microcontrollers in DIP or "breadboardable" form-factor

Hi all,

I am planning to get a talk on microcontrollers and embedded computing in our local radio-club and I am gathering some more information.

One of the things I like to show is that the developement boards are for .. well .. development, but once that you actually move it to an actual project (especially if you do not need any shields), there are other options that do not take up as much space (and are cheaper) then the arduino / mbed / whatever board.

I'm compiling a list of DIP or "breadboard-form-factor" options for hobbyists.

Sofar I have are

- AVR and PICs in DIP

- MSP430

- LPC1114 and LPC802 in DIP

- arduino mini and pro-mini + cheap Chinese clones

- mapple mini + cheap Chinese clones

Any other options? Any other options that connect a SMD-size MPU on a "DIP" socket?

Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.

Clifford,

I guess you are probably right. I just try not to scare them to much :-)

If I say they need to solder a 64-pin STM32F4, most of them will probably get a heart attack. :-)

Any case, if you are doing just one project, DIP does have the advantage you can do it on a perfboard.

Cheerio! Kr. Bonne

There are lots of cheap QFP adapters on ebay etc, but someone still have to solder them on in the first place.

Well a 64-pin dip must be nearly as big as some of those discovery/embed/arduino things.

I would not trust a 64pin DIP with a STM32F4 on a breadboard. These are high-speed chips, like 168MHz. You need a proper PCB with a groundplace and decoupling capacitors.

You could make a carrier for one with all this, with some pins brought out etc, I am sure there are "arduino" type things like that.

Are you sure ?

It's a _lot_ easier to create something on a breadboard than it is to go through all the turnaround time issues having a PCB created from an external shop.

It also means you don't have to store chemicals around the home if you can't wait for the external supplier. Design mistakes also have a zero cost element to them when you are breadboarding.

When you are doing complicated or high speed circuits, yes it is.

When you are doing smaller and low speed circuits, DIP is most certainly easier and has a far quicker turnaround.

Simon.

The PIC32 works just fine for me on a breadboard so far. You MUST however follow the guidelines in the datasheets for _ALL_ the pins which need connecting or the MCU will not startup correctly.

I use a programmer I built and the MIPS supplied gcc toolchain with my own headers. I don't know what commercial programmers and compilers out there support the PIC32 in a breadboard configuration.

I'm not familiar with the LPC802 and Google doesn't reveal anything. Do you mean the LPC810 ?

The above MCUs (as opposed to boards) are all the ones I know about in PDIP. (There's always the HC08 but I moved way beyond those many years ago and I consider the above options to be better suited than the HC08.)

Simon.

Teach them. It's easier than you might think.

You have some good pointers from others. Olimex also has a good range, e.g.

Clifford Heath

kristoff :

Some ESP8266 boards are breadboard compatible, for example this one

"All chip signals are exposed for easier access. The board can be soldered to PCB or used with a breadboard. "

Hi John,

That's indeed also an option.

I have just been looking for adapters with the chip already soldered on it. There seams to be some out there (I found a couple with a STM32s and also one with a PIC32, ss Simon also mentioned). but not that much.

OK. Point taken :-)

OK. Fair point.

However, concidering this audience (a radioclub), we are probably more looking at "controlling" things, so using a 8 bit AVR/PIC/MSP or a ARM M0-class device.

This is something one can do perfectly on a perfboard.

Well, what would be nice is a mapple-mini type of device with either a STM32F1 with a DAC or a STM32F4. Most of the devices out there use a STM32F103C8T6, the chip on the original mapple. That chip does not have a DAC. :-(

Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.

Hi Simon,

Yep. Found this "PIC32 on a DIP" project here

Interesting! :)

Yep.

Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.

Do you mean just the cpu, or a whole system?

No one seems to have mentioned the popular Teensy series:

The OSHChip is even smaller (DIP-16 size) and has an ARM cpu with BLE:

Hello,

Just to clarify, I've got PIC32 devices which are on a mounting header but I'm talking about the PIC32 MCUs which are directly available in a PDIP package without needing a mounting header.

One example is the PIC32MX220F032B which doesn't have Ethernet support but it does have USB support.

It's part of a range of PIC32MX2xx MCUs in various packages including PDIP and there are other PDIP devices with higher Flash/SRAM capacity than the above MCU.

Along with looking at the datasheet, make sure you check the Errata as well just to make sure you won't get caught by anything.

Simon.

Why wouldn't you buy a board with the MCU and basic support already on board, like the Teensy. There are literally hundreds of boards like these.

Heck, here's one specifically designed to fit a DIP socket board. It even has bluetooth built in.

Here you go!

STM32 Nucleo32 will also fit in a breadboard.

- there are in fact two kinds of cheap STM32 boards: Maple mini clones (with STM32F103CBT6) and few kinds of "minimal" boards with STM32F103C8T6

- minimal STM8 boards - at $0.90 they are probably the cheapest ready board that one can get.

There are also cheap SMD to DIP adapters, putting SO20 chips on adapter does not look too hard.

Yes, technically it will fit, but I meant as a 0.3 inch wide unit that leaves all the remaining pins uncovered. Not many modules do that and the OSHChip was specifically designed for that. They had to design special pins to not require the board to be too wide.

There are any number of modules with MCUs on them that can be used. They don't really need to sit on a wireless breadboard socket. I use jumper wires to connect them to a breadboard. Works fine. In fact, the bluetooth modules I have plug directly into the breadboard sockets and don't really work. I think it is because the power routing is poor.

Yes it's often possible to connect an MCU board to a breadboard through a ribbon cable that connects to the breadboard with header pins. Here is an adapter for the Raspberry Pi:

You don't have to be so fancy. I use single row cables like this,

male to male, male to female, female to female. I strip them to the size I need and so don't have to run all bazillion rPi/MCU pins into the socket board. I can also jump between different boards without the socket board.

Once in awhile I find the pins on the MCU board aren't the full 25 mil size that works with these cables. They barely hang on the TI kickstart boards. Not sure what those pins are intended to be for.

When I need a circuit like that, I use SOIC parts on a square-pad board, sometimes 0.05" but usually 0.1" with the pads around the SOIC scribed in half.

It's easier to design - just lay out the circuit like the schematic, no need to bend it around stripboard tracks. No tracks to cut, no need to keep flipping the board over. Surface mount components are easy to place and can often be butted against each other. The circuits you make are much more compact.

DIP does not have a monopoly on prototyping boards, it only does in the mindset of those who grew up with it.

Its main benefit is solderless breadboard, which is fine for short-term experimentation. But if you want to keep it you'll have to transfer it to soldered board anyway. If you do that on a 'breadboard equivalent' protoboard, you end up with a large and clumsy layout. Unless you're worried about reusing the components (which have got much cheaper in real terms over the last few decades) it's quicker just to solder something up from the beginning.

Theo

Well if you must have breadboards or perf strip, and are worried about QFP type packages alse for adapters easy to solder and take pins out for perf strip at least look at Schmartboards

All sorts of adapters