
CurveBoards: Integrating Breadboards into Physical Objects - ArtWomb
https://hcie.csail.mit.edu/research/curveboard/curveboard.html
======
emmanueloga_
AT high school breadboards were one of the most hateful pieces of equipment i
ever had to use. The problem was that there was almost always a non zero
number of defective tracks... depending on the kind of circuit sometimes track
resistance could be significant too.

Sometimes the time saved by using a breadboard was heavily offset by the time
required to double check each connection with a multi-meter.

Hopefully breadboards these days are higher quality... (or perhaps my school
just had very old and crappy ones :-)

~~~
paulgerhardt
Yes, 3M makes a fantastic breadboard with very low contact resistance
([https://www.digikey.com/en/product-
highlight/3/3m/300-series...](https://www.digikey.com/en/product-
highlight/3/3m/300-series-solderless-breadboards))

Get one, treat it well, and never look back.

As a student I would never have sprung for that price but as a professional
it’s a no brainer.

~~~
exmadscientist
As a professional the price is nothing but the value proposition is
questionable. We simply don't use our breadboards very often around here, and
when we do it's never for sensitive work. Basically, I've never had a case
when I've cared who made our random stock of breadboards. Either they're
definitely good enough, or they're definitely bad enough that I need to
prototype some other way. (It's common to find that the only circuits I am
interested in derisking at the breadboard level are the ones that I _can 't_
prototype that way, due to parasitics.) But then, I consider an SOIC-8 package
pretty big in our line of work, so what do I know....

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It's not just you. I haven't seen a breadboard used in professional work in
over 20 years.

90% of the time you're going to have to do a PCB layout anyway, so you might
as well start there. Even more so since fewer and fewer devices are even made
in DIP anymore.

------
pininja
The 3D design tool workflow for adding channels in the video is really cool!
The tools do a lot of the tedious work for you, while leaving the more
creative or opinionated choices to the designer.

Filling with conductive silicon is clever too - I wasn’t sure how they were
going to add conductivity to a fully enclosed piece (no way to pop in metal
bands).

I’m sure there are applications of this that make sense, and ones where this
doesn’t make sense due to one constraint or another. Still, this a cool
combination of many systems and a creative idea.

------
jimmyswimmy
In my opinion breadboards can't die soon enough. Too many new engineers think
they can use them for prototyping circuits where the parasitic of the
breadboard make it entirely unsuitable. Low noise amplifiers, high speed
designs, switching power supplies are all terrible applications for breadboard
designs. And SMT is basically impractical on breadboards, which limits options
far too much.

With the advent of cheap plot and go board shops about 20 years ago and the
more recent explosion of unbelievably cheap Chinese vendors, there's just no
reason to waste time between sim and layout. The era of the breadboard is over
and has been for some time now.

I think there's still a little room for them in education and hobby design,
but even there it should be a fleeting use as students learn the better way.

------
Abishek_Muthian
I buy the premise of extending breadboards for actual applications apart from
testing circuits.

I recently made a butt triggered pomodoro timer[1], where I had to keep a
trigger under... my butt, after messing with velostat and its unreliable
resistance; A simple momentary button on a 170 pin breadboard served the
purpose! So breadboards of different form factors as physical objects would
indeed help to accelerate prototyping.

[1][https://abishekmuthian.com/butt-pomodoro-a-butt-triggered-
po...](https://abishekmuthian.com/butt-pomodoro-a-butt-triggered-pomodoro-
timer/)

------
Animats
That's cute. Not clear that a solderless breadboard wristband is useful, but
it's cute.

A way to design flexible printed circuits, taking into account that the
components are not flexible, would be more useful. Design to a minimum bending
radius, and bond to something that enforces that minimum bending radius, like
a watchband. Orient the longer components so that the long axis is the non-
bending axis.

~~~
throwanem
I could see a wrist-mounted breadboard for prototyping wearables. Jam in a
battery and a few SOIC breakouts plus some patch leads, hack up a quick
firmware to test out an idea, kind of thing.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I'm not seeing it. The device package sizes are often smaller than even the
pin spacing on a breadboard. We generally start with a manufacturer dev board
to write the firmware while the hardware is being designed and then
manufactured at a prototype shop. The problem with trying to make "breakouts"
on packages so small is that they are extremely fragile (if you can even
solder to them by hand!) and the poor signal integrity of flying blue wires
can often be enough to make the hardware completely unusable.

------
userbinator
Those images triggered my trypophobia mildly, even as someone who has worked
with breadboards extensively.

------
flywheel
A solution in search of a problem.

~~~
OJFord
Maybe helpful for test-fitting how non-flexible components will behave on a
flexible PCB, whether they interfere with each other or something else in the
case? Maybe? I imagine you'd just 3D model it though and be happy with that.
But maybe if you already had the case.

