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Mark Ivey’s weblog

AVR ISP Header for Breadboards

Using an AVR in a breadboard can be a bit ugly because programmers like the AVRISP mkII and the USBtinyISP can’t easily be plugged into a breadboard.

You can simply stick wires in the programmer’s jack and plug them into a breadboard (like they do here) but if you want something a little cleaner you can solder up a simple header board like this:

You just need a small piece of perfboard, a 2×3 pin header block, a 6-pin header row, and a little bit of wire. I found it was easier to route the wires if I didn’t bother trying to get the output pins to be sequential. Solder it together and you can leave it in your breadboard, ready for whenever you need to reprogram your microcontroller.