Do you use breadboards? Breadboards serve as valuable tools for rapid circuit prototyping and electronics education. However, once a circuit is assembled, it is often difficult to fully understand how it operates in practice.
While oscilloscopes provide an effective means of analysis, they are expensive, occupy significant space, and are limited in the number of available channels.
Therefore, I came up with a way to monitor all voltages on the breadboard while also showing oscilloscope-style waveforms for selected points.
- Enables wiring connections without the need for soldering
- Features holes aligned in a grid-like array
Taking advantage of the breadboard’s fixed rectangular structure and array of contacts, I devised a method to capture the breadboard with a camera and overlay the voltage values of all points directly onto the image.
M5StackFor the user interface, I adopted the M5Stack Basic.
Equipped with a high-performance CPU, it can not only display camera images but also perform additional processing simultaneously.
Moreover, the M5Stack Basic offers a wide range of expansion options. For this project, I selected the Scroll Unit, which provides optimal operability and enables intuitive, efficient control. This device is quite unique in that it allows mouse wheel–like scrolling, which proved useful for selecting breadboard holes on the screen in this project.
In addition, the AtomS3R CAM was used as the camera. Its compact size and simple USB connectivity make it an ideal choice for this application.
The voltage at each point on the breadboard is connected to the ESP32 board through a monitoring circuit, and the data is then received and displayed by the M5Stack.
At present, voltage data and camera images are relayed to the M5Stack via USB serial communication through a PC. However, the system can also be configured for direct connection or wireless communication.
In this project, a Sunhayato breadboard is used. Unlike typical breadboards that have double-sided adhesive on the back and are difficult to remove, this model employs a film sheet, making it easy to detach.
When the sheet is removed, all electrodes are exposed. By pressing them against spring-loaded pins, the monitoring circuit embedded in the base can measure the voltages.
Voltages are represented using an HSV color bar: higher voltages appear red, lower voltages appear blue, while 0 V is omitted from the display.
By scrolling to align a circular cursor with a measurement point, the corresponding voltage value is shown in the lower display area.
This demonstration uses an LED blinking circuit with a photosensor, implemented with a Sunhayato kit. As the ambient light decreases, the LED begins to blink, allowing the change in operation to be observed by placing a hand over the sensor.
Operation was also verified using another Sunhayato LED blinking circuit kit. Power to the breadboard is supplied by pressing the button on the left.
Although the breadboard image is static due to processing speed limitations and does not display the actual blinking of the LEDs, it provides an intuitive and quantitative view of the voltages at each component terminal.
In this circuit, capacitors and transistors cause the left and right LEDs to blink alternately, and the corresponding voltage transitions are reflected on the screen.
By scrolling, the cursor can be moved to any hole, and the voltage at that point is displayed in the lower bar. Furthermore, by pressing a button, the temporal waveform at that location can be shown on the screen in an oscilloscope-like view.
The expansion slot allows pre-assembled boards to be inserted and removed, eliminating the need to repeatedly rebuild commonly used circuits on the breadboard.
The camera and the M5Stack can be removed, and the camera can be stored on the back with a magnetic mount.
Since voltage acquisition requires a large number of channels, four analog multiplexers are used, switching in a time-division manner to capture the signals.
Each circuit block is fabricated on a separate universal PCB and interconnected. By implementing each module independently, the design ensures higher flexibility and maintainability, allowing easy modifications and extensions on a block-by-block basis.
The system includes protective circuits, but since the breadboard is also used for experiments, all ICs are socket-mounted for easy replacement if they fail. This design not only improves safety and efficiency in prototyping and testing, but also makes the system more forgiving of accidental damage in educational settings, allowing students to learn without fear of breaking components.
The pogo pins, which serve as contact points with the breadboard, are arranged in an array corresponding to the number of breadboard terminals and soldered onto a universal PCB. To reduce the amount of soldering work, a breadboard-style universal PCB was used.
Each board is assembled by soldering and then interconnected. The relay circuit is designed to optionally isolate the breadboard’s ground from the control system, and this can be toggled using the green button located next to the power switch.
The software was programmed using the Arduino IDE. To achieve smooth display rendering, M5GFX is used. While the attached files include the M5 code, an additional code for the ESP32 board is also required for data measurement.
During the build process with M5GFX, an error was encountered, which was resolved by downgrading the ESP32 library to version 2.x.
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