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Freeduino RBBB and the SD Card Reader

 

Freeduino RBBB and the SD Card Reader

Filed in Microcontrollers on Jan.17, 2019

The next board to be tested with the SD Card Readers is the Modern Devices RBBB (Really Bare Bones Board).

This appears to be similar to the Arduino Duemilanove that we tested in a previous post, in that it uses the ATmega168 chip.  However, the RBBB does not have a built-in USB interface, nor a LED installed on pin 13. It is a small form factor, like the Arduino Nano, with pins spaced to be placed on a breadboard.

I didn’t have much hope for using this board with the SD Card Readers, as the Duemilanove failed due to memory constraints.

I started off with an inventory of the parts.  Everything that was promised was accounted for.

 
RBBB Parts

I populated the board as detailed in their instructions…

 

 
Populated RBBB

Then cleaned off the solder flux with alcohol.

 

 
Clean RBBB

Next, pushed the board down onto my breadboard and hooked up an FTDI USB to rs-232 converter.  It simply plugged straight on to the end connector. I added an led to pin 13 with a 1k resistor to ground to test with the Blink program.

The Arduino IDE was set up as a Duemilanove, with an ATmega168 processor.  I selected the com port that was created when I plugged the FTDI converter into the USB port of my laptop.

 
RBBB IDE Setup

And the Blink program compiles and works…

 

 
RBBB Blink Works

As I expected, I couldn’t even compile the CardInfo program, due to memory constraints on the ATmega168 processor. So this board is not suitable for using an SD Card Reader module.

 
CardInfo Fails

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