From Arduino to a miniaturized circuit

Question

I have a project made with Arduino, and I want to replace it by a miniaturized circuit with just a microcontroller. Is there any tutorial that can guide me in doing this? Any reference is wellcome. Thank you!

• Chris Stratton: This can be a useful exercise, though unless you need to incorporate other components it may be worth considering a cheap premade miniature Arduino clone PCB rather than a DIY effort.
• aaa: I found that the Arduino Pro Mini might actually be smaller than a ATMega328P DIP (with external reset button, LED's, power circuit and cyrstal). Look how tiny it is :D i.ytimg.com/vi/SV32k9gCvik/maxresdefault.jpg

Answer 1

You can use an Arduino on a breadboard to get you going. From the breadboard, you can then develop a circuit on a pre-made PCB like this:

PCB

Then to a custom PCB, if you so desire.

• Alexander M: you can also your m328p-less uno as a serial programmer, if you don't use the hardware serial already

Answer 2

The main question is: Which features do you want to have on your board?

You can start off with the design files of the Arduino board you are using: update what you need (and don't need).

Then, for the manufacturing itself, several approaches will work:

• veroboard & through hole components. Not very practical, not small, but easy;
• DIY manufacturing: toner transfer method, or if you have a CNC, isolation milling;
• Boardhouse (e.g. PCB manufacturer) to whom you send your finished design to have it manufactured.

An alternative would be to use a smaller board, like an Arduino nano: it all depends on what your constraints/goals are.