DIY QFN Breakout board

Starlino has a neat technique for making a cheap breakout board for lead-less QFN chips. In brief:

  • Drill a hole in a proto board so that the chip barely fits inside and has its connections on the same plane as the board. Fill gaps with epoxy or putty.
  • Tape over everything except one pad and and small path to the proto board.
  • Use a conductive ink pen to lay a path. Remove tape before the ink dries to keep from breaking the pathway when it hardens. Wait for it to dry and repeat on the other pads.


The best part is that no hot air or breakout board is required.

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CuriousInventor launched in late 2006 (pre-arduino era!) as a place to enable hobbyists, students, and musicians to create their own technology. We sold open-source kits and tools, and offered numerous guides & videos on things like soldering, metal working, screws, electronics, and more. 

The store is now mostly empty, but we’ve kept the product pages and guides up since they have useful information. Many of our guides and videos still rank on the first page of google searches and have been seen millions of times. Content on this site and the CuriousInventor YouTube channel produced by Scott Driscoll.

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