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Random experiments, circuits, code, rapid prototyping examples, sometimes things to buy, and
occasionally tunes by Tod E. Kurt.
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Arduino breadboard shield: $10 & 10 mins


Do you love Arduino?
Do you think the concept of Arduino shields is just the coolest?
Do you wish you could get some of those neat Arduino Prototyping Shields that Tom Igoe made?
Too bad no one sells them yet, because building your own versions of those boards is a bit out there for us
ADD’ers.

Don’t despair, there is a solution to the lack of breadboarduinos. You can build your own Arduino shield with a
solderless breadboard in about 10 minutes and 10 bucks. It’s not nearly as full-featured as Tom’s prototyping
shields, but it’s great way to quickly add a solderless breadboard to Arduino.

Parts you’ll need:


- small solderless breadboard, Digikey 923273-ND
- small circuit board, Radio Shack 276-150
- Two 8-pin header sockets, Jameco 70755 or Digikey AE10048-ND
- Two 8-pin single inline wire-wrap sockets, Jameco 78642 or Digikey S7006-ND
(all part numbers are suggestions, use what you know. for instance, some of the part suggestions are actually
16-pin parts you snip in two 8-pin chunks)

Steps:
0. Get the circuit board in your hot little hands
1. Take the wire-wrap sockets and insert them into the furthest row of holes on the circuit board. Solder them
down.
2. Insert the header sockets right next to the sockets. Solder them down.
3. Take the double-stick tape off the solderless breadboard and stick it on the circuit board next to the sockets.
4. Gently bend one row of wire-wrap pins a bit closer to the other set of wire-wrap pins. This is because the
space between the two sockets on the Arduino board aren’t on a 0.1″ grid like the circuit board. Too bad for us.
5. You’re done! The final product looks like this:

Notice that since the circuit board has a line of two rows of pads connected together no wiring is required, just
some quick soldering:

You may want to add a dab of hot glue to the opposite corner from where the sockets are to act as a bumper and
keep the board level.

Use:

Because this shield is only one-sided, it can be used either in an “open” configuration, like so:

Or you can use it “closed” like a normal shield, as in the picture up top. In this configuration, the analog and
power jacks are still easily accessible, but the reset button and ICSP header are a bit hard to get to. Ah well, it
was only 10 minutes of work.

The normal shield configuration makes for a nice compact chunk of reconfigurable computation to add to other
devices, like, oh I dunno, how about:
Add a 9V battery with a little velcro and you got yourself a nice little portable development platform:

(yes, I like Radio Shack, what’s it to ya?)

Posted by todbot on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 10:26 pm.

22 Responses to “Arduino breadboard shield: $10 & 10 mins”

HOW TO - Arduino breadboard shield - $10 & 10 mins…

Todbot has a short and sweet how-to on making prototyping Arduino bread boards for portable development
platforms, he writes - “Do you love Arduino? Do you think the concept of Arduino shields is just the coolest?
Do you wish……

Left by MAKE: Blog on July 12th, 2006

What’s a Arduino?

Left by Duardo on July 13th, 2006

[...] We will be using an Arduino microcontroller board as a sensor interface. Most likely I will try to hack this
or a version of it in the code. While we are experimenting with different sensor setups, we might perhaps
consider using something like this breadboard shield addon for Arduino. [...]

Left by Vevo - Virtual Evolution » Sensors etc on July 14th, 2006

Totally cool. I am gonna link this to the phys comp site at school so students can make ‘em on the cheap.
Thanks!

btw, the gerber files for my boards are online if anyone wants to make their own, and Batchpcb.com prints the
board for cheap.

Left by Tom Igoe on August 13th, 2006

… and if I were smart, I would have posted the URL.


http://www.tigoe.net/pcomp/code/archives/arduino/000760.shtml

Left by Tom Igoe on August 13th, 2006

[...] Getting to the “Hello World†of microcontroller projects, the blinking LED, on Arduino costs $32
compared to the $119 for a Basic Stamp. This is perhaps a little unfair because the Basic Stamp board contains
a full bread-boarding space. A similar setup for Arduino would cost about $60, still a 2x savings (and can made
cheaper if you want).” [...]

Left by technology guerilla » Blog Archive » Arduino, the Basic Stamp killer on September 26th, 2006

[...] If you haven’t Arduino’d before, here’s Todbot on why it’s a rocking little microcontroller. Tod also tells
us how to make an Arduino Breadboard Shield, for quick circuit prototyping. [...]

Left by Create Digital Motion » Arduino and Processing Beginner Links: LEDs, Physical Sensors, Lighting on
October 12th, 2006

[...] (Yes, I know there are solutions for prototyping shields, like this breadboard shield hack, and Tom Igoe’s
board which also replicates the reset button… but I thought using stripboard would be a no-brainer until I ran
into these two issues.) [...]

Left by plus six » Reflections on Arduino and Processing on February 5th, 2007

Hi,

Since the Arduino Proto-Shiled boards seem to be unavailable, and i’ve got a deadline, I’m really glad to find
this alternative.

However, those Jameco part numbers don’t seem to exist in the Jameco on-line store any more. I’ll try my
semi-local electronics parts store …

Left by mykle on May 22nd, 2007

Hi Mykle,
Thanks for letting me know about the part number staleness. I’ve updated the page to have updated part
numbers for both Jameco and Digikey.

Left by todbot on May 22nd, 2007

[...] ç¨ç¨æ•´ç †ä¸€ä¸ ‹ç›®å‰ç¶²è·¯ä¸Šèƒ½å–å¾—çš„ XBee Datasheet ITP Rob Faludi


é †å¸¶ä¸€æ,æ œ‰æ²’有人知é“é€™å€‹çš„éºµåŒ…æ¿ å“ªè£¡å¯ä»¥è²·å ¾—到呢? [...]

Left by XBee無線傳輸模組å–å¾— at 有沒有都無所謂 on July 8th, 2007

[...] last little to-do, was to begin the breadboard for the circuit. I borrowed todbot’s clever idea to make a
homespun Arduino Shield out of a perfboard and some pin-strips. In the end, the two will [...]
Left by brock craft » Blog Archive » Hot Glue is Man’s Best Friend on October 16th, 2007

[...] last little to-do, was to begin the breadboard for the circuit. I borrowed todbot’s clever idea to make a
homespun Arduino Shield out of a perfboard and some pin-strips. In the end, the two will [...]

Left by Hot Glue is Man’s Best Friend | brock craft on October 24th, 2007

[...] http://todbot.com/blog/2006/07/11/arduino-breadboard-shield/ [...]

Left by The Emergent City » Getting Physical on November 8th, 2007

[...] Arduino SHIELDS: DIY Breadboard shield, see this page [...]

Left by Blog de Daniel Bernat » Conociendo Arduino (II) on December 13th, 2007

I have the Diecimila w/USB, and arduino-0010


under Kubuntu. The software is incredibly ugly and hard to use. I was able to get the blinking LED program
loaded. My plan now is to
modify the Simple Messaging System for USB and talk to the unit via a shell script. Has anyone done this yet?
Thanks.
-rolandl@cavenet.com

Left by Roland Latour on January 9th, 2008

I have succeeded in my project to use the above hardware from the shell.
Run this now: ‘wget http://207.14.167.161/SMS1.tgz‘tgz’
It only works when my system is booted, so keep trying.Finally got the right data format from readAD-1:
Comma-separated values. This imports to OpenOffice calc easily, for further analysis or graphing. Try it.

Left by Roland Latour on February 12th, 2008

Next version of arduino, please please use 0.1″ spacing…it will make life so much easier… Thanks :-)

Left by Yuval Tal on April 5th, 2008

Dang, the part numbers were stale, after two attempts one of the part numbers backed me two headers again
and then when I find the termial strip leaders aren’t long enough :( bummer too bad my radio shack doesnt have
those terminal strips…

Left by Codejoy on May 28th, 2008

My package of shell scripts for use with Arduino and SimpleMessageSystem is now available 24/7 via:
‘wget http://user.cavenet.com/rolandl/SMS1.tgz‘
and I have added a GUI script for controlling the IO pins 2-13. It uses
Xdialog, & includes instructions for getting that program if needed.

Left by Roland Latour on July 15th, 2008

[...] addition to Arduino I would probably need to add this to my Arduino to make it work better. Also, I plan to
use RC Servo motors as the output for this [...]

Left by An addition to Arduino « Tactile Sound on October 14th, 2008

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