What is it?

A solder prototyping board for 40pin Raspberry Pi B versions. The board protects against short circuits on the 3.3V and 5V supply.

Why did you make it?

I needed a hat for semi-permanent installations on the Pi. Using Dupont wires soon gets messy if you have more than 2 components to connect to the Pi. Also I needed more power on the 3.3V rail than the Raspberry can deliver - more than 100mA.

What makes it special?

Using components with 3.3V and current consumption above single mA range such as Lora modules, GPS modules, ESP32 on the Rasperry Pi is tricky, as the 3.3V supply can deliver only a few mA. This board solves the issue, by providing over 350mA protected by a self-resetting fuse. Additionally, there is a 5V rail equally protected by the same fuse on the left of the board. The high power 3.3V rail is derived from the 5V of the Raspberry via a 1117 linear regulator. More than 350mA cannot be drawn to protect the Raspberry. Therefore minor mistakes in your circuit design or hardware, such as short circuits on 3.3V or 5V will not lead to damage of your Pi, if you use the fused rails on the left of the hat. There are 2 LEDs (left blue) (right yellow) including resistors on the board. These LEDs draw less than 1mA and can be connected directly to the Pi GPIO pins.

The LEDs and resistors are soldered but not connected by default. You will need to solder one wire to the GPIO you choose and set the GPIO to HIGH level to turn the LEDs on. Included are 2 M2.5 5mm Nylon spacers and 2 M2.5 nuts as well as 20 pin 2.5mm contacts to solder by yourself. The 40 pin header is soldered for the complete board and not soldered for the kit.

The kit option comes with all parts the same as the assembled version, but nothing is soldered.

Free shipping to Ukraine as long as the war and stocks last