Freeduino Pico

We've made some significant changes to the Freeduino Mini so much so that it needed a new name: the Freeduino Pico! As far as I know, it's the smallest Free(Ar)duino variant with built in USB. Its about 1/4" smaller than the previous version of the mini and yet we've added a barrier diode 'voltage selection' and reverse protect circuit, added a 10uF tantalum capacitor for better filtering, added a 10kOhm resistor on reset, brought ARef out to its own pin, and reduced it to a standard 24pin package.

To do all this we had to move from a through-hole crystal to a .05% tolerance surface mount resonator, move from 0603 parts to 0402, the weak 3.3v feed from the FTDI232 had to be cut, and the two 'extra' ADCs we moved off to the end of the board. (Yes that means this is 5v logic level from USB although I suppose if there was enough demand a 3v version could be made...)

The above pic is of the most recent working hand soldered (yes I hand soldered those 0402 parts :P) prototype with an admittedly bad quality silkscreen run. We are looking to fix this and get this manufactured in due time.

All the best,
Brian

Nice job, I can't even make out the 0402 parts in the picture as more than solder blobs, and you were able to hand solder them.

I do cringe at the way "pico" has become the new "micro".