Oak Development Technologies' CP Sapling Packs SAM D21 Power Into a Compact Form Factor
With a STEMMA QT/Qwiiic connector and a wealth of pins, this development board punches well above its weight class.
Oak Development Technologies has announced the launch of a new ultra-compact development board built around Microchip's SAM D21 — and boasting full compatibility with CircuitPython: the CP Sapling.
"Why did [I] make it? Because the other micro dev boards didn't quite have enough pins," Oak Development Technologies' hardware developer Seth Kerr explains, "and other SAM D21 dev boards had just a few too many. This fits easily into 8 pin stacking headers which are more common than some odd numbered header pin size."
Built around a SAMD21E18A chip, the compact breadboard-friendly design includes 12 digital general-purpose input/output pins broken out along two sides, of which all twelve also double as analog inputs. There's easy access to the SPI bus, plus a STEMMA QT and Qwiiic-compatible connector for external I2C hardware.
"The 5V power in is protected by a Schottky diode allowing up to 500mA of current," Kerr adds, "as well as a 3.3V pin which can sink up to 500mA between the microcontroller and connected devices. This board also features a comfortable and easy to press reset button with smooth tactile action."
The board, which includes "direct support" for the popular CircuitPython programming environment, is now available from Oak Development Technologies' Tindie store at $8.95 each; design files, meanwhile, are available on Kerr's GitHub repository under the permissive MIT License.