Breakout Garden Mini (I2C)

by Pimoroni

The easiest way to use breakouts with your Raspberry Pi. There's no soldering required, just pop up to three Pimoroni breakouts into the slots on Breakout Garden Mini and get started coding and creating.

Grow your projects on Breakout Garden. It's ideal for prototyping projects without the need for complicated wiring, soldering, or breadboards, and you've always got the option of changing your setup thanks to the way that Breakout Garden works.

The three sturdy slots on Breakout Garden Mini are edge connectors that connect the five pins on each breakout to the power and I2C (for data) pins on your Raspberry Pi. Because I2C is a bus, you can use multiple I2C devices at the same time, providing they don't have the same address (we've made sure that all of our breakouts have different addresses).

Browse breakouts and other Breakout Garden goodies

Features

  • Three sturdy edge-connector slots for I2C Pimoroni breakouts
  • 0.1” pitch, 5 pin connectors
  • Broken-out pins (1x10 strip of male header included)
  • Reverse polarity protection (built into breakouts)
  • pHAT format board
  • Compatible with all 40-pin header Raspberry Pi models

Using Breakout Garden

Because of the way that I2C (the protocol that Breakout Garden uses) works, it doesn't matter which slot on Breakout Garden Mini you plug your breakout into. Each I2C device has an address (you'll see it on the back of each breakout) that it uses to identify itself to other I2C devices, so it's effectively saying to your Raspberry Pi, "Hey, it's me, Bob!"

We've built reverse polarity protection into our breakouts, meaning that there's no magic blue smoke if you accidentally plug one in the wrong way round. However, the correct way to plug them in is to make sure that the labels on the pins on your breakout and the labels on each Breakout Garden Mini slot match up.

We've also broken out a load of useful pins along the top of Breakout Garden Mini, so you can connect other devices and integrate them into your Breakout Garden projects. If you have breakouts to which you've already soldered headers, then you can use this top row of pins to use them alongside other breakouts on Breakout Garden Mini.

Software

Head over to the Breakout Garden GitHub repo and give our automagic installer a go. Just pop a few breakouts into Breakout Garden Mini, run the installer, and SHAZAM!, the software for the appropriate breakouts will be installed. We've also got a few nice examples to show you what's possible.

17 customer reviews

a year ago
Works great, bought this after buying breakout boards. Pops straight onto the pi, tested on Zero and 4. Clearly labelled to avoid making any mistakes and allows for easy swap in swap out testing of breakout boards. Would definitely recommend this for a solderless solution
by Harry about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io
2 years ago
Very pleased with the breakout garden system overall, which is giving me an easy way to learn more about Python and environmental monitoring & logging data with an old Pi Zero. I managed to solder a fourth sensor onto the board also. It all works fine.
by Anonymous about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
The breakout garden has to be the easiest way to add modules to your Raspberry Pi. I am using for robotic prototyping and its prefect.
by Timothy about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Cute, no solder, way of attaching breakouts to the Pi - be aware that the connector is a little short - booster headers might be useful.
by David about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Grabbed one of these along with a handful of different breakouts - plugged them all in, turned on the pi, and ran all the install scripts. Great for prototyping and testing them! Just note that there's a tiny bit of an overlap, depending on which breakout you use.
by Salvatore about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
I used this in conjunction with a Pi Zero W and a MLX90640 thermal array sensor for a no-soldering, low-cost DIY thermal camera. Worked like a charm. The Breakout Garden Mini provided a solid mounting with the board and sensor, creating a device I could carry around without fear of disconnection. Programming was easy as well, with the sensor showing up on i2c with no setup required to account for the Breakout Garden.
by Justin about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Neat little piece of kit! Basically gives you plug and play with no jumpers to worry about. Definitely confirm if you have an I2C, or SPI requirement, as some of the boards only support I2C.
by Anonymous about Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) via REVIEWS.io

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