DIY Breadboard Modules For Easy Prototyping

September 27, 2011 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Rajendra] got tired of building the same basic circuits time and again on the breadboard. He decided to build some simple, modular circuits on protoboard and make them easy to interface with the breadboard. As you can see, he ended up with seven modules that make prototyping faster and easier.

At first glance some might not seem all that beneficial. For instance, making a board for an 18-pin PIC microcontroller into a single-in-line form factor would seem like you’re actually wasting breadboard space when compared to the DIL package of the chip. But consider that the oscillator and its capacitors, reset button, and programming header are also on the breakout board and will not have to be built in place. There are also several I/O boards, one with five buttons, another with an LED bar graph, and a set of LEDs with a SIL resistor package on-board. These modules can be plugged into a breadboard and wired up with jumper wires, or connected directly to the same rows as the microcontroller module.

A Light-Following Pong Game

September 13, 2011 by Jeremy Cook 3 Comments

Although not everyone has the ability to make a hacked Pong game Like [Marcelo], even fewer have the ability or the creativity to come up with the elaborate hack that he did. The basic premise of his game is a version of pong played on a breadboard with a 8×8 matrix of LEDs. The controls are really what sets this hack apart. Instead of using a paddle controller or normal switches, small flashlights are used to control the on-screen (on-LED matrix) paddle. This is accomplished using a series of photoresistors and a PIC processor.

Innovative as this would be by itself, [Marcelo] decided to make a program in Flash to display the action on a computer. Communication is done serially, and C# is used to translate everything as Flash doesn’t natively work with a serial connection.

Another innovation is that there are two LEDs connected on either side powered via pulse width modulation. The lights get dimmer as one player is about to lose. Check out [Marcelo’s] pong game after the break!

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Juice Bridge Powers Your Breadboard In A Snap

August 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 28 Comments

juice_bridge_breadboard_power_bridge

[Quinn Dunki] got tired of messing around with wires when connecting things to her benchtop power supply, so she built herself useful little power bridge that plugs directly into any standard breadboard.

The board is small and simple, but quite useful all the same. It was built to power both sides of the breadboard, and it can be easily switched between an unregulated power supply and a regulated 5v supply. An ammeter can be attached to the board via a pair of pins she set aside, allowing her to easily measure the current draw of the entire circuit.

We think her “Juice Bridge” would be very useful to anyone who frequently prototypes on breadboards. In fact, it would be a fantastic beginner project since it involves etching and developing PCBs as well as some simple soldering, while resulting in a handy takeaway tool at the same time.

If you want to build one of your own, [Quinn] has the schematics and Eagle PCB files available for download on her site.

Dead-bug Arduino Is Still Breadboard Ready

August 6, 2011 by Mike Szczys 28 Comments

Here’s a no-PCB Arduino that doesn’t obscure the DIP footprint of the AVR chip. It’s built on an ATmega88 chip, and includes a programming header, reset button, a couple of filtering caps, and an LED. This is modeled after the Lilypad hardware, and fits nicely on top of the plastic case of the microcontroller, allowing it to be used in a breadboard or DIP socket. You can see a walk through of the components in the clip after the break.

We don’t really need most of the components on top of the chip (especially the status LED on the SCK line), but there are several things that we like about this. First off, the programming header is extremely nice. We could see this coming in handy for prototyping where you don’t want to add a header to your final design. Just use a chip socket, and this chip while you’re developing firmware. Once everything is dialed in, program a naked chip and swap the two. The same goes for the reset button, which is nice when working on firmware but may not be necessary in your final design.

This is quite an old project, and we’ve actually seen a successor to it. This is Rev. 2 and we looked in on Rev. 7 back in March. That one is a full Arduino, but the circuit board has no substrate.

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FlipFlop Clock Uses Mains Frequency To Keep Time

April 10, 2011 by Mike Nathan 33 Comments

One afternoon, [Sam] was a bit bored and decided he would build a clock. Not wanting to spend any money on the project, he set off to construct his clock using only the components he had on hand – this meant no micro controllers would be used whatsoever.

Built on a set of four breadboards, his clock sports a pretty short parts list. It uses just over a dozen flipflops, a few NAND chips, a 555 timer, and a small handful of other components. What you won’t find on the bill of materials however, is any sort of crystal or real-time clock. Instead of using a separate chip for keeping time, he opted to use the 60hz mains frequency as the basis for his time keeping.

The mains sine wave is passed through a series of frequency dividers to reach a 1/60hz signal, which is used to trigger the clock counters he constructed. The time is displayed on a 4-digit seven segment display, using a pair of multiplexers clocked by a 555 timer.

The clock seems to work nicely, though you have to be pretty well-versed in how the clock was built to set the time. The only means of doing so is to probe into the clock of the digit you are setting while pressing the lone pushbutton mounted on the breadboard.

While we are pretty sure no one will ever mess with his clock’s time, we have to wonder if it blinks on and off like our old VCR when the power goes out.

Circuit Building With A Hammer And Nails

April 6, 2011 by Mike Nathan 34 Comments

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[Collin Cunningham] over at Make recently wrapped up another edition of “Collin’s Lab” – this time around, the subject is breadboards. He starts off by discussing a common solderless breadboard, something you are no doubt familiar with. What you might not know however is how breadboards got their name.

Way back when, before there was a RadioShack in every strip mall across the country, fancy prototyping supplies like your solderless breadboard did not exist. Amateur radio operators would prototype circuits on wooden boards, often using whatever was around as a substrate. Many times, this meant that the family’s cutting board ended up as a makeshift prototyping station.

One popular method of building circuits was to drive small nails into the breadboard, using wire wrapping to connect things together. [Collin] demonstrates this technique in the video, constructing a simple LED flasher circuit.

He says that the process works decently enough, and was kind of fun to do. He does mention however that building any sort of circuit requiring an IC would likely be out of the question.

If you have a few minutes to spare, check out the video embedded below – [Collin’s] take on technology is quirky and entertaining as always.

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AVR HVSP On A Tiny Breadboard

April 6, 2011 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

AVR chips are convenient because you can program them in circuit at their operating voltage. That is, unless you screw up the fuse settings and they’ll no longer listen to an In System Programmer. If you find yourself facing this problem, just build this circuit on a breadboard and ‘unbrick’ by holding down the button.

The circuit seen above is a High Voltage Serial Programmer. This is one of two high voltage protocols used by AVR chips; HVSP is for chips that don’t have enough pins to use High Voltage Parallel Programming. This rendition uses a 12V power source, which is the level necessary for the high voltage method. A 7805 linear regulator joins the mix to provide operational voltage, along with one transistor, an ATtiny2313 to control the circuit, a four-digit 7-segment display for feedback, and one button for control.

Watch the video after the break to see an ATtiny13 programmed to disable the reset pin using a breadboarded programmer. That chip is then easily rescued, having been automatically recognized by using its device signature.

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