DIY Breakout Board PCB

Project Info
Author: Chris
Difficulty: Easy
Time Invested: 4 Hours

Prerequisites:
Take a look at the above
tutorials before continuing
to read this tutorial.
           One of the most useful types of PCB's in the world of electronics is the breakout board. Breakout boards offer prototypers easy access to all pins on an IC that normally has tiny leads in SOP/TSSOP/QFN/BGA type packages. If you're trying to prototype on a breadboard a breakout board will be your savior, especially if paired with standard 0.1" SIPs.
           Breakout boards usually only have 1 part on them surrounded by breadboard friendly SIP holes to which you can easily solder a connector or wires. The whole point of this board is to give designers or debuggers easy access to each individual pin on the part. For this tutorial I'm going to make a breakout board for an 802.3 ethernet port.



Ethernet Breakout Board - Action Video

Ethernet Breakout Board - Before Adding Parts

Ethernet Breakout Board - Complete

Purpose & Overview of this project
           The purpose of this project is to design a breakout board for an ethernet connector I have. The part doesn't exist in my schematic/layout tool so I'll have to create my own footprint. The final result should be able to fit easily into a breadboard because that's what I'm using to prototype some ethernet work.
           While the part I'm making a breakout board for isn't exactly small, breakout boards are more commonly seen with small packaged parts because their I/O pins are too small or too inconvienient to probe by hand, so you need to connect larger wires to it, thus we have the solution: the breakout board.



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