Bare Bones Board Kit

The Bare Bones Board (BBB) is an Arduino-compatible board (Freeduino) that implements the functionality of the Arduino Duemilanove/Diecimila, on a smaller printed circuit board, by removing the USB communications chip to another board.

The Bare Bones Board is completely compatible with the Arduino project software and IDE. Currently the Bare Bones Board is listed on the Arduino site as “Recommended Third-Party Hardware”. It has also gained a devoted following among Arduino users, as a convenient, effective, and low-cost hardware solution.

The BBB is programmed with the USB-BUB Board or equivalent FTDI cable or adapter board. This saves the cost of repeatedly paying for the communications chip, in future projects. It also allows the BBB to be 1/3 smaller in both dimensions than the Arduino® Duemilanove board.

Bare Bones Board (BBB) features

Despite the Bare-Bones name, the BBB is a full featured Arduino-compatible that includes the vast majority of the functionality of the Arduino Duemilanove.

Standard with the latest 328 chip for more memory and faster uploads.
Programmed by a USB-BUB Board or FTDI cable.
Designed with all through-hole parts for easy assembly by beginners.
The BBB can be built in many configurations for custom projects.
Designed with male header pins on bottom to insert directly into solderless breadboards, saving a lots of wiring and fuss.
Analog inputs have adjacent +5V and Ground buses to make interfacing sensors easy by using a three pin female header or servo cable.
Flexible power options (USB/External) and an onboard voltage regulator that can be used with either TO92 or TO220 (7805 or LM2940 ) voltage regulators.
Convenient pins to power, (or draw power from) breadboard power buses, a shunt allows easy switching between options.
Optimizes breadboard space by hanging over the edge of the breadboard. This allows an LED and resistor to be conveniently wired to one BBB pin for example (see photo).
Includes an inductor for high frequency noise filtering on the analog system reference input.

Arduino is programmed in the “C” programming language, with an integrated development environment (IDE) engineered for beginning programmers. The language includes support for desirable microcontroller features such as 32 bit and floating point math and many standard C libraries. Projects that outgrow the Bare-Bones Board’s capabilities can easily be ported to the Wiring Board, which is based on the Atmega128 chip.

Atmega328 features, upon which the BBB is based