RE: Does Anyone Still Breadboard Anymore?

sokol07 — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 08:49:21 GMT

I am developing a control circuit for a device at the moment. At the very early prototype version we are basing on some ready-made modules (by Polulu, ST Microelectronics, etc). I don't imagine developing the application for the microcontroller (and control app for PC) without breadboarding and than soldering things together onto universal boards.

It is totally not optimized (however, I don't bother so much because the fastest protocol I have here is I2C), the wires are looking like spaghetti (which was dropped from a plate. At 2 floors height.) but it works, I can test it, run it and even (if packed in a nice box) show to an investor as a working, fully-functional model of the solution which will be optimized in future and the whole "electronics box" will become a single PCB.

On the photo below there is the back (down?) side of the main control board (of course, that's work in progress, missing some elements, which are waiting to be placed there):

However, I discovered that among few breadboards I have only one is usable - the other two have got many loose contacts but also some contacts so stiff that it is hard to put the element inside. I also have many concerns about connection quality with this boards... I think that I trust the spaghetti I soldered on my own onto a universal board far more that the Chinese breadboards and jumper wires.

Speaking of THT/SMD elements - all passive elements I have are THTs, however, this are only single pieces as at this stage most of the crucial elements are already placed on the ready-made boards. One of the sensors I use is Amphenol pressure sensor which I wasn't able to find in THT package and the solution was this little thing:

And from the solutions you proposed - solution 2 doesn't solve all my problems as I'm mainly prototyping not the electric part but the microcontroller app, its communication, interfaces, etc. I know that the simulations can be very precise, even more precise that the parts manufacturing sometimes and that's why I prefer to perform the tests "on a living organism" if only it is possible (luckily, in my case - it is). Solution 3 is, as pictured above, in fact something I am using now but, honestly, solution 3 is just a first step developing and soon I will be moving to the solution 1 - PCB prototyping and manufacturing is so fast and cheap that when I will have all necessary components I will just prepare the board, have it made and, if something won't be ideal, tune its design later.

RE: Does Anyone Still Breadboard Anymore?

Andrew J — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 16:14:56 GMT

You have to breadboard!

Breadboarding a must

RE: Does Anyone Still Breadboard Anymore?

Jan Cumps — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 14:47:41 GMT

I use them for generic experimenting - because the turnaround time to change something is short (minutes),
sometimes as "holder" for a development board,
and most often as patch bay: When I want to use I2C, SPI, CAN, ... between two devices, and in the mean time look at those signals with a scope and a protocol analyser.