Breakout Boards

Breakout Boards

Breakout Boards

What is a breakout board?

Development breakout boards

The purpose of a breakout board is that it takes an electrical component, like a small sensor, and makes it easy to connect this to your Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or whatever platform you are using. Breakout boards are designed to simplify the process of prototyping with different components in your latest electronics project.

The component being connected is usually an integrated circuit (IC) – a small computer chip – which has a number of “pins” on them. These act as the connections between the chip and the rest of the system such as for power supply, ground or input and outputs. In the past ICs were large enough that you could drill a hole in the circuit board and use this to solder in a “through hole” pin which can easily be used with solderless breadboards. Over time the size of electrical components shrunk to the point were it is not practical to drill a hole in the circuit board – this has led to the rise of surface mount devices (SMDs). The ICs in these devices can no longer be used directly with solderless breadboards – breakout boards “break out” the conductors from the SMD onto a printed circuit board which can be easily be clipped into a breadboard again.

A comparable product is an Arduino shield which also allows simplifies the process of connecting new components to the main development platform. One advantage of breakout boards are that they tend to be smaller with the printed circuit board often being of a similar size to the IC. The main benefit is that breakout boards are not designed for use with any particular platform and are compatible with most micro-controller development boards – giving you more flexibility when you are experimenting with different setups.

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  • 6 Degrees of Freedom Breakout LSM6DSO Qwiic (SEN-18020) main 6 Degrees of Freedom Breakout LSM6DSO Qwiic (SEN-18020) front

    6 Degrees of Freedom Breakout LSM6DSO Qwiic (SEN-18020)

    Sparkfun

    £13.00
    6 Degrees of Freedom Breakout, LSM6DSO, Qwiic - Sparkfun SEN-18020 The SparkFun LSM6DSO 6 Degrees of Freedom Breakout is an accelerometer and gyroscope sensor with a giant 9kB FIFO buffer and embedded processing interrupt functions. Due to the...
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  • Photo Interrupter GP1A57HRJ00F Infrared kit PPBOB-09322KIT Contents

    Photo Interrupter GP1A57HRJ00F Infrared kit

    Proto-PIC

    £5.00
    Photo Interrupter GP1A57HRJ00F Infrared kit This sensor is composed of an infrared emitter on one upright and a shielded infrared detector on the other. By emitting a beam of infrared light from one upright to the other, the sensor can detect when an...
    £5.00
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  • PIR Motion Sensor, Passive Infrared with JST connector PIR Motion Sensor, Passive Infrared with JST connector

    PIR Motion Sensor, Passive Infrared with JST (SEN-13285)

    Sparkfun

    £11.00
    PIR Motion Sensor, Passive Infrared with JST connector - SparkFun SEN-13285 This is an easy to use Passive Infrared, PIR Motion Sensor. Just power it up and wait 1-2 seconds for the sensor to get a snapshot of the still room. If anything moves after...
    £11.00
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  • Altitude/Pressure Sensor - MPL3115A2 Breakout SparkFun SEN-11084 Altitude/Pressure Sensor - MPL3115A2 Breakout SparkFun SEN-11084

    Altitude/Pressure Sensor - MPL3115A2 Breakout SparkFun SEN-11084

    Sparkfun

    £15.50
    Altitude/Pressure Sensor - MPL3115A2 Breakout SparkFun SEN-11084 Life has its ups and downs, so why not measure them? The MPL3115A2 is a MEMS pressure sensor that provides Altitude data to within 30cm (with oversampling enabled). The sensor outputs are...
    £15.50
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  • Soil Moisture Sensor (with Screw Terminals) (SEN-13637) Soil Moisture Sensor (with Screw Terminals) (SEN-13637)

    Soil Moisture Sensor (with Screw Terminals) (SEN-13637)

    Sparkfun

    £7.50
    Soil Moisture Sensor (with Screw Terminals) - Sparkfun SEN-13637 The SparkFun Soil Moisture Sensor is a simple breakout for measuring the moisture in soil and similar materials. The soil moisture sensor is pretty straightforward to use. The two large,...
    £7.50
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  • Adafruit 1260 Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2 - Pack of 4  all 4 Adafruit 1260 Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2 - Pack of 4 close up

    Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2 - Pack of 4 (Adafruit 1260 )

    AdaFruit

    £9.00
    Adafruit 1260 Flora RGB Smart NeoPixel version 2 - Pack of 4 What's a wearable project without LEDs? Our favorite part of the Flora platform is these tiny smart pixels. Designed specifically for wearables, these updated Flora NeoPixels have ultra-cool...
    £9.00
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  • Bus Pirate - v3.6a - SparkFun TOL-12942 main Bus Pirate - v3.6a - SparkFun TOL-12942 main1

    SparkFun Bus Pirate - v3.6a (TOL-12942)

    Sparkfun

    £33.00
    Bus Pirate - v3.6a - SparkFun TOL-12942 The Bus Pirate v3.6a, created by Ian Lesnet, is a troubleshooting tool that communicates between a PC and any embedded device over 1-wire, 2-wire, 3-wire, UART, I2C, SPI, and HD44780 LCD protocols - all at voltages...
    £33.00
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  • USD_SNIFFER_001__05938 USD_SNIFFER_001__059381

    microSD Sniffer - uSD Breakout Board

    Proto-PIC

    £7.50
    microSD Sniffer - uSD Breakout Board When playing with microSD, you sometimes need to view what the SPI traffic is doing, whether for hacking or debugging.With the microSD Sniffer, you can hook up an external device, such as a logic analyzer or...
    £7.50
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  • SD Card SPI Sniffer SD Card SPI Sniffer

    SD Card SPI Sniffer

    Proto-PIC

    £6.00
    SD Card SPI Sniffer When playing with SD, you sometimes need to view what the SPI traffic is doing, whether for hacking or debugging.This SD SPI Sniffer allows you to hook up an external device, such as a logic analyzer or microcontroller, to view what...
    £6.00
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  • ADS1115 Programmable Gain Amplifier 4Ch - Adafruit 1085 ADS1115 Programmable Gain Amplifier 4Ch - Adafruit 1085

    ADS1115 Programmable Gain Amplifier 4Ch (Adafruit 1085)

    AdaFruit

    £16.20
    ADS1115 Programmable Gain Amplifier 4Ch - Adafruit 1085 Adafruit 1085 ADS1115 16-Bit ADC - 4 Channel with Programmable Gain Amplifier. For microcontrollers without an analog-to-digital converter or when you want a higher-precision ADC, the ADS1115...
    £16.20
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  • Pololu 2973 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier TB67S249FTG Pololu 2973 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier TB67S249FTG contents

    Stepper Motor Driver Carrier TB67S249FTG (1.7A/4.5A)

    Pololu

    £22.80
    Stepper Motor Driver Carrier TB67S249FTG - Pololu 2973 This product is a carrier board or breakout board for Toshiba’s TB67S2x9FTG family of stepper motor drivers; we therefore recommend careful reading of the corresponding driver’s...
    £22.80
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  • Dual MAX14870 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino - Pololu 2519 Dual MAX14870 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino - Pololu 2519 contents

    Dual MAX14870 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino

    Pololu

    £24.00
    Dual MAX14870 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino - Pololu 2519 perfect for Arduino projects! This motor driver shield and its corresponding Arduino library make it easy to control a pair of bidirectional, brushed DC motors with an Arduino or compatible...
    £24.00
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