Using solderless breadboards always felt like a messy experience to me.
First, the mounting plates some come with include 4mm banana-plug sockets whose bare posts in the back tilt the board and create short-circuits with all the 'creative bits & bobs' invariably littered across my bench.
Then, since at least a power supply and a voltage meter are always needed, it soon becomes a rat's nest of cables and devices hogging all the space on the bench 😢
There has to be a better way !
Actually, there is. For instance, these powered breadboards. But they either don't include meters or cost as much as a child's education...
So I designed and 3D printed holders that raise the breadboard off the desk, and that the plate simply snaps in:
The holders joint together via dovetails and snapping bumps:
And an instrumentation panel was designed to host my most used devices during development: medium & low voltage power supplies and a Volt+Amp meter. It even sports a 2.54mm grid to hold standard pitch doodads. Compatible with both 4mm and 2mm banana plugs.
Now my bench can finally be busy again with more critical stuff: food, drinks and to-be-repaired stuff that I'll never get to !
This said, with hindsight, there are a couple of things I'd do differently if starting over, as described at the end of the post.
The Fusion360 CAD model and the 3MF + STEP print files are on Github
Happy and neat breadboarding to all !
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Update Added 2 more holders to support regular breadboards (without a mounting backplate). Most come with an adhesive layer in the back. Just peel it and stick the board to the holder:
Parts
3D printed with PLA filament:
- 0.4mm nozzle, 0.2 layer height, 0.45 width
- 3 walls, 0.8mm top & bottom thickness, 1 wall on bottom surface
- 35% adaptive cubic infill
- in the slicer the Instrumentation Panel has been Split-to-Objects so that a different filament color can be assigned to the text. Can just be merged back with the panel if not wanted
- Note: I just manually changed filament color for the first 2 layers (text is 0.4mm deep)
Printing plates:
Serigraphy:
Medium voltage 5A buck converter with configurable Imax ($18):
Low voltage 3A step down buck converter ($10), can accept as low as 4V in (key for some battery applications):
Solderless dual-breadboard plate ($24):
Solderless triple-breadboard plate ($20):
Update What if we started over ?
Having used the system for a couple of months now, it is so helpful that I have designed more holders (for surface breadboards above).
One of the big benefits is that it makes developing several projects in parallel easier and less messy. Since I move projects between locations a lot, having boards and instruments locked together makes things way easier, especially with regards to not disturbing cables.
But the current dovetail / groove design limits flexibility a bit for add-ons smaller than full-size breadboards:
Instead of 3 dovetails per solderless breadboard length, 4 would allow supporting 2 smaller holders per side.
Also, as suggested by Dan Maloney at Hackaday, dimensional compatibility with Gridfinity's 42mm spacing could be interesting, allowing to mix holding systems and suit more needs.
Right now the distance between dovetails is ~60mm. Standardizing instead on 42mm, and sizing each holder's external dimensions to a multiple of 42mm, would provide better support for both small holders and Gridfinity setups.
However, I likely won't have the bandwidth anytime soon to update all the models accordingly and design Gridfinity bottoms. Would love to see somebody undertake that !
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