In working with Arduinos, eventually you want to move your work off the breadboard and onto a shield that is more permanent. I’ve tried a variety of the different protoshields and printed circuit prototyping boards, but it’s still way too time consuming to solder things together. The Sparkfun Protoshield is ok, but I really wanted something with breadboard traces so that pins are pre-connected, otherwise too much time is spent just soldering connections to pins.
I tried the Busboard SB4, and managed to groups parts on it in a way that worked as a shield, but there really just weren’t enough longer 4-5 pin traces to work with.
Connectors and headers had to be placed on the sides, instead of the front and back.
Overall, a step forward, but not good enough.
Time For Something Better
I decided to make my own board layout. Some considerations that went into this (in no particular order):
- General purpose enough to be used on lots of Arduino projects
- Handle the goofy Arduino header separation, but maintain clean 0.1″ spacing throughout the board
- Breadboard traces!
- 6 pin traces with a sprinkling of longer ones
- Edge traces designed for connectors and LEDs
- External traces that can be cut if needed to split for example a 6 pin trace into two 3 pin traces
- A 0.3″ DIP area. Utilize the dead space underneath for +5v and GND busses.
- Ability to jumper a connection to any Arduino pin, from both off the board and in the interior area
- Formfactor: ok if this is a little oversized. Ends could be lopped off for a really tight application
So this is the basic layout, with the boxed areas representing connected pins.
As for fab, I tried out the folks at OHS Park. Painless, affordable, and fast. $42 for 3 boards, received in 2 weeks.
Quality is good and everything checked out.
Just finished trying it out on a project.
So far, so good. Part placement seems easier and a bit cleaner finish too.