Breakout Garden Introduction
Breakout Garden – Effortless I²C Expansion
Breakout Garden by Pimoroni makes it incredibly simple to add sensors, displays, and drivers to your Raspberry Pi. No soldering, no breadboards — just plug a breakout board into a slot and start experimenting.
What is Breakout Garden?
Breakout Garden is a plug-and-play hardware ecosystem built around the I²C bus. Instead of wiring up pins manually, you just insert a breakout board into a slot with a standard pinout.
- Designed for Raspberry Pi (HATs and pHATs available)
- Uses I²C and SPI slots (today we’ll focus on I²C)
- Slots are keyed, so you can’t plug things in the wrong way
- Compatible with dozens of Pimoroni breakout boards
Breakout Garden I²C Pinout
Each I²C slot on Breakout Garden uses a 5-pin connector arranged as:
- Pin 1 – 3V3 Power
- Pin 2 – SDA (I²C Data)
- Pin 3 – SCL (I²C Clock)
- Pin 4 – INT (Interrupt / Optional)
- Pin 5 – GND (Ground)
⚡ Tip: Most I²C breakouts only use the four pins (3V3, SDA, SCL, GND). The INT pin is for boards that need interrupt signalling (e.g., IMU sensors). The keyed socket ensures you can’t insert a board backwards — it’s foolproof I²C expansion.
Why Breakout Garden?
- 🌱 No soldering – boards just slot in
- 🌱 Foolproof design – keyed connectors prevent mistakes
- 🌱 Hot-swappable – swap sensors without rebooting
- 🌱 Huge ecosystem – dozens of Pimoroni breakouts ready to go
Breakout Garden connector details
The Breakout Garden socket is a 5-pin female connector designed for plug-and-play breakouts.
The sockets are 0.1″ pitch, 5 pin connectors for their Breakout Garden slots.
Socket
Edge Connector
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Other I2C Connector Standard.
You may also be interested in other i2c connector standard available on the market. Click here.
