Believe it or not, the Arduino is one of the wonders of the modern world. It made electronics design and prototyping accessible to everyone by removing a lot of the initial entry barriers such as expert knowledge in C programming and hours of reading datasheets and application notes.

The power of the Arduino rellies in its communities that make good quality software libraries and join forces to make the platform easier and more powerful.

15 years ago, if you wanted to do a WiFi connected device that broadcasts information to another device, you will surely need a team of skilful and experienced engineers. As of today, by buying some modules and following tutorials online, you can achieve the same result.

But what happens when you have your proof of concept Arduino prototype working and want to make it smaller so it fits a sleek enclosure and takes away unnecessary components to make it cheaper?

You need to make your own custom Arduino board design PCB.

In this article, you will learn how to create a circuit that you can program with the Arduino IDE and works the same as the proof of concept prototype but in a custom-built PCB.

For this tutorial, 2 different MCUs will be reviewed. The ATMega328P from the Arduino UNO R3 and the ATTiny85/45/25, another popular MCU that can be used with the Arduino environment and is cheaper than the ATMega328P.

(more…)