Comments on: New Breadboard Adaptor PCBs

By: Using Adaptors and IPhone for Audio Breadboard Work | uC Hobby

Using Adaptors and IPhone for Audio Breadboard Work | uC Hobby — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:44:51 +0000

[...] I wait for the second round of PCBs for the breadboard adaptors, I started working on the next adaptor design. The first pass adaptors came in very handy while [...]

By: Cail

Cail — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:55:30 +0000

Fun stuff. I second the right angle pins in order for the boards to stand upright (where it makes sense to do so, of course). Also, to @Mikael’s comment, if you could add in one through-hole in each corner opposite the side with the breadboard pins, you would have the option of soldering in single pins in order to provide some support to the other side of the board. The pins obviously don’t trace to anything on the PCB…they just act as standoffs.

What about creating the breadboard pin traces such that a GND and/or VCC pins are staggered a bit back from the normal pins, so they can be directly connected to the common rails while the normal pins connect to the common center prototyping area? That saves some jumpers connecting the rails to the pins.

I’d like to see a moduletronics that has 4 or 5 small PCB pushbuttons, arranged in D-pad layout, for simple input. Rather than just lining up five pushbuttons in a line (like many boards do), a D-pad layout gives some extra directional meaning (up/down, left/right, and a select in the middle).

Also, it seems you can never have enough UART/TTL to RS232 adapters laying around. I’d love one that combined all of the comments above (stood upright and connected into common rails, but done ’sideways’). You can see a cheesy sketch of what I mean at http://www.wiretrip.net/hardhack/imgs/serial_module.jpg

By: Miroslav

Miroslav — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:33:14 +0000

Great job. Headphone Jack Adaptor is my favorite, so small and so handy . I would really appreciate breadboard adapters for potentiometers and rotaty encoders. They would be very useful because potentiometers and rotaty encoders usualy don’t fit to breadboard.

By: Randall Bohn

Randall Bohn — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:41:27 +0000

These look great. I think I would put right angle pins on some of the modules so they could stand up vertically on the prototype board. I’m planning to get the current sink fabbed later this month. It might keep me from frying more on-board LEDs.

By: Joseph Yumul

Joseph Yumul — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:10:32 +0000

You can also make some tiny breadboard adapter for passive components such as resistors and diodes making them more reusable on breadboard prototypes cause you avoid damaging their pins

By: Mikael

Mikael — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:35:35 +0000

These look like really nice “utility” boards.

A good idea is to add some of those self adhesive rubber feet to the end of the pcb’s that is “floating in air” so any heavy cables connected to them will not tilt the entire breadboard. But maybee there’s no room for them ?

By: Berni

Berni — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:09:17 +0000

I already have a few SMD adapters ready on some trasparacys so when i need one i can etch it quickly

Oh and if we are talking about MIDI, I once tryed out with a simple wavetable synth with a dsPIC. It could play multiple tones at the same time, generate almost any signal (prerecoded samples),generate white noise and it could also do effects like reverb. Also it has a 0 external component count. Internal oscilator and internal stereo 16bit DAC

By: dfowler

dfowler — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:21:41 +0000

@Berni: Planed on doing SMT adapters as well as a few types of interfaces.

For my MIDI project, I want to generate some music based on ambient measurements. Like a Therimin but controlled by some ambient parameter. Hard to explain in a short comment.

@Shawn: We have a power supply adapter which is sold at Curious Inventor. http://www.curiousinventor.com/store/product/120

Working on a new +/- adjustable that should be available soon as well.

Will have a 1 Watt audio amp, an audio input/mixer board that supports line or mic inputs and a few othrs planed as well. I want to design up a bunch of these adapter modules.

@Mike: Moduletroincs is what I’m aiming for. Rather then have a big board with lots of interfaces and a small protytping area, the idea is reversed, you use a big solder-less breadboard and plug in the interfaces and gizmos you want to play with.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:21:26 +0000

When I’ve been dreaming of making “handy” PCBs, doing a SMT-to-breadboard for several package type has been top of the list. Places like Digikey sell, for example, PLCC to breadboard adapters, but the last time I looked, they were horrendously expensive and clearly targeted at businesses with very deep prototype pockets.

Also, building small breakout type boards like you did would be handy to apply to things like small power supplies, RS232 adapters, etc. Kinda like Legos but for breadboarding. Moduletronics :^)

By: Evil Paul

Evil Paul — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:52:39 +0000

Wow, I can see myself using every one of these adaptor designs, nice work. In fact, next time I sit in front of a breadboard I will feel a bit miffed that I have to use regular old solid core wire and clip leads to hook stuff up

The MIDI I/O is definitely the most interesting, I’m looking forward to the upcoming article.