollers.
This is just the latest of many Arduino clones to find its way onto these pages. In 2013 we asked why the world needed more when featuring one made as a PCB design exercise. There’s even a Hackaday version called the HaDuino developed by [Brian Benchoff]. But while it’s true that Yet Another Vanilla Arduino Clone brings nothing to the table, that should not preclude people from taking the Arduino and hacking it. Every once in a while something useful like this project will come from it, and that can only be a benefit to our community.
Sooo… It’s a Pro Mini with different layout. It could even be a Pro Mini shield.
Well. Just check spikenzie lab’s Sippino. Its been out there the past 2 year at least.
http://www.spikenzielabs.com/SpikenzieLabs/sippino.html
Or one can just grab a PIC18F45K50, program it with bootloader and have a Pinguino that plugs into breadboard. Or even make it in the same SIL format, add one 5-pin header for USB cable and voila! More useful board for everyone…
German reader here. The concept doesn’t seem new to me:
http://www.watterott.com/de/Sippino-USB-Kit
And one more thing (damned non-editable comments system): if you need a programmer to program your -duino, then why not use something for adults, like GCC (or whatever there is for AVR)? Just skip the whole IDE/library junk…
*real* programmers use butterflies of course…
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/real_programmers.png
There’s avr-gcc and avrlibc…
Well, everyone was a child one day!.
Nice, but nothing new. See eduino, been around for 6+ years or so
http://embeddeddreams.com/site/2009/07/29/eduino/
Yeah, that one is ancient. When I saw eduino B a few years back, I had an urge to make a similar board. Started KiCad, made the board, and then realized that I can get a Chinese Pro Mini (breadboard compatible) for less then I would pay a decently made PCB.
5-6 years ago I did a version with dual rows of headers on a vertical PCB. It was a bit tricky to solder the headers correctly…
https://goo.gl/photos/h2GjqJJK69KbpVpt6
Good to know it can be done though. I’ve been toying with making one with a STM32F4 chip instead.
Go for it, man!. I hope to see it posted here on hackaday soon
Well… This post seems to have put a few panties in a twist. Well done. Keep up the good work.
You just know, when reading the article, what you’ll find in the comments.
That said, if you strip out the butthurt attitudes some of the links are interesting.
Heh, I clicked on this post just to see the comments.
I can’t understand the want to SIL a device with that many pins, but I may not be getting it, either.
I did this for an ATTINY with 8 pins, as it doesn’t take up a huge amount of available rows on a protoboard. A device such as a 328 (Uno equivalent I guess?) would occupy a large number of rows on a protoboard, (see http://embeddeddreams.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/eduino-b_na_breadboard.jpg), which surely limits the amount of devices that can be used on that board?
Can someone explain what the advantage to such a design is? I figured prototyping, but not after that thought above!
It reduces the footprint on the protoboard, allowing more stuff to be plugged in.
It allows you to make flat projects with minimal thickness by attaching all connections on one edge.
would make it easier to create a backplane to put several on and treat them as a duino farm.
Hmm, so we have been playing with Dilduinos all this time .. I .. I .. I’m going to need to sort some things out.
Dil-duinos to be exact…
Darn. Beat me to it.
But isn’t this more properly a SIPP-Duino? Single Inline Pin Package.
Remember those 30 pin RAM modules which were *very* briefly The Thing before the SIMM and its socket were invented? I recall SIPPS made by soldering pins to a SIMM, special pins which clipped over the PCB edge so they’d stay put while soldering.
I also recall once removing some of those pins and cleaning the contacts to use SIPPified SIMMs in SIMM sockets.
The Dilduino platform actually does exist and… yep, it’s aimed at intelligent sex toys.
https://www.comingle.io/dilduino
Link seems safe for work (with ad blocking), not sure about the rest of their site, so beware.
Thank you for the feature, #HaD !!!. And thak you to you all that pointed me that there are similar products out there!
Seems like a shield could accomplish this with stock Arduinos.
It is intended to BE an Arduino by itself, one you can assemble at home using TH components. Yes you could design and manufacture an adaptor for the Nano for example, but that’s not the idea here.
Great! it’s a swiss knive to your protoboard and your ideas!
I personally like to use the Solarbotics Ardweeny. It uses an even smaller breadboard footprint and can be transferred to an IC socket when you graduate the design to perfboard or pcb.
https://solarbotics.com/product/kardw/
A UNO ofcourse doesnt take any space on a breadboard
Sure, because it doesn’t fit to one! haha