MBED Prototyping Boards
This prototyping PCB is designed for use with the MBED module. The board has provision for two easily mountable surface mount sockets which accommodate the 40 pin module. These can be soldered by hand as the footprint from the connector is flanged slightly to allow easy access with a soldering iron.
The main features of the board are as follows:
Footprints for:
External PSU socket, centre positive to provide power to the 40 pin MBED module
Through hole Ethernet socket footprint for use with Ethernet socket with built in magnetic
Surface mount SD Card connector footprint
Surface mount min USB footprint
Single in line row of 0.1 inch x 12 hole footprint for use with Spark Fun LCD modules
3 x SO8 footprint
2 x TSSOP8
2 x SOT23-3
1 x SOT23-6
2 x SOT363-6 footprints
1 x SOT223 footprint
1 x SO16
1x wide SO16
1 x TSSOP28
1 x wide TSSOP28
1 x TO252
Each MBED pin is bought out to a through hole for connection to the rest of your system
18 x 19 holes, general purpose on 0.1 inch pitch matrix
Additional row of holes with larger holes and pads for use with power connectors
Additional row of holes on 0.15 inch pitch for use with D connector and wider pitch devices
Additional ground and power pads
Most of the components can be soldered by hand such as the main SMT connectors for use with the MBED module. The miniUSB connector and the SD Card connector may require the use of a bit of solder paste and a hot air gun.
A low cost hot air rework/solder station can be purchased such as the Aoyue 852A soldering station to facilitate with this.
The board is populated with foot prints on both sides which are bought out to a common 0.1 inch pitch array of through hole pads. This means an SO8 footprint for example has on the reverse an TSSOP8 footprint which means the user has the option of either placing an SO8 device or a TSSOP8 but not both.
A similar arrangement is used with the TSSOP28 which has a standard width and wide bodied variant on the opposite sides of the PCB. The user can use either one but not both at the same time. The larger TSSOP28 footprint can for example be also used to mount more TSSOP8 if this is required in the system.
There is a pretty good mix of footprint which allow for D connectors, power connector, Pentawatt packages and standard DIP IC’s to be placed on the board, along with the more tricky SMT footprints.
There is a single 12 way row of pads which can be used with the Spark Fun LCD displays, which have the same physical layout.