SparkFun Electronics - FTDI Basic Breakout

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FTDI Basic Breakout - 3.3V

sku: DEV-08772

Description: This is a basic breakout board for the FTDI FT232RL USB to serial IC. The pinout of this board matches the FTDI cable to work with official Arduino and cloned 3.3V Arduino boards. It can also be used for general serial applications. The major difference with this board is that it brings out the DTR pin as opposed to the RTS pin of the FTDI cable. The DTR pin allows an Arduino target to auto-reset when a new Sketch is downloaded. This is a really nice feature to have and allows a sketch to be downloaded without having to hit the reset button. This board will auto reset any Arduino board that has the reset pin brought out to a 6-pin connector.

The pins labeled BLK and GRN correspond to the colored wires on the FTDI cable. The black wire on the FTDI cable is GND, green is CTS. Use these BLK and GRN pins to align the FTDI basic board with your Arduino target.

This board has TX and RX LEDs that make it a bit better to use over the FTDI cable. You can actually see serial traffic on the LEDs to verify if the board is working.

This board was designed to decrease the cost of Arduino development and increase ease of use (the auto-reset feature rocks!). Our Arduino Pro and LilyPad boards use this type of connector.

Documents:

Pricing

	271 in stock backorder allowed

$13.95	price
$12.56	10-99 (10% off)
$11.16	100+ (20% off)

	quantity

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Comments

24 comments

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	by AdamDavis +2.3 \| August 16, 2008 at 9:19 AM +0.56
Looks like it would be pretty easy to modify for 5V - just remove the short SJ1, bring a jumper from the 5V side of C2 to the U1 side of SJ1, cut the 3.3v trace on the bottom near pin 4 of JP1 and bring another 5V jumper to that pin.

Halley

+1.9

| February 1, 2009 at 9:34 AM

Confirmed. I made this modification and the 5V Vcc was correct. Sketch upload worked on the first try.

The SJ1 is the blob of solder near the DTR label. I cut the trace between SJ1 and the capacitor instead of removing all the solder from the SJ1 itself. I cut the trace to JP1 Pin4, and used the SJ1 and the C5+ pole as convenient solder points (C5+ instead of C2+ since it's larger).

FTDI Basic Breakout 5V Mod picture

	by Whosawhatsis +2.7 \| April 4, 2009 at 11:45 AM 0
Shouldn't it also work if you only connect C5+ to SJ1 and cut the trace on the reverse on the other side of the branch? Or is C1 rated below 5 volts? Even if it is, you could cut its trace to ground and be left with two cuts and one patch, rather than 2 of each...

	by Whosawhatsis +2.7 \| April 4, 2009 at 12:15 AM 0
To clarify, http://whosawhatsis.com/paraphernalia/ftdi_basic_5v.jpg

	by bruceK +3.6 \| August 16, 2008 at 1:50 PM 0
What are the Arduino Pro boards ? AVR32 maybe ? Something along the lines of the OMAP Beagleboard but using the Arduino IDE I would hope.

	by MooKitty +1.6 \| November 7, 2008 at 7:06 PM 0
Recognized properly as ttyUSB0 on first plug-in, by Ubuntu 8.04. No fiddling with configs or drivers was necessary.

	by Matthew +4.3 \| December 15, 2008 at 10:18 PM 0
Will this work with the Parallax Propeller?

	by rajesh +2 \| January 23, 2009 at 1:03 PM 0
is this a 5v or 3.3v?

	by Matthew +4.3 \| January 24, 2009 at 7:47 PM 0
It is a 3.3 Volt product, But you can modify the product to run off 5.0 Volts.

	by rajesh +2 \| January 27, 2009 at 7:49 AM 0
how do i modify it for 5v?

	by Matthew +4.3 \| January 27, 2009 at 12:42 AM 0
Quoted from AdamDavis "Looks like it would be pretty easy to modify for 5V - just remove the short SJ1, bring a jumper from the 5V side of C2 to the U1 side of SJ1, cut the 3.3v trace on the bottom near pin 4 of JP1 and bring another 5V jumper to that pin." Don't know if this works of not tho. But it should

	by Fleming +3.7 \| March 9, 2009 at 4:11 AM 0
Hi, I'm looking at the Schematic and the Pinout is: GND-CTS-3.3V-TxO-RxI-DTR But in the board the pins are labeled like: GND-CTS-3.3v-RxI-TxO-DTR Why are the tx/rx pins toggled?

	by Whosawhatsis +2.7 \| March 30, 2009 at 3:21 PM 0
That's probably because TX talks to RX and RX listens to TX. Basically, it's a question of whether it's denoting its own TX/RX lines, or those of the mating connector.

	by Goatboy +1 \| April 9, 2009 at 7:04 PM 0
Whosawhatsis: Shouldn't it also work if you only connect C5+ to SJ1 and cut the trace on the reverse on the other side of the branch? Or is C1 rated below 5 volts? Even if it is, you could cut its trace to ground and be left with two cuts and one patch, rather than 2 of each... I need to make this mod and wondered if this one is 100% certain? Thanks

	by gpeek +2.2 \| April 16, 2009 at 11:47 AM 0
They've just implemented this with a simple 5V jumper, and it costs $5 less! http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9115

+2.3

| July 28, 2009 at 3:12 PM

I have two of these 3.3v versions which I got in the past few months and they look ALMOST identical to the 5v version (which are NOT in stock as I write this).

Looking very close at the bottom, (look at the 5v picture, not the one for this page) you can see the shorting pads, and on mine the default short is to the other pad. So to make it 5V I assume that all I would need is to cut and short just like the 5v breakout, but the opposite set.

marklar

+1.9

| August 13, 2009 at 6:08 PM

–1.2

What a great product. Being brand spanking new it took me a bit to figure out all the details on how to use this on a breadboard and a chip / crystal only.

This was a great start ...
http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/ArduinoBreadboard

1) To get started quick, just hookup the Vcc and Ground from the breakout to the breadboard and you can skip the regulator part of the tutorial.

2) Once you have the chip wired on as shown in the tutorial ... remove the pin 1 run connections and setup the pins as follows:

PIN -> Connection to make
===============================
DTR -> through a .1 cap then to pin 1 on the chip
RX1 -> to the Tx on chip (pin 3)
TX1 -> to the Rx on chip (pin 2)
5V -> to power in on breadboard
CTS -> to ground on breadboard
GND -> to ground on breadboard

3) Now Arduino with the Duemilanove (328) setup should work.

Note: I had issues running 0016 but 0015 runs fine (xp and windows 7)

If I did anything stupid and/or am passing on stupid advice please correct me.

	by marklar +1.9 \| August 13, 2009 at 6:15 PM +1.2
I just realized I posted the comment on the hook ups on this product but I used the 5V version. Not sure if there is any difference .. just a note.

	by medecau +1.6 \| August 17, 2009 at 12:57 AM +0.15
This board seems to have been updated, i just received this today: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28914418@N02/3830391399/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/28914418@N02/3831178226/

	by Steph +1.6 \| August 25, 2009 at 8:09 AM 0
Howdy, Just to be sure... this is basically an FTDI 3.3v cable, right? so i can use it to connect to a XBee adapter (from Adafruit)? Steph

	by Don +1.2 \| November 3, 2009 at 10:35 AM 0
Looked at the Adafruit adaptor and I think you're right. It surely does look that way. Haven't tried it myself but looks like a great idea to use for testing the XBee command set. I'm using breakout boards and USB deelopment boards, but your idea looks like a solution that will work just as well.

HP22UK

+0.6

| January 14, 2010 at 10:41 AM

just found this thread on a search;

I don't think the 3.3v or 5v will work with the ADAFRUIT XBEE adapter. (Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong here)

Using X-CTU I can read the Xbee but not update the firmware. suspicion is currently with this bit;

"The major difference with this board is that it brings out the DTR pin as opposed to the RTS pin of the FTDI cable".

Works fine with Arduino mini pro, Boardudino etc but looks like I'm still going to need the FDTI cable... :-(

	by Joey +1.2 \| November 24, 2009 at 4:46 PM 0
Is there a version of this that is 3.3v and 5v in one pcb that is changed via jumper?

	by Gibz +1.5 \| December 20, 2009 at 8:18 PM 0
It looks like this board has been modified to be identical to the 5V board, except with the trace in the 3.3V position instead of the 5V position. From medecau above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28914418@N02/3831178226/