Large Arduino Prototyping Shield

Having recently become an Arduino fan I want to be able to have several projects but save the expense of buying more than one Arduino board. Being very lazy I would also like to be able to change between several projects and avoid all the tedious swapping around of many dangly wires and all the trouble caused when you get the order wrong or cant remember how it went together.

All the available prototyping shields I've seen are small and I want something that a whole project can be built with so I solved the problem by making a Large Arduino Prototyping Shield

Step 1: Materials Needed

Parts needed.

A large prototyping board
A strip of header socket
A strip of header plug
PCB Pins (Wire is OK)
Stripboard
Bits of wire
An Arduino or clone.

TOOLS
The usual small tools i.e.
Pliers
Cutters
Soldering Iron
Glue gun
Hacksaw
Pillar drill or Dremmel

Comments

[J-Ri]

Cool project. Have you seen the Boarduino? It plugs directly into a breadboard. I use one of those plugged into a standard breadboard.

http://www.ladyada.net/make/boarduino/

[VadimS]

Nice, i actually use the arduino pro mini, then add pins and it sits on top

[CaladanJen]

Where did you find that awesome breadboard? The layout is totally unlike the standard "digital IC" ones.

[o0mouse0o]

I got it from the local Maplins shop and had no idea it was not a common part.
Just checked the receipt and its part No. BZ13 although I think the manufacturers description is 'Breadboard AD-01'

There is an image of it about halfway down the page.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=2002

I also had a look in Rapid Electronics and it is very similar to their 'ProtoBoard 2B' but they don't stock the exact one I used.
http://www.rapidonline.com/Tools-Fasteners-Production-Equipment/PCB-Equipment/Prototyping-Boards/Protobloc-2B

Unfortunately I cant offer any advice sourcing one outside the UK.

[matseng]

Two thumbs up! This is a really good idea...

[Bongmaster]

now that brings the breadboard closer to the ardiuno :) nice.

[instructors]

This is a great Idea, I always thought those mini bread boards were way to small, and the bigger bread boards required a lot of cables going to the arduino and back. You could put something like a parts/wire compartment were the end bread board is. Im probably going to try this if I can get a hold of enough breadboards, Its rare to find any breadboards were I live.