DC Boarduino

Overview

The DC Boarduino is Adafruit's early Arduino-compatible development board designed specifically for breadboard use. Unlike a standard Arduino Uno, the Boarduino's narrow 76mm × 20mm form factor allows it to plug directly into a solderless breadboard, leaving rows free on both sides for circuit connections. It uses the familiar ATmega328 at 16MHz with a custom Arduino bootloader for USB serial programming.

Power comes from a standard 2.1mm DC barrel jack supporting 7–17V input, regulated to 5V on board. A 1N4001 diode provides reverse-polarity protection. Programming is done via a 6-pin USB-to-TTL serial header (cable sold separately) with auto-reset capability, or via the ICSP header. The board supports the full Arduino digital and analog pin set: D0–D13 and A0–A5, plus ARef, 5V, Ground, Vin, and Reset.

Two indicator LEDs are included — a green power LED and a red LED on pin 13 for built-in blink diagnostics. EagleCAD schematics and Fritzing files are available. The DC Boarduino is genuinely distinct from the Arduino Uno: it has no onboard USB-to-serial chip (requiring an external FTDI or USB-TTL cable), no USB Type-B port, and a significantly more compact and breadboard-optimized layout.