These 3D-Printable Breadboards Give Wider Dev Boards Like the Raspberry Pi Pico Some Breathing Room

Pseudonymous maker "lhm0" has released a solution for through-hole development boards, which are just that little bit too wide to comfortably fit in a solderless breadboard and still leave room for other components: 3D-printable adapters to add a gap in the middle of a breadboard.

"Many modern µC [microcontroller] boards are too wide for typical solderless breadboards," lhm0 explains of the problem. "With a Raspberry Pi Pico, only two holes per pin remain usable. With an [Espressif] ESP32 Dev Board, no holes remain at all — you need two breadboards side by side. This project provides a custom 3D-printed breadboard body designed to accommodate modern, wide microcontroller development boards."

Solderless breadboards are great for rapid prototyping, allowing relatively-robust circuits to be put together with nothing more than male-to-male jumper wires and through-hole components. With little room on a standard solderess breadboard for wider development boards, though, lhm0's printable adapters provide a lot more breathing room — and a full 63-row length, plus the traditional pair o power rails on either side.

3D printers are great at laying down even complex shapes, which makes the creation of a custom breadboard relatively easy — but that leaves the issue of the solderless contact springs themselves. There's a solution, of course: lhm0's adapters are designed to accept springs harvested from an existing, too-narrow breadboard. "The microcontroller is inserted into the inner rows," lhm0 explains, "leaving four freely accessible holes per pin for jumper wires and additional components — ideal for prototyping and experimentation."

The project is documented in full on Instructables, while design and 3D print files for breadboards tailored for the Raspberry Pi Pico and Espressif ESP32 Dev Board are available on GitHub under the reciprocal Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-ShareLike 4.0 license.