Programmable BreadBoards

[diemons]

Hi All,

I'm trying to find a device which can be programmed to control a Breadboards connection logic (or to control say Short/Open the specific holes where I have connected the terminals of my test circuits) . I wonder if there is a Breadboard whose connection logic can be controlled by a program running from the PC ?

Any suggestions please .....

Thanks

 

[shaiko]

I wonder if there is a Breadboard whose connection logic can be controlled by a program running from the PC ?

There're MANY.
You can use a breadboard with a Microcontroller or a FPGA/CPLD on it...
The PC will send commands over a serial UART port, the programmable device on the board will decode the commands and toggle the desired I/O accordingly.

What are your programming skills?
Are you looking for a ready solution? or you intend to program the device on the breadboard yourself?

 

[ads-ee]

I'm trying to find a device which can be programmed to control a Breadboards connection logic (or to control say Short/Open the specific holes where I have connected the terminals of my test circuits) . I wonder if there is a Breadboard whose connection logic can be controlled by a program running from the PC ?

You are asking for something that doesn't exist and never will. I'll get back to that statement.

There're MANY.
You can use a breadboard with a Microcontroller or a FPGA/CPLD on it...
The PC will send commands over a serial UART port, the programmable device on the board will decode the commands and toggle the desired I/O accordingly.

This doesn't address what the OP asked. They want the breadboard connections to be programmable, not have a programmable device with an attached breadboard.

Now back to the never will exist.

Think of having a bread board that can accept two 8-pin DIP packages. Now given that those packages could be connected in an unknown number of ways. How to do make sure you can always connect them correctly. Well each pin has to be able to connect to any other pin. So we have to have options to allow any single pin to connect to any of the other 15 pins now there are 16 pins total for the two devices so we have to have a 16x16 cross point switch just to manage two 8-pin DIPs now think about having 20 such devices on a breadboard, now each pin has to be able to connect to 159 (8*20-1) other pins. But it is actually worse since any pin could connect to more than 1 other pin, which means it's not just a simple cross point switch architecture.

Now if you followed this then you can see that the complexity increases exponentially so no there will never be such a breadboard. That breadboard would be more expensive than the components you would test on it. Since wire is cheap and easy to use as interconnect for a breadboard there is no incentive for anyone to develop such a board. The closest thing you might find is some antiquated auto wire wrap station. Though I challenge you to find a source for wire wrap breadboards.