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 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 !
The Fusion360 CAD model and the 3MF + STEP print files are on Github
Happy and neat breadboarding to all !
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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):
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