What makes BrainBoardz unique?

We have been using all sorts of development boards for a very long time, and one of the most persistent issues we encountered is that we were spending loads of time sorting out microcontroller mounting issues. We wanted something to prototype or deploy that would not have fragile pins. A modular approach was determined to be the best solution. Most manufacturers support pin headers for their development boards, but headers require soldering and they tend to be very fragile. Headers can also make moving microcontroller boards between projects a perilous activity! Furthermore, smaller microcontroller boards have to sacrifice pin counts to reduce space requirements.  Neuron modules, in contrast, are extremely compact while still providing access to every available ESP32S3 microcontroller pin.

If you do need a “traditional header based board” for your project we also provide the Neuron-P. The Neuron-M and Neuron-P boards share a virtually identical feature set. Code developed for the Neuron-M will work perfectly on a Neuron-P, and vice-versa.

We explored a variety of approaches in our quest to find the best method of attaching our modules to circuit boards. Our solution, based on an industry standard SMD Mini PCIe connector, was determined to be ideally suited to the task. Mini PCIe connectors are inexpensive, support SMT, are low profile and are very connector dense.  They are ideal for connecting Neurons to BrainBoardz and for including Neuron modules in your custom circuit board projects. Adding this capability to your board projects requires minimal soldering skills and it provides a much more compact and low profile footprint. If you board reaches a mass production stage the ability add ESP32S3 modules using SMD greatly reduces production time and eliminates hand assembly.

We liked the modular approach so much that we built an entire ecosystem around it (cutting-edge ESP-S3 based Neuron modules and a wide range of BrainBoardz boards). We have also developed a range of robust 3D printed components to make board mounting extremely easy and inexpensive.

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