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Homemade Protoboard


So back in the college I took a course in embedded systems. For the construction of our projects we used a Global Specialties protoboard trainer. When I graduated and entered the real world of engineering I was dying to get my hands on one for personal project development. That is... until I found out that they cost $500 a pop. No thanks....
So I came up with this monstrosity.

Actually for a prototype it came out pretty sweet. Here's a list of some of the features:

 

  • PC power supply with fuseable +/- 5, +12 and ground terminals
  • 7 breadboards
  • 16 TTL compatiable LED indicators
  • 4 character HEX LED display
  • DB-9 fermale connector
  • 18 TTL compatiable toggle switches (debounced)
  • 6 TTL compatiable pushbuttons  (debounced)
  • 1 DPDT toggle switch 
  • HEX Keypad with 4-bit and enable output 
  • 100k pot
  • Speaker
  • Analog voltmeter

Total cost to build: $0. At the time I worked in a semiconductor qualification lab and they were throwing out TTL, LEDs, toggleswitches, etc left and right so supplies were a-plenty. 

Future Plans: I'd like to create a version that has all the LED/HEX driving logic and debouncing logic on a PCB as opposed to the wirewrap. I'd also like to add a clock generator and any other cool stuff I can think of. But with so many projects on my table... the prototype will have to suffice for now.

Complete image gallery can be seen here.
Protoboard snapshot

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