Swirly Aluminum Mounting Grid – 10×10

Swirly, universal aluminium mounting grid for sensors and breakouts – 10×10 blocks

Most development boards, sensors and breakouts nowadays feature Qwiic or Stemma QT plug-and-play connectors, which allow you to create projects quickly by assembling multiple boards together. This Swirly grid enables you to easily mount various microcontrollers and sensors.

The grid consists of an ‘aluminium PCB’ – although technically manufactured using a PCB process – but with a single-sided aluminium core, so there is no copper; the backing is painted aluminium (black solder mask with silkscreen printing).

Remember that aluminium is both electrically and thermally conductive, so take care if you use metal screws to secure components.

Each square measures 15.24 mm × 15.24 mm (0.6 × 0.6 inches) and there are holes or slots every 5.08 mm (0.2 inches). With the various dots and dashes, you can fit practically anything onto the grid. Each hole has a diameter of 2.54 mm (0.1 inches), whilst the slots measure 2.75 x 7.5 mm (0.11 x 0.3 inches).

What’s more, the aluminium is easy to bend, cut, drill and work with, should you require further customisation.

Technical details:

• Plate thickness: 1.5748 mm (0.062″)
• Plate dimensions (10×10 blocks): 152.4 × 152.4 mm (6″ x 6″)
• Weight of 10×10 block board: 54.6 g (1.9 oz)

Each pack comes with a universal 10×10 support grid. Cables, sensors and microcontrollers are sold separately.

Using the script at the following link, you can access a generator that creates a custom KiCad grid tailored to your requirements.

Adafruit name: Adafruit Swirly Aluminum Mounting Grid for 0.1″ Spaced PCBs – 10×10 (ADA5781)