ATtiny Breakout Is Small But Mighty

With just five standard IO — plus a reset button that can be repurposed — and limited processing capabilities, the family of ATtiny85/45/25 microcontrollers may not be able to control advanced robotics or other cutting-edge devices. However, their low cost and low-power operation can make them perfect for simple embedded operations.

After attempting to use one of these controllers in a watering project, I found that while five IO may seem simple, actually soldering everything up without a breadboard/perfboard/PCB is actually quite a challenge. After the debacle seen above, I set out to design a PCB that would fit the needs of my embedded project, while still being extremely small.

My new breakout — which available for purchase on Tindie — measures in at under 20 x 20mm, and includes connections for all five IO pins, reset, five ground and power pins, as well as an ISP header breakout. One of these power/ground pairs is arranged with a capacitor in mind, handy to keep the ATtiny functioning through power drops. There's also a hole for a 3mm mounting screw.

While the board can control LEDs and send out I2C signals and the like, it also has accommodations to easily fit up to two EZ Fan2 transistor boards. Attaching an EZ Fan2 means that you can also control a small-ish load (up to 600mA) with your ATtiny microcontroller, while still keeping things in a tight package.

I'm looking forward to the projects that I can do with this little board, which I'll hopefully be able to write about in the future. For now, you can see it blinking an LED in second tweet below, getting power from its ISP header: