Femtoduino: an ultrasmall (20.7x15.2 mm) libre Arduino compatible board
Femtoduino is an ultrasmall (20.7x15.2 mm) libre Arduino compatible board.
By using the QFN32 version of the ATMEGA 328p, 0.05" connectors, 0402 components and removing everything not strictly necessary, I've been able to design and hand build an Arduino compatible board which is very small (20.7x15.2 mm) and ultra light (2g) but has exactly the same computing power of the Arduino Duemilanove or UNO.
Femtoduino has been developed for ultrasmall Arduino prototyping. I had the need to add "Arduino intelligence" to quite small objects (balls, cubes, mices, etc) so I needed to shrink down the size of Arduino as much as possible. Femtoduino is the result.
For regular prototyping, Femtoduino comes with a handy breakout board which breaks out Femtoduino's 0.05" connectors into regular 0.1" pins so that you can use it on standard breadboards or perfboards.
Femtoduino is a true libre hardware project. It's designs are released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported and it has been designed using Kicad, a libre PCB design software.
Femtoduino schematics are based on the Arduino Pro Mini by Sparkfun Electronics and Arduino Mini by Team Arduino.
Video presentation of Femtoduino
Femtoduino Sources and Schematics
Below you find all the sources needed to build your own Femtoduino:
- Femtoduino v0.2 - Schematics
- Femtoduino v0.2 - Kicad Sources (including breakout board) sorry for the mess in this archive didn't had the time to cleanup things.
- Femtoduino v0.2 - Bill of Materials open it with Calc in the OpenOffice suite. Set semicolon separator on file opening. Mouser Femtoduino cart. Also useful male and female 0.05" connectors.
- Femtoduino v0.2 - Gerbers tested on production
- Femtoduino Breakout board v0.2 - Gerbers tested on production
- Femtoduino testing sketch - See file comments for instructions.
You can get the most updated sources from my personal repository using bzr with the following command:
bzr co http://repository.varesano.net/Femtoduino
Please support the project!
Femtoduino is a true libre hardware project. I released it under a libre licence to allow people to build their own and to give my contribution to the Arduino community.
However, I spent a lot of time designing Femtoduino, so if you are going to use its designs for your own projects or if you plan to sell clones of Femtoduino I'd really appreciate if you could donate me some money to support further versions of Femtoduino or my other libre hardware projects.
Donations can be made using Paypal to my account: fvaresano [at] yahoo [dot] it
Alternatively you cneveran use the donate button on the right sidebar of the page.
Even a couple of dollar/euro helps! Thank you.
Suggestions? Comments?
Please leave a comment below. Thank you.
Do you have the Femtoduino Breakout Board in Eagle format?
I was wondering if you do...
Bluetooth
Hi,
I need a tiny microcontroller like femtoduino but with bluetooth connectivity. Any idea for a small size bluetooth module for femtoduino?
Best regards,
I'm working on making a
I'm working on making a bluetooth breakout for this arduino, will post on my site hopefully in the next few weeks. you can contact me if you're interested
Happy to know about it! Let's
Happy to know about it! Let's see!!!
Good outfit for assembly
I recently rec'd an email from someone asking where I had my Femtoduino boards assembled. Here is the info (I misplaced the email, sorry!)
http://vareda.com/ in Goleta (near Santa Barbara, CA USA
Great small shop, high quality, reasonable prices.
Great work!
Hello, fantastic work! Just wanted to let you know that you have been featured in http://www.buildinginternetofthings.com/blog/
I think that such contributions to the Open Hardware community can facilitate the establishment of Internet/Web of Things must faster!
Kind regards,
Charalampos Doukas
Buy Femtoduinos at Femtoduino.com
Ok, the site is up and running. If you would like to pre-order a few of these as pre-made femtoduinos, fill out the form at http://www.femtoduino.com
The boards will be manufactored by SFCircuits (in San Francisco, CA)
Enjoy!
Selling
Hi,
For a project I am currently working on we need a very small prototyping board, and this one looks perfect. Unfortunately I do not have the expertise and the time to make these myself. Do you sell the Femtoduinos, or is there anywhere I can buy something similar that you know of?
Thanks!
Ralph
Femtoduino boards for sale
You can buy them pre-assembled at http://www.femtoduino.com
The shop will be live by March 30 2012, or before.
Do you sell the Femtoduino?
Hi,
For a project I am currently working on we need a very small prototyping board, and this one looks perfect. Unfortunately I do not have the expertise and the time to make these myself. Do you sell the Femtoduinos, or is there anywhere I can buy something similar that you know of?
Thanks!
Ralph
I have a couple of Femtoduinos
I had a small run of Femtoduinos assembled, as I did not
have the expertise.
That project has been sidelined for quite some time.
These are assembled boards, but do not have a bootloader
installed and thus have not been tested.
If you feel you can handle the remaining steps I'll
send to you at no charge via US Mail (in the USA).
Or you may want to find someone who will load the bootloader
and make sure the LEDs blink first.
rjeffries [at] gmail [dot] com
Omar Khayyam wrote:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
ron k jeffries
805-567-4670
http://ronkjeffries.pen.io
ronkjeffries on G+
@ronkjeffries on Twitter
Femtos are all gone, gone gone.
The PCBs and kits I bought were assembled, and various and sundry
people have them. At least one person told me his Femto worked.
Requests continue to dribble in. If someone were to order a run of PCBs from Laen, and order the kits. I know a place that does assembly
at a reasonable price.
Thanks for all the fish. I figure I lost (invested?)
less that $100 in this learning experience. I ended up giving
them away because they had not been tested.
Congratulations on the Hack a
Congratulations on the Hack a Day feature. Keep up the good work and thank you for your open source hardware.
Another Board
From Pittsburgh, PA USA
Fabio Veresano - Thanks for your work and sharing.
Steve B. - Thanks for making the bare board.
The SMD soldering education and experience for reflow by hand and hacking a skillet was intense. Our stock skillet did not get hot enough so our 1st board, pictured below, was hand soldered by one of my sons (13yr. old). The next board will be reflowed on a hacked skillet.
The reward: A functioning tiny, tiny Arduino Clone ---> Femtoduino!
Note: In the picture - the bright RED LED is --- FLASHING! LOL :-)
Awesome! Congratulations!
Awesome! Congratulations!
In the future, you may wanna evaluate buying an hot air reflow gun.. you'll find very cheap ones on ebay which will work great to start.
Dead Pins & DTR?
To those who read about and build THE Femtoduino - Has anyone had dead pins on the Atmega chip?
I've 5 pins that are dead on the board. They are actually with no output at the chip. I've used Fabio's test script of blinking LEDs to find the bad pins. One pin is a bad solder joint on the chip but, the other four pins (A6, A7, D5, & D6) do not have any output at the chip's connect pins.
And a design question: What is the DTR pin on the board? To which Atmega pin does it map? Is it simply connected to the RST with an included cap as shown on the Femtoduino schematic?
Lastly - below is a pinout sketch of the Atmega328P-MU for any with interest.
I don't think that there is
I don't think that there is any design flaw which makes those four pins unusable.. I guess it may be just some problem with your soldering or chip or PCB.
The DTR chip doesn't connect to anything but just to the capacitor as shown in the schematics. That's how Sparkfun implemented the reset in their Arduino Pro Minis and that's what I did here. The fact that you programmed this with the Arduino Duemilanove, makes the DTR
chippin useless.RESET [RST]
Note: To auto-reset the board via program just use the RST point on the board which is connected to the PC6 pin on the Atmega chip. It this connection is grounded or brought Low the chip/board will reset.
Programming the board with sketches works very well with a Duemilanove bootloader and Arduino-0022 IDE. I use the following connection scheme with a Modern Device USB Bub (use Bubs I or II):
Femtoduino Connections: Vin, Gnd, TX, RX, RST.
USB-Bub or similar: 5V, Gnd, RX, TX, DTR. Match in order of the previous.
To load the bootloader I read Fabio is using a USBasp. I tried it. The USBasp works very well.
So far things Work Great!
Clarification re programming the Femto
Is this summary correct?
Starting with assmebled Femtoduino that does not have bootloader,
1) need USBasp to load bootloader
Once Femtoduino has bootloader,
2)need BUB-II to send Arduino sketches from the USB port of my laptop
[1] http://www.protostack.com/accessories/usbasp-avr-programmer
also available in Europe from the inventor. ;)
[2] http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/bub_ii
I assume there are many other ways to proceed, I simply need to know
what to buy so I can move forward.
for what it is worth, I also own an Arduino Uno.
As you can tell, I am a newbie. May 1,000 flowers bloom.
If (I mean WHEN) I eventually get these operational,
I may or may not make some more.
ron k jeffries
rjeffries [at] gmail [dot] com
805 567 4670
To program the Femtoduino, I
To program the Femtoduino, I also have been successful with ArduinoISP (only with Arduino Duemilanove on Windows) however the USBasp is easier and more flexible.
Regarding USB connection, any FTDI breakout board will work. There are many vendors for this.
Go for it....
Go for it....
GREAT Design!
Fabio - I did not think or imply a flaw in your design. I was asking about a bad Atmega chip. I know the soldering is suspect as I'd noted on pin D2. I was also thinking that maybe the fuse settings I'd used were making those pins not function for the test. Sorry, if you thought I meant there was a flaw.
Question:
--- You state, "The fact that you programmed this with the Arduino Duemilanove, makes the DTR chip useless." What other bootloader and use would make the DTR useful? And did you mean to write 'DTR chip'? I'm confused.
Thanks!
Brian.
Sorry, typo.. fixed.
Sorry, typo.. fixed.
Definitions
The definitions of terms in my usage should be but, I may confuse them anyway -
Chip - Atmega328P-MU
Board - Femtoduino
Pin(s) - Connection Leads on the Atmega328P-MU
Someone opened an IndieGoGo
Someone opened an IndieGoGo founding for producing Femtoduinos boards. I'm not behind that found rising but I think people willing to have Femtoduinos available for sale may wanna support the founding. Here is the link http://www.indiegogo.com/Femtoduino-production-smallest-Arduino-compatib...
my compliments very nice and very smoll
I ave see Femtoduino i like the borad is available to purchasing
about the cost for 5 peices where have to purchase?
again my compliments very ultrasmoll.
You may wanna get in touch
You may wanna get in touch with some of the people below. They may have spare Femtos for you.
Personally, I don't have any right now.
Update plus breakout board question
1) I have five assembled Femtoduinos. Have not programmed any yet.
I do have a working Arduino Uno, but will have to
figure out the next steps. In good time, I assume.
2) the breakout board for Femtoduino looks handy. Has anyone
sent it out to have PCBs made? Or has it only been DIY PCB fabbed?
How is does Femtoduino connect to the breakout board?
3) I finally have KiCad working and am looking at the Breakout board
.brd file I have a LOT to learn to figure out how to generate gerbers if I want to get some PCBs made by Laen.
If anyone is intereste din a couple of Femtoduinos. email me rjeffries [at] gmail [dot] com
thanks
1) I programmed my Femtos
1) I programmed my Femtos using the Arduino Duemilanove with the ArduinoISP technique. Last time I checked, the ArduinoISP wasn't working with the Arduino UNO. Lately I switched to the USBAsp programmer, which is working pretty good.
2) I used Laen services to have some Femtoduino bob fabricated. You can use female/male headers to connect to the bob. However, I don't suggest you using the bob at all.. standard rigid wires will plug into the femto pretty nicely.
3) From Kicad pcbnew, File->Plot, Gerbers and drill files. Choose all the layers. You can also just use the BOB Gerbers already linked in the article above.
Bootloader
Fabio,
Which bootloader do you use for the Femtoduino?
Your Bootloader
Nevermind ---- I should have read the forum again.
On 2011/2/22 Fabio said, "I used the bootloader of the Arduino Duemilanove on the 5V 16MHz version of Femtoduino. I still did not built a 3.3V 8MHz Femtoduino but I guess that the bootloader for the Arduino Pro Mini 3V 8MHz should work just fine."
10K Resistors
Hi - I've read the forum and bought the BOM listed from Mouser. The posted list seems to be short one 10K resistor. The engineering indicates two 10K Resistors R1 & R2(R1 to PWR LED on front of board and R2 between Vcc & Rst on back of board.)
How have people been making your board? Do they just get the part without updating/informing your files? Anyway - I'd bought components for two boards. So, for now I'm using the second board's part to complete and need to order too more 10K resistors. Ack... Shipping....
Fabio - Thank you for your effort and distribution. A fun opportunity to learn and play.
We tried skillet reflow and it did not produce good results with our electric. It took too long to cook. We are using a silver based paste with a melt ~430F. So, we resulted to hand soldering and with silver wire. Not bad. Maybe on the second board I'll use my iron. ;-)
Nope! There is only one 10K
Nope! There is only one 10K resistor which is the pullup for the reset line which has to be on the back of the Femtoduino PCB. The resistors for the LEDs are 330 Ohm and are included in the BOM and Mouser cart.
For reflowing, I use a pizza oven (do not ever use it for food again once used for soldering, even if you clean it) or an hot air gun. Never had good results with the skillet.
10K x 2
Sorry ---- Your Femtoduino-20101230_0221.pdf schematic in the KiCAD files shows the PWR LED as a 10K. And if you zoom into the PWR resistor R1 within the KiCAD board design it is labeled as a 10K. Oh well, getting good at reworking/reflow on near sub-micro flecks. Too much fun. :-)
Example-Picture
Refer to the schematics
Refer to the schematics linked in this article. They should be correct.
Does anyone have a drawing showing parts placeent?
I may be the first person to hand this off to a shop
to have them assemble. Other than tthe schematic and
a picture, it would be Most Useful to have a simple drawing showing part locations etc.
Can somebody who understand this better than I do know out something that while not
pretty, convey information.
For example, where should the red vs green LEDs go? and on and on. ;)
Thanks for your patience. (I hope you are patient...)
fyi I am using services of long time friend Juan Potau and his crew at Vareda Engineering.
http://vareda.com/
KiCAD
Ron, Time to ramp up and get the tools and learn the stuff. Since you are going into production you have to do some work. Eh?
My kids and I and all the rest of us are giving it a go. KiCAD is kinda cool.
of KiCad learning and the build is DONE (next: testing)
I agree, I have a LOT to learn, and that includes KiCad.
I am stuck at such a low level: downloaded the Windows version,
have not figured out how to unpack it with PeaZip.
Maybe I'll try another tool.
I actually did get the breakout board file extracted,
but there are maybe a ten or so different files with different
file extensions, and (as best I can tell) no overarching
project that KiCad can read in. I am sure that if I sit down
(maybe via Skype or whatever) with someone who understands KiCad
I'll get rolling Real Soon Now.
having said that, my five Femtoduinos are already built. At the
last minute the production house realize they had a couple of
parts off the BOM that they had not used. They figured out the parts
belong on the back of the PCB. All doen,
easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Part placement can be
Part placement can be understood by opening Femtoduino Kicad designs. That should be trivial for someone into PCB assembling.
Production note
Fabio,
the issue is that an assembly house does not use KiCad.
They pushed ahead and assembled the Femtoduinos based on photos
and the schematic. I hope we got it right. ;)
I will download KiCad. I have never used it myself, shame on me.
If they used photos, check
If they used photos, check with them that they didn't forget the 3 components on the bottom of the board.
Femtoduino Production
Hello, do you plan to do a "mass production"?
Maybe would be a good idea to feature your project on Kickstarters and have the kickstarters page featured on hackaday. I'm sure it will gain a lot of resonance and many people would be willing to found the project.
I don't plan a mass
I don't plan a mass production at the moment. But, as Femtoduino is a true libre hardware, people may use the designs in this page to mass produce it.
Being myself Italian, I don't have access to Kickstarter for founding. But if I could, I don't think I would do a found rising for Femtoduino. Too many things to do already.
Similar but different!
You two should compare notes :3
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-1x1-22-IO-pin-Ardunio-Comp...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/988159748/extracore-arduino-compatible
Terminals & Sockets
Do you think these male terminals and female sockets would work?
0.50x.100 cl Low Profile Socket Strip - Straight (Female)
LSSHS-6-14-S-02-G-LF
http://www.mlelectronic.com/pcb/pcb-request-samples/pcb-request-samples-...
0.50x.100 cl Low Profile Terminal Strip - Straight (male)
TSHS-6-14-S-04-A-G-LF
http://www.mlelectronic.com/pcb/pcb-request-samples/pcb-request-samples-...
They seems to be adequate.
They seems to be adequate. Female connector looks a bit longer than what I used.
At what price can you get these?
Connectors. Fabio, I've
Connectors.
Fabio,
I've contacted the manufacturer about their connectors. They are looking for a good fit for terminals and sockets and pricing.
Brian.
Connectors
If the female is longer then you use, then she is too long. Right? You had a request for your 0.3 board needing more room for connectors in the top and right corner. That was with another connector. Then the board may need to be larger?
I do not have a price. I'd just found the item and source. The company was closed when I found them - And - not open yet this morning. But, they have an office in your part of the sphere.
-Major League Electronics-
MLE Europe,
19 Rue de la Mare,
95650 Puiseux Pontoise,
France
Tel: +33 1 34 32 13 67
Fax: +33 1 34 32 13 67
E-mail: europe [at] mlelectronics [dot] com
Connectors, again
For my first build of 5 Femtoduinos, I am all set EXCEPT gettiong connectors so they can be professionally soldered by the assembly shop.
I am a newbie, so do not grok whether femail or mail connectors would be most useful. I lean toward female. Easier to send in the mail, for one thing. (There is a teeny tiny pun buried in there.)
To make things interesting, Femtoduino uses three connectors:
14 pin
8 pin
6 pin
We shall (eventually) make up our minds.
ron k jeffries
rjeffries [at] gmail [dot] com
805-567-4670
once these are built the real fun begins. I need to figure out how
to install the bootloader. Yes, I am in over my head.
I wouldn't solder connectors
I wouldn't solder connectors by default. They should be optional, in my opinion.
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