Look Ma, No Wires: This Jumperless Breadboard Is a Magical Take on the Solderless Breadboard
Using 11 crosspoint switches hidden underneath, this breadboard achieves the seemingly impossible and completes circuits with no jumpers.
Maker Kevin Santo Cappuccio is working to remove the wiring from a solderless breadboard, putting crosspoint switches on its underside to create the impossible-seeming "Jumperless Breadboard."
"The Jumperless Breadboard is almost a thing," Cappuccio explains of the project, which seen from above and fully assembled appears impossible. "It’s a slightly different approach from the previous versions, now it just acts as a slave that accepts commands via UART or I2C so you can put whatever development board you like in that Nano header at the top and put connections between anything."
Seen from above, and ignoring an Arduino Nano-compatible pin header to the top, the Jumperless Breadboard looks like any other solderless breadboard. As with an off-the-shelf version, components are inserted into holes electrically connected in broken strips. Traditionally, the circuit is then completed by inserting jumper wires to connect the strips together in whatever pattern the circuit requires — but not so with the Jumperless Breadboard, which somehow works with no visible wires at all.
"It's 11 analog crosspoint switches bolted to the back of [the] breadboard," Cappuccio explains of the magic trick which lets the breadboard operate with a seemingly-broken circuit. Commands sent via I2C or UART control the switches, programmatically connecting the breadboard's rows and columns as required — no jumpers needed.
"Now I’m trying to come up with a format to send it data over serial," Cappuccio explains of the project's current status. "I’m thinking something hella human readable like @ jumperless <c,t5,b10><d,t24,nA2> @ end to connect the 5th row on the top to the 10th row on the bottom and disconnect pin A2 on the Nano from the 24th row."
As for why you'd want to do such a thing, beyond impressing people with your electronic magic tricks, Cappuccio has some ideas. "There are a to of things to use this for," the maker says. "Every person I show this to has a new idea that I hadn't thought of. So let me know yours so I can try not to make your thing difficult."
More information on on the Jumperless Breadboard is available on Cappuccio's Twitter thread, while the source code and design files have been uploaded to GitHub under the permissive MIT license.