Description: From Pinguino Website: "Pinguino is an Arduino-like electronics prototyping platform. It supports different 8- and 32-bit ©Microchip microcontrollers, all with built-in USB module (no FTDI chip !). Pinguino comes with a USB Bootloader. This small program running inside the microcontroller is responsible for transferring your application from your PC to the microcontroller memory and handing over the control to this program afterwards. No programmer is needed(*), the microcontroller can be reprogrammed over USB with a PC."

Yes, you have read it right, its a PIC based development platform. Pinguino is an open source platform for variety of microcontrollers. You can develop standalone applications or applications which require USB communication through your computer. Just attach a USB cable to Pinguino board and start IDE, thats it, you can start your project. Instead of using big USB connector this board features the smaller version of connector, USB mini-b, this does not have any performance advantage but it looks more compact. This board is designed with both SMD and through hole components. Near USB connector a jumper pin is provided to select power source from USB or from DC jack, when this board is shipped USB is selected as default power source. This board comes perprogrammed with firmware version 4.9

Pinguino IDE can be downloaded from the Pinguino Website.

Features:
    - PIC18F4550 Mircocontroller running at 20Mhz external oscillator
    - Firmware version 4.9
    - Can be powered from usb as well as DC source
    - 5v to 12v
    - 5v and 3.3v regulators on board

Shippable items include:
    - Pinguino PIC18F4550 populated board
    - USB Cable

If you have any difficulty in installing pinguino drives then please see our tutorial section for the exact method.

Documents:

• PIC18F4550 Datasheet
• Pinguino 18F4550 Schematic
• Bootloader Firmware v4.9

Other Links:

• Pinguino Website
• Tutorials