Damn. That’s packed in there pretty good.

Surprised to see that the crystal doesnt need any caps – might just be a feature of atmel chips tho (I am more of a PIC man myself).

Also was going to point out the 32768hz typo, but everyone else has it covered

Good job with the breadboard, I always like it when jumper wires are sized correctly and used so that they are straight and not looped or tangled. It makes the whole thing so much more tidy. In one of my circuits classes at the Uni we were actually graded on neatness of our breadboards and our prof was really picky about stuff like that.

@steaky – while the datasheet likely suggests crystals are required to be capacitively coupled to ground, in my experience it’s not needed for the oscillator to function. Note that I say “function”, not “function well”. In theory, those capacitors ensure that the oscillator begins, keeps oscillating, and oscillates stably. Since this is a clock, stable clock is important, so there probably should be capacitors. HOWEVER, this is breadboarded, and those parallel rails have their own capacitance and even inductance approaching higher frequencies. Always remember this about breadboards!

This is very pretty but don’t trimmed leads on a breadboard kind of defeat the purpose? I know when I build on a breadboard it’s because it’s meant to be temporary. After using a breadboard I either move the components to a PC or perf board where I may need different lead lengths or they go back to the bins for re-use.

I use my breadboard jumpers only on breadboards so those are always for re-use. I do hate curving them around though. I’ve thought of cutting some of the ones in my collection just to have a greater variety of lengths but I can’t imagine actually cutting them to fit specific projects. I would think that would reduce one’s stock of jumpers to a random collection of small wire bits.

I’m not trying to be critical, I’m actually interested in hearing other’s opinions on this.

It took me a minute to figure out how he had those switches on there. I think any one can look at that for a minute and find something to admire.

I am also (usually) totally OCD about my breadboards being neat. Unless im low on jumpers.

Im actually trying new jumpers from ebay. 500 jumpers 5 breadboards for 20$. Kinda unsure how I will like the giant loopy wire method. Ive always been really partial to the little bent wires.

@KC8RWR
Every jumper wire kit I know of has a variety of different sized wires (color-coded). So you simply have to spend a little bit of time using the right size of jumper wire to get from point A to point B, no cutting necessary in most cases.

@Eric
The technical name for those is simply “reinforced jumper wires” and most electronics hobby shops will have them. They are usually much more expensive but pretty handy for prototyping. I have never had a problem with a bad jumper wire like the other poster did.

I love seeing mini-breadboard projects.

if you enjoy complete projects on a mini breadboard, take a look on one of my creation. One 8×8 matrix clock on top of a tiny2313 (3 or 4 components only), just trying to show the possibilities.

http://www.simpleavr.com/_/rsrc/1283282408157/AVR/avr_mclock.jpg

I have not finish the project documentation yet, but intended to do so.

@KC8RWR:

When I’m breadboarding something, it’s all about hook it up fast, with some attention to grouping components reasonably, keeping noisy signals away from one another and zero attention paid to making the wires look pretty. That’s for if I go on to make a circuit board.

In fact I try to keep them all loopy 3-dimensionally far away from each other to reduce capacitive coupling.

What I like to use for breadboarding wire is a scrap of garbaged multi-line phone telephone cable. I strip it out and have a variety of different coloured solid copper wires which I can then cut to any length. I collect a few which I’ve pre-bent to .1″ apart, .2, .3, .4 and after that I pretty much go into airborne loops.

Pretty tight proto-board.

(no, I’m not the author :P )

Win, or fail?

It works, but normally you don’t want to get any more compact on a breadboard than you’re forced to. Space optimization is for PCBs. On a breadboard, the priority is being able to make changes with a minimum of fuss. The scope of this circuit isn’t large enough to have this bloom into a major problem, but this is not a good practice to get in to.