Many of my projects start out a little half baked so breadboarding them is a must. One of the things that has bothered me in the past is when I need a common buss and I run out of holes. Sure I can add a jumper, but that "costs" me two holes.
I have ten holes but only eight are usable. Why can't I have it all?
I also breadboard to try to get a vision of what the final circuit layout will look like. As you can imagine, there is typically more than one iteration and physical placement becomes a consideration.
Most of us have scraps and extras laying about. I can't be the only one that couldn't resist buying the 100 pack of Arduino headers when it was just a couple of dollars more than the 10 pack.
Well...
Now I have 12 holes AND I've recovered a jumper. Headers soldered onto strip board and cut to size. Very handy. I did have to file the sides of the headers to get them to fit flush together. The pins serve more as anchors but the parallel conductors in the proto board sure can't hurt.
It does not have to stop there.
This is a three buss rail. I did get lazy and didn't go for the flush mounting, but it's prototyping. It's also three 24 hole common rails. Very handy.
Then comes the issue of an Arduino Nano or Raspberry Pi Pico on the proto board. What if I need more connections - and then want to measure the output of the pin? No problem. Header stripboard wings.
During a moment of unusual clarity, I realized that I had proto board and headers that I was saving for... yeah... WHAT?! A future project? If you have it, use it. I made this and used it during Build Inside The Box as a launching point to build my circuit.
There are times that I need to break the project into pieces - so I'll actually build (at least some of) it. The tiny breadboards help.
Shout out to Jan Cumps. You can see I still have A Crystal Clock with 1 Transistor---The Pierce Oscillator assembled.
The female headers will work but on these I revert back to my original solution - extra bits of male headers and strip board. These don't create busses as much as equipotential zones. <- There's my powerline grounding training sneaking out.
I hope folks find these simple, built from scraps solutions as helpful as I did. I always feel better when I can use the little leftovers. I'm kind of a cheap guy.
AND it proves that strip board is the best prototyping board ever! Reference dougw Strip Board - Is It The Best Prototyping Board.
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