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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  • Level Translator Breakout - PCA9306

    Level Translator Breakout - PCA9306 (BOB-15439)

    Sparkfun

    £5.25
    Level Translator Breakout - PCA9306 - Sparkfun BOB-15439 There are a couple must-have boards that every engineer and hobbyist should have on their desk, and this PCA9306 dual, bidirectional voltage-level translator breakout is one of them! Because...
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  • 4-channel I2C-safe Bi-directional Logic Level Converter - BSS138

    4-channel I2C-safe Bi-directional Logic Level Converter - BSS138

    Proto-PIC

    £4.00
    4-channel I2C-safe Bi-directional Logic Level Converter - BSS138 This logic level converter is I2C safe and has 4 BSS138 FETs with 10K pullups. It works down to 1.8V on the low side, and up to 10V on the high side.BSS138 Datasheet
    £4.00
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  • PPPOL2878_main PPPOL2878_main1

    Stepper Motor Driver Carrier STSPIN820

    Pololu

    £17.00
    Stepper Motor Driver Carrier STSPIN820 - Pololu 2878 This product is a carrier board or breakout board for the STSPIN820 stepper motor driver from STMicroelectronics (ST); we therefore recommend careful reading of the STSPIN820 datasheet (594k pdf)...
    £17.00
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  • Step-Up Voltage Regulator 12V - U3V50F12 - Pololu 2568 main Step-Up Voltage Regulator 12V - U3V50F12 - Pololu 2568 rear

    Step-Up Voltage Regulator 12V - U3V50F12

    Pololu

    £31.80
    Step-Up Voltage Regulator 12V - U3V50F12 - Pololu 2568 These boost (step-up) voltage regulators generate higher output voltages from input voltages as low as 2.9 V. They are switching regulators (also called switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) or...
    £31.80
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  • Energy Harvester - LTC3588 Breakout main Energy Harvester - LTC3588 Breakout dimension

    Energy Harvester - LTC3588 Breakout (BOB-09946)

    Sparkfun

    £33.00
    Energy Harvester - LTC3588 Breakout - SparkFun BOB-09946 This breakout board uses the LTC3588 Piezoelectric Energy Harvester from Linear Technologies. This board can be used not only for harvesting piezoelectric energy, but solar energy as well. There is...
    £33.00
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  • LTC4150 Coulomb Counter Breakout - SparkFun BOB-12052 main LTC4150 Coulomb Counter Breakout - SparkFun BOB-12052 10p size comparison

    SparkFun BOB-12052 LTC4150 Coulomb Counter Breakout

    Sparkfun

    £16.50
    LTC4150 Coulomb Counter Breakout - SparkFun BOB-12052 Odometers are extremely useful for cars, they tell you how far you have gone, wouldn’t it be nice if you were able to have a device that does the same for electrical current? The LTC4150...
    £16.50
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  • Pololu step-up/step-down voltage regulator S7V7F5 in a breadboard Pololu step-up/step-down voltage regulator S7V7F5 with included hardware

    5V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S7V7F5

    Pololu

    £7.00
    5V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S7V7F5 - Pololu 2119 The S7V7F5 switching step-up/step-down regulator efficiently produces 5 V from input voltages between 2.7 V and 11.8 V. Its ability to convert both higher and lower input voltages makes it...
    £7.00
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  • Beefcake Relay Control Kit V2 - Sparkfun KIT-13815 Beefcake Relay Control Kit V2 - Sparkfun KIT-13815 dimension

    Beefcake Relay Control Kit V2 (KIT-13815)

    Sparkfun

    £10.80
    Beefcake Relay Control Kit V2 - Sparkfun KIT-13815 Your 5V system can wield great power with this big, beefy relay board. How does 10A on the NC contacts and 20A on the NO contacts at 220VAC sound? The SparkFun Beefcake Relay Control Kit contains all the...
    £10.80
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  • RTC DS1307 i2C Real Time Clock Module main RTC DS1307 i2C Real Time Clock Module 1

    RTC DS1307 i2C Real Time Clock Module

    Proto-PIC

    £5.00
    RTC DS1307 i2C Real Time Clock Module We sell loads of RTCs but we wanted a super low cost and reliable offering so we found these! Featuring the well-known DS1307 chip it's very simple to get up and running. Simply add a CR1220 (not included due to...
    £5.00
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  • DeadOn RTC - DS3234 Breakout - Sparkfun BOB-10160 DeadOn RTC - DS3234 Breakout - Sparkfun BOB-10160

    DeadOn RTC - DS3234 Breakout - Real Time Clock (BOB-10160)

    Sparkfun

    £25.00
    DeadOn RTC - DS3234 Breakout - Sparkfun BOB-10160 Here is a real time clock based on the DS3234 Real Time Clock IC. The DS3234 is a low-cost, extremely accurate SPI bus real-time clock with an integrated temperature-compensated crystal oscillator and...
    £25.00
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  • Level Shifting microSD Breakout - SparkFun DEV-13743 main Level Shifting microSD Breakout - SparkFun DEV-13743

    Level Shifting microSD Breakout (DEV-13743)

    Sparkfun

    £6.00
    Level Shifting microSD Breakout - SparkFun DEV-13743 The SparkFun Level Shifting microSD Breakout is quite similar to the SparkFun microSD Transflash Breakout, but with the included level shifting hardware, this board allows you to utilize a microSD card...
    £6.00
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  • transflash_001__81052 transflash_001__810521

    Breakout Board for microSD Transflash

    Proto-PIC

    £5.40
    Breakout Board for microSD Transflash Breakout board for the micro SD socket that is not much bigger than your fingernail.Compatible with the SPI interface found on any SD card, this tiny form factor was created for cell phone storage and is perfect for...
    £5.40
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