Smallest Arduino Board Possible

Hi all,

I've been looking at this quadcopter build Mini quadcopter - Blogs - diydrones which is rather impressive although the chaps blow says that it isn't capable of flying yet.

I'm blown away by the shear size of the little blighter, it does look hella cool i'm sure you'll agree.

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information on the blog about parts for the board he's using, or whether it's custom built etc.

Does anyone recognize the board? I'd love to build something of a similar form factor myself, even if the board is a custom build.

I've seen the arduino nano which still looks rather large compared to this tiny little fella and my current seeeduino is still a bit large for such a build. Are there any other suitable boards of a similar size or is it safe to guess that it's a custom built pcb?

Cheers for reading :slight_smile:

It is a custom board and you could make one yourself about that size but most I have seen are designed to fit into a breadboard or similar so are limited by that.

Take a look at: http://www.duinoaday.co.uk/hardware.html
The boards are not available listed by size but a quick search of 'tiny' came up with:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9218 as the smallest available to purchase.

For the worlds smallest, take a look at: http://www.duinothumb.com/showcases/the-world-smallest-arduino-avr-usb

This could howver be made smaller with the smaller SMD package and possibly with 0.05" headers (like on the xbee modules) instead of standard 0.1" :wink:

Mowcius

Here are my some of my attempts to make a tiny board.

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1239733868

I made one with the same formfactor as the duinothumb one that included a regulator and a few other things that it lacks, but I didn't like it as much as the others with the same or only slightly more board space.

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information on the blog about parts for the board he's using

There's everything (the link IS on the page you mentioned):
http://forum.mikrokopter.de/topic-13092.html

Thanks for everyone's responses to this. It seems the PCB is custom made which has allowed them to keep the form factor so small. After some google translation fun I finally managed to read the entire thread (it's pretty in depth) and gathered the info I was looking for.

I guess i'll have to look into getting a custom board etched but i'm not sure where to find such a place in the UK. Currently I don't have the funds to complete my tri-/quad-copter build but shall be referring to the forum thread in the future for more info when the time arises.

Wish it wasn't so hard to find cheap brushless motors and ESC's here in the UK :frowning:

Thanks for all the replies! :slight_smile:

Wish it wasn't so hard to find cheap brushless motors and ESC's here in the UK

It isn't...

Just buy from hobby king (online) and use international shipping...

Mowcius

According to the datasheet the smallest package for the controller has a side length of 4mm. So if you do not need the crystal and the internal oscillator is sufficient for your requirements, then the only question is: how many pins will you need and how to connect them. It appears that this should make it possible to create an Arduino board with a footprint of 10x10 mm. Of course this board would require the FTDI serial external and would require externally regulated power.

Udo