AtomSoftTech's AtomIO Shrinks the IOBuddy Down to an Ultra-Compact Breadboard-Friendly Size
Taking up as little room as possible on a breadboard, the AtomIO offers three single-color LEDs and two push-button switches.
Compact electronics enthusiast Jason Lopez of AtomSoftTech has launched a shrunken version of his IOBuddy, dubbed the AtomIO — offering three LEDs and two push-button switches on a tiny breadboard-friendly breakout.
"[The AtomIO] has three Outputs (LED) and 2 Inputs (BTN)," Lopez writes of the design, which was completed in February and manufactured by OSH Park ready for launch. "It’s tiny as heck and will help keep breadboards less full. The LEDs are tied to GND with a resistor so all you have to do is supply 2v to 6v to turn them on. The buttons are pulled low via 10k – 22k ohm. So when pressed they output a HIGH signal."
The shape of the PCB is tailored to use with a breadboard: Five IO pins slot neatly into rows of the breadboard for the three outputs and one input, while power pins - doubled up for mechanical robustness — mate directly with the breadboard power rails. There's only one catch: If your breadboard has ground as the outer rail and power as the inner, the AtomIO won't work.
Lopez has a history of creating increasingly-compact designs: The DimeDuino, constructed on OSH Park's flexible substrate, packed a Microchip ATmega328P into a board the size of a dime, while the Atomized Annoy-O-Tron was little bigger than the beeper it drove. He is also working on a breakout for the Sharp LS027B7DH01 memory LCD, dubbed the AtomSharp, but says it is "more of an internal-use PCB, but [I] may sell it."
The AtomIO board is now available on the AtomSoftTech Tindie store, priced at $4 with green, red, and yellow LEDs — or $5 if you want the option to customize the LED colors from a choice of green, red, yellow, blue, and white.