USB Power Has Never Been Easier

January 5, 2022 by Brian McEvoy 48 Comments

USB cables inevitably fail and sometimes one end is reincarnated to power our solderless breadboards. Of course, if the cable broke once, it is waiting to crap out again. Too many have flimsy conductors that cannot withstand any torque and buckle when you push them into a socket. [PROSCH] has a superior answer that only takes a couple of minutes to print and up-cycles a pair of wires with DuPont connectors. The metal tips become the leads and the plastic sheathing aligns with the rim.

The model prints with a clear plus sign on the positive terminal, so you don’t have to worry about sending the wrong polarity, and it shouldn’t be difficult to add your own features, like a hoop for pulling it out, or an indicator LED and resistor. We’d like to see one with a tiny fuse holder.

If you want your breadboard to have old-school features, like a base and embedded power supply, we can point you in the right direction. If you are looking to up your prototyping game to make presentation-worthy pieces, we have a host of ideas.

Monsieur Adaptateur: Jacques Of All Connector Trades

August 21, 2015 by Al Williams 16 Comments

It seems that any time you have a circuit on the bench, there’s wires. Lots of wires. If you are working on something new, it is a good bet that some of those wires are clipped to other wires using some field expedient, especially the power wires. We often have an alligator clip awkwardly grabbing the shell of a BNC. [Felicitus] got tired of this, so he created Monsieur Adaptateur, a breakout board that has common connectors you’ll need when working on a prototype.

What kind of connectors?

DC Jack 2.1mm
2mm Jacks
4mm Jacks
BNC Connector
Terminal Block
Scope probe connector
Standard 6 pin 0.1″ female header
Standard 6 pin 0.1″ male header
4.75 and 6.3mm blade connectors

The dual conductor items (like the 2.1mm jack and the BNC) connect to both sides of the board. The other connectors are in pairs. The idea is you can connect, for example, a BNC cable from a signal generator to some jumper wires on the male header, connect the scope to the scope probe connector, and still have the banana jacks to hook up, say, a digital meter.

No one would say this is going to change the world, but this is one of those things that is simple, but very useful. The plans are all on Github, and obviously you could adapt it with connectors that make sense for your specific situation.

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How-to: Bus Pirate Probe Cable

July 2, 2009 by Ian 24 Comments

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Update, Saturday July 4th, 2009: All preorders are closed.

A probe cable makes it easy to connect the Bus Pirate to a circuit and get hacking. Good test clips make quick connections on cramped PCBs without causing short circuits. We made two cables for the Bus Pirate v2, keep reading for an overview of our designs and list of part suppliers.

Friday, July 3, 2009 is the last day to pre-order a Bus Pirate. There’s only two days left to get your own Bus Pirate, fully assembled and shipped worldwide, for only $30.

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