FTDI, new protoshields and a big doh!

Just received an order from dx.com and it finally arrived ordered the 2013-02-28 and it arrived today 20 days later. Well I guess you get the delivery time you pay for.

FTDI USB to serial

FTDI USB to Serial

I ordered a FTDI USB to serial. For my set of homemade Arduino boards[1][2] . Sometimes I need to program or have serial communication with more than one at once.

Right now I use a USB-Serial Light adapter. This new is based on a FTDI chip  seems to have the similar pin-out or so I hope.

FTDI Pinout
DTR, RX, TX, 5V, CTS, GND

USB-Serial Light Pinout
Reset, RX, TX, 5V, NC, GND


When I connected it to the computer drivers were installed and it identified itself as a serial port on Windows 7. Next I connected it to my a homemade Arduino board and tried to upload a sketch. No problem!

Programming a Arduino board with the FTDI. The USB Serial Light board to the right.

Arduino Prototyping shields

Two prototype shields, top and bottom.

I also got two Arduino prototype shields. The last one I bought ended up as an Arduino board for the Raspberry Pi. The quality was quite good so I ordered two more.

These boards have:

• Place for LED-13 and resistor
• Place for another LED
• 14 pin SOIC area
• 20 pin DIP area
• Place for reset switch
• Place for other switch

The board lacks one of the screw-holes normally found on a Arduino board.

I think I will use one of them to attach to my Nokia 5110 Screen, it is kind of messy to set that one up on a breadboard!

Maybe put the 5110 on a shield?

I think I might wait and see what to do with the other one....

And finally a ZIF socket for my programmer, but it was too large!

The zif socket I ordered is a bit on the wide side for a ATmega328...

I intended to use the ZIF socket for my programmer but this one was 0.6inches wide and not the 0.3inch that I hoped to get. DOH!

The intended programmer board for the ZIF socket.

Sparkfun sells the correct size if someone else is out to get one.