Rabbit RCM3200 Breakout Board

Breakout Board

This is a very simple project for a carrier board that will take the parallel ports from a Rabbit RCM3200 module and bring them out onto headers. To make the board a little more useful, I have allowed each port to be pulled either up or down by jumper selection, and I've taken most of the control signals out to a header as well.

Schematic

Very simple. Using Eagle from Cadsoft, I created the schematic which is so simple I don't think it need explaining. It's actually quite large, so click here to see it. To see it properly you should get yourself a free copy of Eagle and download the entire project zip file.

Board Layout

The next step is to layout the board. I did try to lay things out so there wasn't too much hard work for the autorouter to do.

Red tracks are on top, blue on the bottom. Pads and Vias are green, and the silk screen is white.

What I've actually shown here is my second go at it. Revised after having a board made up.

Components

There aren't many, just 8 x 8 pin headers, 8 x 3 pin headers, 2 x 34-way socket, 1 x 330R resistor, 1 x 5mm green LED and 8 x 4k7 8 way resistor network. You can pick most of these up from Maplin.

I've included a pack of jumpers.

The prices are taken from the 2003 Maplin catalogue and are for guidance only. I have found that the 34-way socket (which the Rabbit modules plugs into) is a little harder to come by. You can get them from 2001 Electronic Components Ltd.

I have found that the best connectors for linking to the headers are available from Farnell:

These prices were taken from the Farnell web site in December 2003, and are for guidance only.

Making A Board

You can either make the board yourself, or pay someone to do it. I went for the second option and got PCB Pool to make me a board. This is what I got:

You can see here some of the problems I had, mainly with the silk screen. This is why for issue 1.2 of the board I've put down text as copper to avoid having to use silk screen - also it's cheaper!

This next picture shows a made up board with the Rabbit module fitted.

Download Project

You can download the complete Eagle project in one zip file (40.3KBytes).

Please note that this zip file contains the files for Issue 1.2 of the board, and I haven't had any of these made up, so it is up to you to check it - because I haven't.