Board with general functions for projects?

[VinMo88]

I would like to have some input on what boards exist for uC projects where you want some on-board hw, such as digital/analog I/O, memory, communication etc.

I have looked at Arduino and Parallax but often lack some hw. Any other recommendations? Anyone having experience of "melacs" (www.melacs.se)?

 

[3v0]

Everything you asked for is on-chip with most modern micro controllers.

 

[VinMo88]

Right, I fully agree.

But my point was to have a general pcb so I don't have to design and build a new board for every new project idea.

 

[3v0]

I do not like development boards so I am not a good person to be answering this question.

I go right to making a PCB layout. I have been making my own but places like batchPCB and dorkbotPCB are inexpensive enough that I do not see much point in doing so.

Now I do see merit in using a trainer board while learning esp with 7 seg displays.

 

[Mr RB]

I never saw much value in dev boards either, and used to use a solderless breadboard and just program the PIC, or solder up a board for simple tasks.

These days I love my dev boards and have a few, and even use them as pieces of test equipment ie when making a project on dev board1 I might program dev board2 as a test device with LCD, or as it's serial comms partner etc. With a good dev board you don't have to do any hardware at all to get the project close to finished so you plug in the board to the USB and start coding.

My favorites are MikroE dev boards;

**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**

I can get a project with LCD or 7seg diaplay etc going within a few minutes, and another good thing is there is a pushbutton and LED on every PIC pin so I can see what the pins are doing or simulate the final hardware buttons or switches/adc etc.

There are some smaller cheaper dev boards available, but if you value your time it's worth spending a little more and getting a top class dev board right at the start. I've never hear anybody regret it.