My 3d printed breadboarding station.

JeffTXD

New member
Hey Y'all,

I've been really busy the last couple years learning a ton from these forums. In a small attempt to give back I give you my design for a 3d printed breadboarding station to ease your prototyping needs. I hope some of you find this useful.

-Jeff

 
Very clever! Yes, as @ozmuth suggests, maybe it's worth lowering the height of the front and side rails for better hand access. But it really is a great idea. And, speaking with regard to my own designs, it always takes me several iterations to get it optimized.
 
Great idea! I would probably prefer the bread board to be higher in the enclosure so I didn’t have to make my fat fingers work in a tight spot.
Very clever! Yes, as @ozmuth suggests, maybe it's worth lowering the height of the front and side rails for better hand access. But it really is a great idea. And, speaking with regard to my own designs, it always takes me several iterations to get it optimized.
Yeah, I agree it's an issue. I use tweezers a lot.

I'd like to take some time to optimize it further but it does enhance my personal experience. This is the first version and really one of my first 10 or so 3d designs. It's also just an adaptation of an existing design I was inspired by. It was supposed to accommodate two connected breadboards but once you have pots and jacks in it's hard to slip a built out breadboard in. The wall are high to accommodate the height of the 3PDT. I was dreaming up a design where the walls are a separate piece that snaps in after you have built out a circuit and then you can just plug in your in/out, pots and grounds. But I don't want to make any promises because I'm still learning the modeling side.
 
Another way to fit 3D-printed pieces together is with screws and heat-set threaded inserts. E.g., such as these from McMaster-Carr. I use such threaded brass inserts a lot in various jigs that I make for use for woodworking.
I like to use the non-tapered ones lower down on that page, the ones that are flanged - the flanges help me orient it up properly during insertion. You can also find brass insertion tips for many soldering irons that fit inserts such as there.

Here's just one example 8-32 insert which shows what they looks like. You design the right sized hole for it, and just push it into the 23D print on the tip of a soldering iron - it melts into the plastic and is rock solid once the plastic cools.
 
Here's some pics of threaded inserts I've used.
IMG_1744.jpg IMG_1745.jpg
This is a mini-lathe chuck jaw I made with an attachable face (the arc piece at back). On the right you see the back of the jaw, where the threaded inserts are placed. I put screws through the arced face piece and into the threaded inserts - the threaded inserts hold so tightly that I can chuck pieces of wood on my mini-lathe at ~1000rpm while machining them.
IMG_1746.jpg
Here's a small (blue) handle I printed to fit a different jig, into which I installed a heat-set insert and then epoxied in a short threaded stud.
The black prints are nylon, the blue print is PETG.
 
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