Schmart Board Review
Last updated: 10 Jun 2012 - 21:10
48 pin LQFP: A small STM32 processor broken out to 0.1" pitch.
There are lots of cases these days where the chip you want to play with are just not available in a through-hole variety. This is a real nuisance for hobbyists and even professionals who want to prototype a sub system before designing the PCB. You can get custom PCBs in small volumes very cheap these days but sometimes you lack the time or skills to make a custom PCB for simple jobs. There are a few suppliers of break out boards but they tend to be wildly over-priced cheap small PCBs with nothing remarkable in terms of features. SchmartBoard seems to be different, a few weeks ago I go sent a package of them for review and decided to look into what makes them special.
Graphical LCD Breakout Board
Last updated: 28 Apr 2012 - 18:35
Working Display: Display showing the OSHW logo as a demo.
I've got an on-going project to build a battery powered device. I want to be able to run the whole thing at 3.3V so I can easily and efficiently run it off a single LiPo cell. I also want to use a simple monochrome, graphical LCD for this project, but I couldn't find one that would run off 3.3V. For various other reasons, the project requires that the LCD is a classic 8bit parallel module as I had run out of hardware serial ports and bit-banged was making the refresh seem really slow. I found a few that would run the control lines off 3.3V but still needed some higher voltage to power the screen or back-light. Eventually I bit the bullet and decided to go with one of these from Farnell because it was the cheapest back-lit 128 by 64 pixel display I could get from them. It is a really good choice as it even includes electronic contrast control, something I was expecting to have to do in external circuitry. However, it isn't a nice 0.1" pitch module, it comes out to a 0.5mm pitch FPC connection.