Breakout Garden HAT (I2C, SPI)

Breakout Garden HAT (I2C + SPI)

Enjoy this new Breakout Garden HAT with SPI! If you want to easily add more breakouts to your Raspberry Pi, this is the solution! With Breakout Garden you can easily expand your projects. Since no soldering is required, you simply plug Pimoroni breakouts (4x I2C, 2x SPI) into the slots on the Breakout Garden HAT.

Remember that you can connect up to six Pimoroni breakouts (4x I2C, 2x SPI) to your Breakout Garden. You can also prototype your projects with the added benefit of being able to constantly change your setup, thanks to how Breakout Garden works. All this without worrying about soldering, wires, or breadboards!

Pimoroni breakouts connect to your Raspberry Pi pins via the six slots on the Breakout Garden HAT, which act as edge connectors.

This latest version of Breakout Garden includes two SPI slots for Pimoroni breakouts such as the 0.96” Breakout LCD. It also includes four additional I2C slots for Pimoroni I2C breakouts. Since I2C is a bus, multiple I2C devices can be used at the same time, as long as they do not share the same address. Don’t worry—Pimoroni breakouts all use different addresses.

On the top side of the Breakout Garden HAT (I2C + SPI) you will also find several useful broken-out pins. These allow you to connect and integrate additional devices into your Breakout Garden projects. For example, you can use Pimoroni breakouts with pre-soldered headers on this top pin row.

Breakout Garden HAT (I2C + SPI) features:

• Six robust edge-connector slots for Pimoroni breakouts
• 4x I2C slots (5-pin)
• 2x SPI slots (7-pin)
• 0.1” pitch, 5 or 7-pin connectors
• Broken-out pins (included 1×10 male header strip)
• Standoffs (included) to securely mount your Breakout Garden
• Reverse polarity protection (built into breakouts)
• HAT-format board
• Compatible with Raspberry Pi 4B, 3 B+, 3, 2, B+, A+, Zero, and Zero W

Tips for using Breakout Garden HAT (I2C + SPI)

Use the included standoffs to securely attach the Breakout Garden HAT (I2C + SPI) to your Raspberry Pi. Insert screws from underneath the Raspberry Pi through the mounting holes, then secure the standoffs onto the screws. Plug the Breakout Garden HAT into the GPIO pins, then tighten the standoffs through the mounting holes to secure everything in place.

Thanks to how I2C works (the protocol used by Breakout Garden), you can plug your Pimoroni breakout into any slot on the Breakout Garden. Each I2C device has its own address printed on the back of the breakout, allowing it to be uniquely identified by other I2C devices. There is no risk of conflicts.

SPI is a different protocol with higher bandwidth and speed, useful for devices such as displays. Breakout Garden HAT (I2C + SPI) includes two SPI slots with different chip select (CS) lines and GPIO pins. These must be configured in software depending on the slot used.

The slot closest to the Breakout Garden logo (top black slot) uses chip select 0 (BCM8), and GPIO BCM18 (e.g. for LCD backlight). The other slot (bottom/front) uses chip select 1 (BCM7) and GPIO BCM19.

All Pimoroni breakouts are reverse-polarity protected (built-in), meaning that if you accidentally insert a breakout the wrong way, nothing will be damaged. However, it is always best to install them correctly. Check that the labels on the breakout pins match those on the Breakout Garden HAT slots before connecting.

Software
Check the Breakout Garden HAT GitHub repository to start the automatic installer. Installing the software is very simple. Plug your breakouts into the slots and run the installer. The correct software for the installed breakouts will be set up automatically. This does not apply to SPI breakouts. The GitHub repository also includes several interesting examples to help you build amazing projects with Breakout Garden HAT.

Below you can find inspiration for projects. You could, for example:

• Display air quality, temperature, pressure, and humidity using the BME680 breakout, BH1745 Luminance and Colour breakout, and a 1.12″ OLED
• Use the VL53L1X Time of Flight (ToF) breakout and a 1.12″ OLED as a laser tape measure
• Create a presence detector using the BH1745 Luminance and Colour sensor, the LSM303D 6 Degrees of Freedom Motion sensor, and the MLX90640 Thermal Camera breakout

Pimoroni name: Breakout Garden for Raspberry Pi (I2C + SPI) [PIM445]