Member #395694
Member Since: January 6, 2013
Country: United States
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Sparkfun - Please retire this product! This is a BAD board design - very difficult to work with on a breadboard. The pin spacing (as noted in comments some 4 years ago!) are incorrect, and the SCL/SDA connections are in a very inconvenient/breadboard unfriendly location. In addition, the board size is such that it covers needed holes on a solderless breadboard.
My suggestion - if you are working on a breadboard is to NOT use this part. Get a 28-pin version from another vendor and an IC socket and you'll be good to go. Not to mention there are better chips from NXP and Microchip.
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ARRGH! The board as received on 3/26/2015 has INCORRECT spacing between the left and right set of edge-holes. If I set a digital vernier to .800 and lay it along the holes - there is an OBVIOUS mis-match. Which means common .1 headers soldered in will be spaced wide and not go into a standard breadboard. By eye, it looks like the spacing is about .830. Yet another example of the "Fine QC" our Chinese friends are giving us - and that Sparkfun is sleeping at the switch and not doing a thorough QC on incoming parts!
Now I'll have to go back and check all the BOB's I've recently purchased... Sad.
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OMG - what a HUGE PITA the naming convention used on the pins of this board!! It is a real nightmare to try and remember that R1IN is RS232 but T1IN is TTL/5V!
I hope you redo this board some day and come up with a more intuitive pin-naming convention. Serial comms is always confusing (who is sending, who is receiving.. ) - Also it would be really super if you brought out the Enable pin as well.
