Debinix's TinyLedSwitch Aims to Replace Discrete Switches and LEDs for Your Next Breadboard Build

Pseudonymous Swedish maker "Debinix" has put together a compact breadboard-friendly breakout designed to provide quick and easy confirmation of inputs and outputs without having to mess around with discrete components: the TinyLedSwitch.

"The TinyLedSwitch Breakout Board eliminates the need to cram in additional resistors, LEDs, and flimsy switches on your breadboard," Debinix explains. "Instead, four colorful red, yellow, green, and blue diodes indicate the GPIO state. Use the Panasonic light-touch switches to pull down a microcontroller input. The board works with any modern microcontroller or the Raspberry Pi. The optionally 90 degrees pin-headers allow mounting it either horizontally or vertically."

The idea is simple: a single-unit board, which replaces two inputs and four outputs, as a quick way to check that the software side of your project is working as-expected. While designed primarily for breadboard use, angled headers allow for either side of the circuit to be connected via flying wires instead — ideal for something like the Raspberry Pi 4, whose general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header is pre-populated with male pins.

The switches are designed for use with the integrated pull-down resistors built into most Arduino and compatible microcontroller boards, but for those looking to interface with something lacking built-in resistors there's a secondary mode: "Connect the VCC [pin] to the breakout boards, the pin marked 3-5V, to pull up the voltage via a ten kOhm resistor," Debinix explains.

The boards are now available fully-assembled via the Debinix Team Tindie store at $5.25 each; design files are available on GitHub under a reciprocal Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike 4.0 International license.