# Microcontroller breakouts **URL:** \ **Category:** New Product Ideas\ **Created:** [May 22, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://community.sparkfun.com/t/microcontroller-breakouts/26773 "2013-05-22T13:14:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chevelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@Chevelle](https://community.sparkfun.com/u/Chevelle)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://community.sparkfun.com/t/microcontroller-breakouts/26773/1 "2013-05-22T13:14:21Z")
Hi. My recent projects have lead me to a question. I am finding more and more projects that I want to do involve microcontrollers that interface to a laptop or PC, not just for programming. In one case, I designed a USB module that uses a standard USB-A to USB-Bmini cable at one end and connects to two accelerometers on the I2C bus at the other. It has a FT231 UART and a PICAXE 08M2. The PICAXE just reads the data from the accelerometers and sends it through the UART to the PC. In my next project, I want the same sort of connection between the module from the computer side but something different on the microcontroller side. (That project is for a reflow oven. The UART/PICAXE just passes temperature info from the oven to the PC and accepts on/off instructions from the PC to turn the triac on or off. That way I can have sophisticated PID temperature management and heating curves for various solder pastes.) So that brings up my thought for a type of breakout. There are plenty of applications where a constant or at lease occasional connection to a laptop or PC is desirable. That can of course be done with the programming cable for the particular controller. But how about a series of breakouts that have the UART on board and the connections to microcontroller? This way a standard USB cable and be used for both programming and normal use. For example, I use PICAXE controllers. One breakout board could have an FT231 on-board and space to populate the 08M2, 14M2, etc. If, say the 08M2 was sufficient for my needs, I could break off the remaining real estate for the other chips. The same could be done for other popular microcontrollers. Just a thought.