Monday, February 11, 2008

AVR ICSP 6-pin breadboard adapter

AVR ICSP (6 pin) breadboard adapter

Update: the boards have arrived. If you're interested in getting one, please email me at jmg (shift-2) upwardnotnorthward (period) com.

I think I'm really starting to get the hang of EAGLE CAD; not only is it no longer frustrating, I now really enjoy designing boards in it.

I've been teaching myself about directly programming AVR chips (stay posted for an article on that), and since I'm too stubborn (and cheap) to pay for a development board, I built and have been using an Evil Mad Scientist Labs-style minimalist target board. It works great, but the problem is you more-or-less need a different board for every different type of chip you want to program, plus, you need to shuttle the chip back and forth from the breadboard to the programmer. It would be great to be able to program the chip in-breadboard, by the dual-row header pin won't allow that. You can run wires directly from your programmer to the breadboard, but that's a little messy. So, I decided to make a simple breadboard adapter for the ICSP header.

This has been done before, but I really don't like dealing with perfboard, and I was itching to try having a PCB manufactured, so I designed the adapter and ordered a bunch up from Sparkfun's BatchPCB service. My design is set up so that the Vcc and GND connect directly into the bus lines of the breadboard to save two wires later on. I ordered a bunch of extras, so if anyone out there is interested in one, drop me an email and we'll work something out (assuming they work properly when they arrive).

2 comments:

Unknown said...

No comment here till now? ... *tssss*

This is really a great help for all bread board users around the world. :D
Next time I create a PCB with the diret-toner method, I will build one of your adatpers. ... So I will steal your idea. :D Sorry, but it's great!

greetings

Andun - http://www.subms.de

JMG said...

Johannes,

I'm glad you like it! It's not really stealing: if I hadn't wanted people to use it, I wouldn't have posted it. That said, I think the PCBs that I'm having made are inexpensive enough that it is actually cheaper than the parts to make one yourself. Shipping costs to Germany might change that, though. Get in touch if you're interested.

Jonathan