On-the-go Prototyping

[Riley Porter] has been working on several different custom enclosure designs. Above, you can see his Proto Desk which holds a breadboard, Arduino, and has two recessed boxes with sliding tops for components and patch wires. He’s got a miniature version that gets rid of the breadboard, as well as slick-looking cases for the Bus Pirate, tinyISP, and face plates for word clocks.

Well, if you’ve got a laser cutter you should be using it right? We’ve seen [Riley’s] wares in the past; he wrote the guide for laser cutting solder stencils.

[Thanks Brian]

10 thoughts on “On-the-go Prototyping

  1. The miniature version doesn’t get rid of the breadboard, he just didn’t include it.

    “The “proto desk” is missing the 1.8″x1.4″ breadboard at the moment. (I could not find mine :)”

  2. the best prototyping method for arduino i have found is just using a rubber band: band your arduino right to your breadboard – the rubber band fits nicely in that weird gap between the female header pins and wraps around the breadboard. you can position it so that it doesn’t use too much breadboard space and it is sturdy enough to use the usb and other connections w/o worry.

    and if you want to use it on one of them fancy big breadboards bend up some ‘staples’ from some leftover component leads and use the mounting holes on the arduino to secure it to the breadboard.

    both of these work great, are free, and you have the materials you need to do it already. no laser cutter required.

    oh, and if you need component storage just jam the whole thing into a manila envelope.

  3. The layered acrylic cases look nice, and should be durable. But I feel I’m missing a crucial step in the equation. The USBtinyISP kit costs $22. It uses bitbang USB, so compatibility isn’t guaranteed. (Presumably this is a reasonable tradeoff for an economy programmer.) His acrylic Bus Pirate case costs $12.99 for the clear version; the TinyISP enclosure will likely fall in the same ballpark. You pay shipping twice, unless he gets a distribution deal with Adafruit.

    The Atmel AVRISP mkII, fully assembled, with hardware USB 2.0 support and a plastic case (natch), costs $35.36 plus shipping from Digi-Key.

    Who will buy this?

  4. What is it with al this breadboard prototyping or even worse, including a breadboard into a ‘finished’ product. These things are crafted by satan himself. Proper prototyping is done on a piece of blank PCB with a soldering iron. This also takes away the limit of using only DIL packages. It’s much neater and way more reliable. Plus it stays the way it is when you accidentally bump it.

  5. @martini thanks for the satan remark pretty cool.

    I honestly built this big version as a way for me to sit on the couch and have a “desk” to prototype on.

    This was an early design and its useful. However I have learned a few things that would make it better.

    The mini version is a cool way to tote around an arduino. However its far from done and I didn’t expect to see this on hackaday.

    @Mrgoogfan nope its a purple one.

    @pwrx yah I do get a bit crazy. Perhaps we call it branding?

  6. @martini I have never understood the breadboards either. I’ve tried them a couple of times but they just aren’t continent enough over blank PCB’s to be worthwhile.

    I always check the resistance between the long tracks now though as I once had a tiny whisper of copper between them. It took forever to diagnose with a loupe.

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