In the beginning there was the idea of installing a breadboard in a kind of small desk that also contained a power supply with the voltages usually required. You can buy something like this ready-made in various configurations, starting with two breadboards and 4-millimeter sockets on a stable and heavy metal plate through to experimental stations with input and output, function generators and programmable voltage sources. The former is still cheap and offers good stability and some comfort, representatives of the latter class of experiment sets are very expensive or are only sold to institutions such as schools or universities.
In the price segment in between, there is not only little choice – the main problem, in my opinion, is that the integrated components are permanently installed. If, for example, you don’t need a signal generator or BNC sockets for your projects, but rather a MIDI connection and jack sockets, then a large part of the functions will remain unused. That gave me the idea of building a modular system where the components can be easily swapped out.
The base is a sheet of plywood on which the breadboards lie, surrounded by cutouts that fit various interchangeable modules. But of course other materials are also conceivable for the base plate, up to and including complex printed circuit boards. A finished power supply module with a cut-out size of 72 mm × 39 mm served as a template for the module size. All modules should have the same width. For more flexibility, I also planned a larger format (72 mm × 51 mm) that can be used in parallel from the start, so that I can also use modules that require more space. For the smaller format, there are various modules that can be bought ready-made, from the power supply to function generators and motor drivers.
