FTDI interface board

Kuva Vasemmalla - Zoom

As extra work I decided to make me a FTDI interface board, so that I can use a dime a dozen USB cable, instead of having to use the special cable.

The final board has few extra features, it has a switch that allows me to choose between 5v and 3.3v power for the connected chip. It has both ISP pins and FTDI pins, meaning not only can it control the main assignment board, it can be used for bitbang programming as well.

When I originally tried to bitbang program my fabISPkey from the earlier assignment, it didnt work out. When I looked into making this board I realized why, the chip connections needed for bitbang are not connected to the single row of pins. But this board corrects that issue, also still enabling the possibility of using the board for control. While using only the things in the basic fab inventory.

for making the board I consulted the datasheet for the FT232RL chip, and found two useful things for my design.


consulting these led me to create the chematic for this board. The connections to the 2x3 header, I made based on a discussion about couple similar boards. FTDI breakout with additional ISP These led me to design this schematic.The link also has good explanation on how such a board should be used.

These files are now obsolete, latest version will be in the paperwork

FTDI schematic

FTDI traces

FTDI border

FTDI BOM

FTDI placement

The paperwork

  • Assesment
    • Have you, Shown your process using words/images/screenshots?
    • Have you, Explained problems and how you fixed them, including how you worked with design rules for milling (DRC in EagleCad and KiCad)?
    • Have you, Included original design files (Eagle, KiCad, Inkscape, .cad - whatever)?
  • Lecture Details March 01, 2015
  • Lecture Video March 01, 2015
  • Review Video March 08, 2015
  • The Files

Sub-pages

The links