Most Adafruit dev boards, sensors and Feathers are now sporting plug-and-play Stemma QT ports. It can be very fast to put together projects with half a dozen boards snapped together. But that ease of use has one downside: now you don't have a breadboard as a mechanical substrate... which is why we created this nifty swirly grid design to allow for easy mounting of various small microcontroller and sensor boards.

The grid is made out of aluminum. It is made like a PCB, but contains only the aluminum backing with black soldermask and silkscreen on the front. We highly suggest using nylon screws as aluminum is conductive, both electrically and thermally. That said, if you want to turn the whole grid into a ground plane, metal screws will get you there.

The swirly grids are an aluminum-only PCB, made up of the aluminum backing with black soldermask on the front along with a silkscreen.

The 10x5 grid is 3" x 6" altogether.

Swirly grid features:

• White lines to separate each square in the grid
• The coordinates of each square within the grid, printed in the center of each square
• Each square is 0.6" x 0.6"
• Holes or slots every 0.2"
• Boards with mounting hole spacing that is a multiple of 0.1" will mount to the grid
• Compatible with Feathers, FeatherWings, and most STEMMA QT breakout boards
• Drill holes are 0.1" (2.54mm) diameter
• Slots are 0.11" x 0.3" (2.79mm x 7.62mm)
• If desired, easy to customise by cutting, drilling, machining, bending the aluminum

As you continue working with your Swirly Grid, you may find new and interesting ways to mount things to or use the grid. This page is tips and tricks to expand your Swirly Grid experience!

The more time folks get with Swirly Grids, the more tips and tricks you'll find on this page. Keep an eye on it!

Files:

• KiCAD PCB files zip from GitHub

10x5 Swirly Grid Fab Print