Turn Your Notebook Into an STM32 Development Board with This PCB Cover

Development boards were originally intended for prototyping, with the idea being that you would transition to a custom PCB for your project once you had everything working. That makes a lot of sense, because microcontrollers usually require quite a few additional components in order to actually do something useful. But development boards have become so small and affordable that it is really common for makers to simply keep the entire board in their final designs. Redditor SIrawit has taken that idea to an entertaining extreme with a huge STM32 development board that doubles as a cover for notebooks.

The STMicroelectronics STM32 is a family of powerful 32-bit microcontrollers built around Arm processors. There are a bunch of development boards out there that incorporate STM32 microcontrollers, which are ideal for situations when you need more power than the Arduino Uno’s Microchip ATmega328P microcontroller can provide. STMicroelectronics also has very robust programming tools available for the STM32 that are better suited to professional projects. But those development boards are all still fairly traditional. SIrawit’s design is not. It can be slapped onto B6 size notebooks with appropriate ring bindings and is perfect for when you want to take notes while showing off your geek credentials.

SIrawit has a designed both front and back notebook covers, each of which is a large PCB. The front PCB contains the STM32 microcontroller with 40 breakout pins, two H-bridge motor drivers, four open-drain drivers, and eight high voltage inputs. It has a stylized My Little Pony silkscreen on the front and even “Name” and “Subject” fields for you to write on. The back cover has footprints for a wide range of common chip types and sizes. Those footprint pads don’t actually connect to anything and are there purely for reference. Both covers have holes for the notebook’s wire bindings to feed through. They also have ribbon cable connectors, so a short ribbon cable can act as a clasp to hold the notebook closed. You probably wouldn’t want to use these for actual prototyping, but they look really cool and do provide a handy reference for your projects. SIrawit has made the design files available on GitHub if you’d like to make your own.