Swirly Aluminum Mounting Grid – 5×5

Swirly Aluminum Mounting Grid for sensors and breakouts – 5×5 blocks

Nowadays, most development boards, sensors and breakouts feature Qwiic or Stemma QT plug-and-play connectors, which allow you to set up projects very quickly by connecting multiple boards together. This handy Swirly grid allows you to easily mount various small microcontrollers and sensor boards.

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

Aluminium is both electrically and thermally conductive, so take care if you use metal screws to secure items.

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 work with, bend, cut and drill, should you require further customisation.

Technical details:

• Plate thickness: 1.5748 mm (0.062″)
• Plate dimensions (5×5 blocks): 76.2 × 76.2 mm (3″ x 3″)
• Weight of 5×5 block board: 13.6 g (0.5 oz)

Each pack comes with a universal 5×5 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 – 5×5 (ADA5779)