What is it?

This is version 2.0 of a deluxe iot baseplate 12 volt in, 4x12v output connectors, 2 (to 4) 5v usb outputs, i2c/grove/onboard 2.54mm connectors to friendlyarm/raspberry pi/esp8266/grove devices.

Why did you make it?

Seeing lotsa power plugs drawing an unknown amount of power made me design a basic 1 to 4 outputs dc distribution board (see other Tindie description), to save on power supplies, have a central distribution connected to 1 larger, more stable power supply. The next version added measurements with ina219 chips (1 12V in, 4 12v out, 2 usb 5v out). The pcb can be customer extended with a power supply IC (LM2596S-5), or ready made Pololu 5V, 5A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V50F5 (by default 5v onboard is NOT provided)

What makes it special?

This board lessens the burden of lots of power plugs, provides centralized insight on voltages and currents output to an i2c grove bus and facilitates a very small iot footprint (where an intelligent device can process the i2c measurements).

The headers easily can host a raspberry pi zero W, friendlyarm nano pi (air/R2S) or ESP8266, or even externally source 5v to an grove connected i2c measuring device (e.g. m5stack).

Extra information:

12 volt plugs are of type 5.5x2.1mm (1 in, 4 out), input is at i2c #40, 12v outputs on #41..44

USB is of type USB-A single, or optional 2 ports per fuse (4 in total), outputs are at #45, 46 on board connectors/grove i2c power can be measured at #47

For 5 volts output default only space is reserved for either the LM2596S-5 or the preferred optional step down converter D24V50F5 from pololu. None is needed if the device is queried externally with grove.