The Ultimate DIY 3220-Point Breadboard
| Project Name: | The Ultimate DIY 3220-Point Breadboard |
| Project Description: | Building a 3220-point solderless breadboard with carrying case that will provide storage capability and contain a variety of power supply options, such as a 12V charge adapter to plug in any wall outlet for instant power supply. |
| Project Difficulty: | Moderate |
| Project Note: | This project uses a soldering iron, hot-glue gun, and heat gun. Please use caution when using hot items. Some processes in project build may contain harmful chemicals and fumes. Please perform projects in a well ventilated environment, use proper protection, and use caution when performing the following tasks — and remember to have fun! |
In this project, we’re going to be making our very own ultimate 3220-point solderless breadboard. This solderless breadboard is different than others seen on the market, and unique in its own right. This solderless breadboard will have its own carrying case that will allow you to store your projects and components within it, and possibly your power supply wall adapter — mine didn’t fit 🙁
That’s right, this solderless breadboard project will have its own power supply that will allow you to plug directly into a wall outlet for instant power for building your prototypes almost anywhere!
Aptly Named the Ultimate
This breadboard project is aptly named as ultimate because of its several different choices of power supply available to use across the 3000+ points available in its design:
- 12V Charge Adapter Power Supply: Our DIY 3220-point breadboard project has a 12 volt power jack designed right into it. Having a 12V power adapter plug built into the carrying case box allows us to plug into any wall outlet to be able to provide DC power to the breadboards. From the charge adapter’s voltage, we’ll be able to drop down that voltage — with the use of a couple voltage regulators — to 6 and 9 VDC. Just choose the voltage you desire with the flip of a switch!
- Benchtop Power Supply: Just as with any 2390 or 3220-point breadboard on the market, they most always come with binding posts to connect to a benchtop power supply to provide their breadboards with power. Our design is no different — it is equipped with two input binding posts dedicated for a benchtop power supply to plug into using banana plugs to provide power to the boards — we just happen to control that power with a switch in our design.
- On-board 9V Battery Power Supply: I personally use 9V batteries almost exclusively when prototyping my projects on a breadboard. Using a 9V battery to supply power to prototypes on a breadboard usually entails using several jumper wires and alligator clips to make the battery connections — it just gets messy and the wires everywhere become a nuisance. Our 3220-point breadboard project has a 9V battery power supply built right into it. No need for tangled wires all over the place just to connect your power source — just connect two jumper wires to the dedicated binding posts and flip a switch, and you’re ready to start making your projects!
Moderate, but Doable
This project is considered “moderate” in difficulty, but it’s totally doable for those who don’t have a ton of experience. If you’ve never tackled a project like this before, don’t worry! If you stick to the easy to follow instructions given below and follow the instructional videos provided for this project, you’ll do just fine.
There will be some FAQs at the end that you can look over if you run into any issues. If you don’t see any of your questions answered in the FAQs, you can leave your questions in the comments below. We encourage you to do this so that we can add your questions and the answers to them to the FAQs to help out others!
Disclaimer
The Design
As previously stated, we’re going to be making a 3220-point solderless breadboard. As with most solderless breadboards on the market that have a large number of points, they’re just a combination of multiple solderless breadboards combined to make more points — such as the four 830-point breadboards we’ll be using to help make up our combined 3220-points. The more contact points allow for more connections when working with many components for large and/or complex projects.
Most 3220-point breadboards on the market come attached to some sort of flat, thin material for a base, such as a plastic or metal plate. We’ll be using a deluxe art set case or box for our project’s base. The art case we’ll be using is a typical wood box sold in art supply stores, dollar stores, or at major online retailers that come as a set of art supplies, such as colored pencils, paints, and other items.
The art box will provide our 3220-point solderless breadboard with four key features:
- It will act as a base for our breadboard.
- It will serve as a storage box to place our components and other supplies in.
- It will serve as a carrying case, making it easily portable, carrying almost everything we need to build our prototypes on the go.
- It will also serve as a place to store our power supply circuitry we will build for it later.
Larger breadboards also come standard with banana plug binding posts to allow for connection points for a power supply. Our breadboard design will also be equipped with banana plug binding posts — six, to be exact; two red, one black, one yellow, one blue, and one green. There will also be three switches for our design to control which binding posts are being supplied with power — really making it the ultimate breadboard. An explanation of all the details of how everything works will be explained in the build process later. There’s also a video demonstration of the finished project near the bottom of this page under Video Demonstration of Finished Project.
Where the Design Came From
I’ve been using breadboards as a learning tool and to prototype my projects for many years. For the past couple of years, as my projects had increased in both frequency and size, I had been looking into getting larger breadboards. I had always just purchased individual breadboards, such as your typical 400 and 830-point varieties, but over time I had realized I’d begun to acquire many breadboards — so much so that workspace was getting taken over. Also, when creating larger projects, having several separate breadboards strewn about the workspace only connected by jumper wires becomes a nuisance.
So, I finally decided that now was the time to either buy a 3220-point breadboard or either make my own. Obviously, I decided to make my own — designing it the way I would want it to be and containing features that I thought I might want it to have. I also wanted mine to have switches and lights — because I like switches and lights on things, because they’re so cool!
Let’s Be Methodical
I like to be very methodical about things, so we’ll go step-by-step — in detail — on the entire build of this project: the parts we’ll need, why we’re using them, how to connect them, how they work, and more! First, we’ll start with the following parts list:
Parts List
See Parts List for This Project
| Item | Quantity | Description |
| 830-Point Solderless Breadboard with adhesive back | 4 | We’ll be using parts from four 830-point breadboards to make up our 3220-point breadboard. |
| Deluxe Art Set Box 14.5”x9”x1.75” | 1 | The art set box will be used as our breadboard base and carrying case. |
| Female DC Barrel Power Jack Panel Mount (Female DC Jack) | 1 | The barrel jack will be used as a way to provide external power to our breadboard via a 12VDC power supply adapter. |
| 12V Power Supply Adapter | 1 | The power supply adapter is plugged into the female barrel jack to provide external power from a wall outlet to our breadboard. |
| Red Banana Plug Binding Post | 2 | One red binding post (BEN IN) will be for the positive input supply from a bench-top power supply. One red binding post (V BATT) is an output supply and will be from the positive terminal of the 9V battery supply. |
| Black Banana Plug Binding Post | 1 | One black binding post (BATT NEG) is attached to the negative terminal of the 9V battery supply. |
| Green Banana Plug Binding Post | 1 | The green binding post is attached to the common ground on the green PCB protoboard. |
| Yellow Banana Plug Binding Post | 1 | The yellow binding post is attached to the output terminal of the L7806 voltage regulator. |
| Blue Banana Plug Binding Post | 1 | The blue binding post is attached to the output terminal of the L7809 voltage regulator. |
| 6 Terminal 3 Position DPDT Mini Toggle Switch ON/OFF/ON | 2 | One of these switches (SW1) will control switching between the power jack supply or the bench-top power supply. The other switch (SW2) controls the option to choose either 6V or 9V supplied from the power jack when its power is in use via SW1. |
| 2 Terminal 2 Position SPDT Rocker Switch | 1 | The rocker switch controls power being supplied from the on-board 9V battery supply to the banana plug binding posts for the battery supply output. |
| 9V Battery Holder with Switch | 1 | The 9V battery holder will store the 9V battery used to provide the on-board power supply supplied to the battery power banana plug binding posts. |
| Rechargeable 9V Battery with Battery Charger | 1 | This 9V battery is our on-board battery supply supplied to the battery power banana plug binding posts. |
| Green 5mm LED Diffused | 1 | Indicator light to show power on from power jack. |
| Red 5mm LED Diffused | 1 | Indicator light to show power on from benchtop power supply. |
| Yellow 5mm LED Diffused | 1 | Indicator light to show 6V power on supplied from power jack. |
| Blue 5mm LED Diffused | 1 | Indicator light to show 9V power on supplied from power jack. |
| White 5mm LED Diffused | 1 | Indicator light to show on-board 9V battery power supply on. |
| LED Bezel Holder | 5 | These will serve to hold our LED indicator lights in place on our art box carrying case, as well as to make things look clean and a bit more professional looking. |
| L7806 Voltage Regulator | 1 | The L7806 will take in an input of 12V from the barrel jack input and drop it down to 6V output for our supply. |
| L7809 Voltage Regulator | 1 | The L7809 will take in an input of 12V from the barrel jack input and drop it down to 9V output for our supply. |
| 1000Ω Resistor | 4 | We will use this resistor value to limit the current to the green, yellow, blue, and red LEDs. |
| 820Ω Resistor | 1 | We will use this resistor value to limit the current to the white LED. |
| 0.33µF Capacitor | 2 | We use this capacitor value across the input pin and ground pin of both our voltage regulators. |
| 0.1µF Capacitor | 3 | We use two capacitors of this value across the output pins and ground pins of both of our voltage regulators. We use one capacitor of this value as a sort of decoupling capacitor within our power supply circuit for the incoming benchtop power supply. |
| Coated Wire (18 – 24 AWG) | Miscellaneous Lengths and Colors | We will use some wire to make connections between components on our circuitry. |
| PCB Prototype Board (4 x 6 cm) | 1 | We will use a 4cm x 6cm PCB prototype board to place our power supply circuitry on. |
| PCB Prototype Board (2 x 6 cm) | 1 | We will use part of a 2cm x 8cm PCB prototype board to place our 9V battery power supply circuitry on. |
| Heat Shrink Tubing | Several | We will use these to protect certain soldered connections made throughout our project. |
| Female Spade Connectors | (Optional) Several | We can use these to make connections easier throughout our project. |
| Ring Connectors, Male and Female Spade Connectors | (Optional) Several | We can use these to make connections easier throughout our project. |
| 2 Pin Screw Terminal | 4 | The screw terminals will be used to make some of our connections easier without soldering, as well as make some parts of our circuit more “serviceable”. |
| 3 Pin Screw Terminal | 1 | The screw terminals will be used to make some of our connections easier without soldering, as well as make some parts of our circuit more “serviceable”. |
| 4 Pin Screw Terminal | 2 | The screw terminals will be used to make some of our connections easier without soldering, as well as make some parts of our circuit more “serviceable”. |
| 5/8” (or smaller) Rubber Grommet | 1 | We will use a rubber grommet for our jumper wire to go through the carrying case for our connection to the breadboard from the positive supply coming from the bench-top power supply. |
| Adhesive Rubber Feet | (Optional) 4 – 6 | We will use adhesive rubber feet to place on the bottom side of the carrying case to make it slip resistant and to protect surfaces from scratching. |
| Orange Bendy Straws | (Optional) Various Pieces | We can use straws as a sort of wire loom to protect the wire within the art box. |
| Project Box (3.5 x 2.8 x 1.1 inch) (90 x 70 x 28 mm) | 2 | We will use a project box to isolate and protect our PCB board and its circuitry inside our art box carry case. |
Tools Used in Project
See Tools Used for This Project
| Item | Description |
| Protective Eyewear | It’s recommended that you wear protective eyewear when performing some of the tasks in this project — especially when trimming wire leads and using a soldering iron. |
| Soldering Iron and Hot Air Rework Station | The soldering station I currently use is a Yaogong YG8586. It is equipped with a soldering iron with holder, and a rework heat gun. |
| Soldering Iron Tip Cleaner | I use an Aoyue soldering iron tip cleaner with brass wire sponge, but in the past I just used a regular damp dish sponge to clean my solder tips. |
| Helping Hands Soldering Tool | I use a couple of different helping hands, because you can never have enough helping hands to assist you to hold your projects for you. |
| Circuit Board Clamp | Having a circuit board clamp is optional, but boy do they make a world of difference having one to hold your circuit board in place as you work on it. |
| Wire Stripper | The wire stripper I used for this project was a Mr. Pen brand wire stripping tool. Any ole’ 18-24 AWG wire stripping tool will do or you can use your pocket knife, like I used to do back in the day. |
| Wire Crimping Tool | The wire crimping tool helps to crimp the ring, male and female connectors to wire used in this project. |
| Craft Knife (Exacto Knife) | The craft knife is a great cutting tool to have handy for when fine cuts are needed to be made. |
| Tweezers | I use an ESD-15 curved tip tweezer all the time for my projects, not just this project. They’re very handy. |
| Rotary Tool | I used my WorkPro rotary tool to drill the small holes needed for this project. |
| Cordless Drill | I used my ole cheapo Black and Decker battery power drill I’ve had around for probably 20+ years to drill the larger holes needed for this project. |
| Hot Glue Gun | We’ll use hot glue to attach the PCB board to the interior of the project box. |
| Digital Calipers | (Optional) Calipers are a handy tool when it comes to getting precise measurements of items that are difficult to measure with a ruler or tape measure, such as round or odd shaped items. I used calipers to determine what size holes to drill for each of the round or odd shaped items to be inserted into the art box carrying case. |
| Multimeter | (Optional, but recommended) I used a real cheapo off-brand XL830L multimeter to take voltage measurements during the build process to continuously check my work. |
| Dupont Connector Kit | (Optional) I used a Dupont connector for the benchtop power supply output lead for this project (BEN OUT). You can choose to complete your project in another way. If you decide to get a Dupont connector kit, it’s recommended to get one with a crimping tool for Dupont connections. |
Prototyping the Circuit
Before taking our parts and haphazardly soldering them together onto our PCB prototype board, it’s good practice to first “dry-fit” our components — or temporarily put together our circuit on a breadboard.
If you need to — you may check out our Breadboard Basics page here to understand the breadboard and how to use one.
We will not go into step-by-step instructions on how to assemble the following prototype circuity, but the imagery below for each prototype circuit has been meticulously designed and created as best as I could to try to clearly show you how the circuitry would be put together on a small breadboard, such as a 400-point breadboard. I’ve also created a couple of short video clips to demonstrate how these breadboard prototype circuits work once they’re complete.
You can skip this part if you’d like and go straight to the First Things First part of the build or to the build videos for this project below.
Power Supply Prototype Circuit
L7800 Series Positive Voltage Regulators
For this project, we’ll be using the TO-220 package of the L7806 and L7809 voltage regulators to drop down the incoming voltage from the 12VDC charge adapter that we can plug into our carrying case from a wall outlet, then drop down that incoming 12 volts to 6 volts or 9 volts. You can download the datasheet for these types of regulators below. There are a few pages we want to pay attention to. Page 1, gives a bullet point overview of some of the L7800 series specs — page 2, gives the absolute maximum ratings — page 3, shows the L800 series connection diagrams — page 4, shows the way to set up the L7800 series for different applications — and pages 10 and 12 show the electrical characteristics of the L7806 and L7809, in particular.
9V Battery Power Supply Prototype Circuit
First Things First – Prep Work for the Switches
Before getting into anything else for this project, I felt that starting with the switches first would be beneficial for when we start making our connections to the components required for this project in our circuitry. So, what we’ll do is start with switch #1 (SW1), get its wires soldered on in preparation for later, then we’ll do switch #2 (SW2). Later, we’ll prepare switch #3 (SW3) for the 9V battery power supply circuit. I’ve highlighted the switches in the schematics below:
Switch #1 (SW1)
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge red wire about 12 inches (approximately 30.5 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 2 of SW1 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 2 of switch 1 (SW1). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 2 of SW1 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge red wire about 12 inches (approximately 30.5 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 5 of SW1 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 5 of switch 1 (SW1). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 5 of SW1 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors. Now, strip the other end of the wire you just connected to terminal 5 of SW1. Take a ring terminal and your crimping tool, and crimp the ring terminal to the end of the wire. The ring terminal will connect to a red banana plug binding terminal (BEN IN) for the positive terminal of a bench-top power supply later in the project.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge green wire about 6 inches (approximately 15 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 3 of SW1 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 3 of switch 1 (SW1). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 3 of SW1 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge green wire about 12 inches (approximately 30.5 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 4 of SW1 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 4 of switch 1 (SW1). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 4 of SW1 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
Switch #2 (SW2)
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge green wire about 6 inches (approximately 15 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 2 of SW2 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 2 of switch 2 (SW2). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 2 of SW2 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
- At approximately halfway down the green wire we just attached to terminal 2 on SW2 in the previous step, cut away about 1/8” – 1/4” of the wire sheathing off the wire — leaving a small section of wire exposed about center-way down the wire. Next, take a piece of heat shrink tubing and slice down one side its length about a third of the way down (do not cut all the way through the other side), then slip the heat shrink tube onto the green wire (non-sliced end first) sliding it across the green wire’s exposed section, all the way down to the end of the green wire connected to SW2 at terminal 2. Do not heat it yet. Then, take another piece of heat shrink tubing and slice about a quarter the way down its length (cutting all the way through the tube to both sides) and then slide this heat shrink tubing on the green wire connected to terminal 3 of SW1 (non-sliced end first). Do not heat it yet. Strip the end of the green wire on terminal 3, SW1, at about 1/2” back. Now, take the green wire on terminal 3 of SW1 and solder it to the exposed section of green wire from terminal 2 of SW2. Slide the heat shrink tubing from the wire on SW1, terminal 3, all the way up to the soldered tee we just created to the wire from SW2, terminal 2. Make sure the slit you made goes through the tee, then heat the tube. Now, take the heat shrink tube you cut and slipped on the green wire on terminal 2 of SW2, and slide it all the way down until it butts up to the tee and the slit on the tube covers the tee. Heat this tube. Now, take another piece of heat shrink tubing, slice about a quarter the way down its length (cutting all the way through the tube to both sides), and slide it all the way up the other end of the green wire that’s connected to terminal 2 of SW2, until it butts up to the tee and heat it to finalize the tee protection.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge green wire about 12 inches (approximately 30.5 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 5 of SW2 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 5 of switch 2 (SW2). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 5 of SW2 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
- At about 3 inches down the green wire we just connected to terminal 5 of SW2, in the previous step, cut away about 1/8” – 1/4” of the wire sheathing off the wire — leaving a small section of wire exposed.
Next, take a piece of heat shrink tubing and slice down one side its length about a third of the way down (do not cut all the way through the other side), then slip the heat shrink tube onto the green wire (non-sliced end first) sliding it across the green wire’s exposed section, all the way down to the end of the green wire connected to the SW2 at terminal 5. Do not heat it yet.
Then, take another piece of heat shrink tubing and slice about a quarter the way down its length (cutting all the way through the tube to both sides) and then slide this heat shrink tubing on the green wire end that’s connected to the tee from terminal 2 of SW2 and terminal 3 of SW1 (non-sliced end first) from step 2 for switch 2 (SW2). Do not heat it yet.
Now, take the green wire that’s connected from the tee from step 2 for SW2, and solder it to the exposed section of green wire from terminal 5 of SW2. Slide the heat shrink tubing from the wire on the tee of step 2, all the way up to the soldered tee we just created to the wire from SW2, terminal 5. Make sure the slit you made goes through the new tee, then heat the tube.
Now, take the heat shrink tube you cut and slipped on the green wire on terminal 5 of SW2, and slide it all the way down until it butts up to the new tee and the slit on the tube covers the new tee. Heat this tube.
Now, take another piece of heat shrink tubing, slice about a quarter the way down its length (cutting all the way through the tube to both sides), and slide it all the way up the other end of the green wire that’s connected to terminal 5 of SW2, until it butts up to the new tee and heat it to finalize the tee protection.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge yellow wire about 12 inches (approximately 30.5 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 1 of SW2 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 1 of switch 2 (SW2). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 1 of SW2 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge blue wire about 12 inches (approximately 30.5 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be soldered to terminal 6 of SW2 at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will solder this piece of wire to terminal 6 of switch 2 (SW2). Finally, use heat shrink tubing around terminal 6 of SW2 and the wire you just soldered to it to protect this area from shorting on other exposed conductors.
After preparation of switches 1 and 2, we’ll move on to switch #3 (SW3), as seen in the schematic below, and get its connections ready for later in the build.
Switch #3 (SW3)
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge red wire about 6 inches (approximately 15 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be connected to a female spade connector at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will use a crimping tool to crimp a female spade connector to the stripped end of the wire. If your female spade connector is equipped with its own heat shrink tubing, heat the tube, otherwise add a piece of heat shrink tubing over the connection you made on the wire and heat the tube. Now, connect the female spade connector on your wire to the terminal of your rocker switch’s (SW3) on position. Next, strip the other end of the wire at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will connect this end of the wire to the 9V battery’s positive wire later in the project.
- Cut a piece of 18-24 gauge red wire about 6 inches (approximately 15 cm) in length. Next, strip one end of the wire to be connected to a female spade connector at about 1/8” – 1/4” back. We will use a crimping tool to crimp a female spade connector to the stripped end of the wire. If your female spade connector is equipped with its own heat shrink tubing, heat the tube, otherwise add a piece of heat shrink tubing, if you need to, over the connection you made on the wire and heat the tube. Now, connect the female spade connector on your wire to the terminal of your rocker switch’s (SW3) off position. Next, strip the other end of the wire at about 1/8” – 1/4” back, then tin the wire. We will connect this end of the wire to the positive-side input from the 9V battery to the 9V battery power supply circuit later in the project. Set aside your switches until we are ready to connect them to the rest of the project later.
Making a 3220-Point Breadboard
NOTE: There are many breadboard manufacturers and brands on the market, and not all breadboards are created equal! Make sure that all four of your 830-point breadboards are exactly the same, from the same supplier. If you mix and match different brands of 830-point breadboards, you may run into the issue that their interlocking keyed connectors may not line up exactly, so they won’t fit with each other, as seen in the image below:
Our goal for this project is to make a 3220-point breadboard. To do this, we’ll be using four 830-point breadboards to make up one larger 3220-point breadboard. The following video shows you how:
Four 830-Point Breadboards Into One 3220-Point Breadboard
Preparing the Art Box Carrying Case
Taking Out What We Don’t Need
We won’t be needing the art supplies within the art box, so if you’re the artistic type, you can set aside your art supplies for use on some awesome artwork later. I gave the art supplies in my art box to my daughter, so I can look forward to acquiring more of her artistic creations in the future.
Adding Our Breadboards to the Lid of the Art Box
Once we’ve removed the label, art supplies and plastic interior of the art box carrying case, we now have a beautiful empty wood box, ready to be used for our project. We also want to make sure that we have breadboards that have a backing with a protective paper, that when peeled off, reveals a sticky pad to mount our breadboards down onto the art box. What we’ll need to do first is place our breadboards on the lid of the box and determine where we are going to have them located. You can choose how you want your layout to be, but what I chose to do is place my breadboards centered to the width of the box and about 3/4” from the bottom edge of the box – the edge that’s facing you when using your breadboard setup, i.e. the handle and latch side of the box. The following video shows how we are to set all this up:
The Layout of the Power Supply Components
Now that we have our breadboards in place permanently on our art box carrying case, we can move on to thinking about the placement of the items that will be used for our DIY breadboard project. We have several banana plug binding posts, LED light indicators, and switches to place about our box. You can choose however you’d like to orient your items. I tried to design mine in way that’s intuitive to the user — which is mostly myself — and in a way that keeps items, like the LED indicator lights, of which there are five of them, in clear view and near or next to what they represent.
In the following video is a series of clips, in order of process of how I oriented the items to be placed on the art box, as well as marking and cutting holes for those items, and a discussion of the functionality of the placement of those items.
Putting It All Together
We’ll be going from prototype to finished circuit now! Referring to the schematic for our 3220-point breadboard, and to the prototype breadboard circuits for our power supplies below, we can transfer our circuit components to a PCB board of which we’ll permanently install inside our art box carrying case later in the build. You can download each of the images below for your own keeping. Just click, then save!
Prototype Circuit for Power Supply
Panel Mount DC Adapter Socket
Prototype Circuit for 9V Battery Power Supply
I’ll be using a 4×6 centimeter PCB board for the power supply circuitry. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming to know where to place components on a generic PCB prototype board that you buy online or at a store. Before I even start soldering components, I find it easier to make a scaled version of my PCB boards on a free graphic design website, then print the design out to layout on paper how I would wire up components on the PCB. Doing this takes out a lot of the headaches you can come across if you were to figure the layout of components on the PCB as you soldered them on. Preparing your component’s layout on paper first saves on time, wasted components and boards if you were to mess up with no predetermined layout. I’ll share with you the one I made below, for the PCB I’m using, so that you can print it out for yourself. Just click, then save!
Video Part 1 – Power Supply Circuit Build
Video Part 2 – Power Supply Circuit Build (and My Mistakes)
Video Demonstration of Finished Project
Printable Labels for The Ultimate DIY 3220-Point Breadboard Project
Conclusion
I really hope that you’ve tried this project out for yourself and have made the ultimate DIY 3220-point breadboard. This design of breadboard may not be perfect and it may not be right, but it sure was a lot of fun making it, and a lot was learned, which is the most important part of it! Heck, you can probably build one way better than mine — and I encourage you to do just that!
I’ve always wanted and needed a larger breadboard, such as a 3220-point, but never spent the money on one. I had always just bought breadboards individually, or in packs of 400 and 830-points. Having made this 3220-point breadboard project myself, I now have just what I’ve been needing to tackle larger projects that I’ve had in mind for some time now! The bonus part of this project is, that I have lots of neat lights and buttons to play with on it, and I have several options to choose from for power supply for my circuits! What a perfect project this was!
I do not claim to be an expert in electronics, nor am I a professional at designing or building circuits, but having some knowledge of knowing how to put things together is pretty neat, and I do think this project was a lot of fun to design and build. I hope you enjoyed this project as well. Remember, keep at it and stay motivated!
Picture of Finished Project
Project Finisher’s T-Shirt!
You did it! You completed the project! Reward yourself with a The Ultimate DIY 3220-Point Breadboard t-shirt. Choose your favorite color, get a tee, sweater, or get a hoodie – you deserve it!
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1.) When you say, “3220-point solderless breadboard”, what does the word “point” mean?
- The word “point”, in this context, is the amount of through holes there are, in total, on our solderless breadboards. For this project we used parts from four different breadboards. If you were to count each hole on the parts we used, there would be 3,220 holes or points on our DIY breadboard, as a whole. Check out this explanation of breadboards here.
Q2.) Is there really 3,220 points on our breadboard? How did you figure this out?
- Yes! There’s really 3,220 points on The Ultimate 3220-Point Breadboard. We used four 830-point breadboards — we took one power rail off three of them, each power rail has 100 points, so that’s 730-points for each of the three now. We kept one breadboard intact, that’s 830-points — so, we have three 730-point breadboards (3 x 730 = 2190), and one 830-point breadboard (2190 + 830 = 3020). We added two of the power rails we removed before (2 x 100 = 200), so we have a total of 3,220 points (3020 + 200 = 3220).
