Hobbytronics Raspberry Pi GPIO breakout board Pro

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I tested the Hobbytronics GPIO breakout board a few weeks ago, and found its ability to connect to a port expander promising. What it lacked, however, was the ability to regulate the 5v of the Pi down to the commonly used, and fairly important, 3.3v that facilitates the right logic levels for many sensors and, of course, the Pi itself.

I showed photos of my breadboard built out with such a regulator ( you'll find them on this blog ), and pointed out that the Pi can't really provide a decent amount of power from its onboard 3.3v regulator.

The result is the Breakout Board Pro; which includes an onboard, 500mA, 3.3v regulator that should be more than enough for powering an Arduino, Graphic LCD, sensors and other bits 'n' bobs.

This is great news for PiDuino users, because an ATMega 328 will run happily from this 3.3v and communicate with the Pi without wasting breadboard space on logic level converters and voltage regulator circuits.

Naturally I have a breakout board pro kit on the way, and will update this blog with a review of it in action as a direct replacement for my regular breakout and voltage regulator powering the Graphic LCD with RGB backlight which I mentioned before.

« Back to index Posted on 2012-11-03 by Philip Howard