Make a Breadboard Adapter for Your AVR Microcontroller

If you like to play around with micro controllers you know this hustle: You want to test a part of a program and first you need to completely wire up the uC on the bread board.

Not with these handy parts any more!

These are complete programmable micro controllers that could be stuck to any solderless breadboard. Easy to program and easy to interface.

The big advantage is, that you don't need double side PCB, you don't need a custom PCB at all, you can also built it with common bread board and some wires too.

Step 1: The Schematics

The basic interface to program a micro controller is rather easy.
You need the power sources.
Then you have to tie the reset pin high, with a pushbutton to reset the uC.
And finally you need the three other lines to program the uC, Mosi, Miso and SCK.

I will explain this for the Attiny2313, but other uCs are as easy as this.

In the pictures to this step, you find the most simple schematic, then one with the ISP socket and the last one with all the pins routed to pin headers.

Step 2: The Board

You can built this on some blank perforated board or you can etch a dedicated board for it. I chose the second way, because it is very clean. On a blank board you would have to use wires to connect the pins according to the schematics. But that's also ok.

In the two pictures you can see how I routed the schematics on my board.
If you want to make your own board, you can use the pdf  with the 1:1 printable version.

Step 3: Solder the Parts to the Board

After you etched your own board, drill it and the solder on the individual parts to it.

The pins for the bread-board adapter are pushed through and the soldered from the bottom side. Although this is not ideal it should normally work.

Step 4: Try and Have Fun!

Now plug the power in and try to program the micro controller. If you made no mistake it should be programmable without any error.

For convenience I also provided in this step the board-layout for an Attiny24(44/84).
These are the two types of micro controllers I use most.

Have fun and create!

Step 5: Make It Even More Convenient...

If you are a bit older, or just to lazy to keep everything in your mind, then I have the ideal thing for you: A printable list with all the Port-Names in the size of the micro controller.

Print it out, cut it down to size and glue it on top of the uC. ;-)

If you like it support me in epilog contest! If I had one of these cutters, the boards would not have been so crappy...