At first look, it looks like a joke: if you wish to observe the success of the solderless breadboard, the electronics equal of the breakthrough that was the invention of sliced bread, you are going to need to take away the jumper wires too. Besides no one informed Kevin Santo Cappuccio it was a joke — and the result’s the Jumperless.
Designed to imitate the format of a regular half-size solderless breadboard, with all the identical connections, the Jumperless is powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and a matrix of switches. The latter are the key to its success, making connections between rows and columns rather than the the same old flying-lead jumper wires you see tangling up breadboard initiatives.
However that is not all of the Jumperless can do. Hiding behind these eye-catching LEDs is a surprisingly highly effective platform for prototyping and experimentation — however is it actually one of the best factor for the reason that solderless breadboard?
{Hardware}
- Breadboard: 10-column, 30-row, two energy rails
- Microcontroller: Raspberry Pi RP2040
- Enlargement header: Arduino Nano or pin-compatible
- RGB LEDs: Two per row, one per energy rail phase, one per enlargement header pin
- Connectivity: Mini-USB 2.0, energy and information
- Enter/Output: 4× general-purpose, 4× analog inputs (1× ±8V, 3× 0-5V), 2× analog output (by way of Microchip MCP4822, 1× ±8V, 1× 0-5V)
- Extras: 12× WCH Electronics CH446Q crosspoint switches
The specs sheet for the Jumperless appears rather a lot nearer to 1 for a improvement board than a breadboard. There is a good cause for that: it’s a improvement board, albeit one designed with a really particular goal in thoughts.
From the highest, the Jumperless appears like virtually another breadboard — bar the USB connection and enlargement header on the highest of the PCB. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
The on-board Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller is not there to run your code, however to host the firmware Cappuccio says he spends “each waking second” working to enhance. It is this that handles every thing from establishing the crosspoint switches to wire up your initiatives to measuring present draw or establishing an analog output — and the communication between the Jumperless and your host PC.
It additionally handles the stunning variety of RGB LEDs festooned across the board. There are two per breadboard row, discovered in the midst of the five-hole sections both aspect of the dividing heart line, one for every five-hole phase of the dual energy rails — with separate LEDs for VCC and floor — and one every for each pin of the board’s enlargement header.
Mentioned header is the place you flip the Jumperless into a real improvement board: it is designed to simply accept an Arduino Nano or pin-compatible microcontroller, which is then free to speak with the on-board RP2040. That opens up some fascinating potentialities: it is potential, for one stunning instance, for the Arduino Nano to reconfigure the wiring of the breadboard itself by sending a string over a UART bus — however we’re getting forward of ourselves.
A have a look at the underside reveals that the Jumperless is not any extraordinary breadboard. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
Simply because the Jumperless is designed to be jumperless doesn’t suggest it must be. Beneath all these glowing lights and RP2040-powered smarts is a breadboard, and also you’re free to attach it up with jumper wires should you actually needed to. Whereas that is arguably faster than utilizing Wokwi, the graphical circuit design and simulation software, to design a undertaking, it is also pointless: a comparatively current firmware replace launched help for “Probe Mode,” which makes connecting breadboard rows so simple as poking them with a sharp needle.
Welcome to Wokwi
For a newcomer, the best method to get began with the Jumperless is to make use of Wokwi — the aforementioned graphical circuit design software. After signing up for a free account, you merely create a brand new undertaking and add a half-size breadboard mimicking the one on the Jumperless. Add the elements of your alternative and digital jumper wires, and — optionally, however well-advised — use Wokwi’s helpful simulation function to check issues out.
Jumperless features a software to question as much as eight saved Wokwi initiatives, rewiring itself accordingly. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
The Jumperless comes with a software program software that acts as a bridge between your digital Wokwi undertaking and the bodily model. Out there for Microsoft Home windows, Apple macOS, and any Linux distribution able to operating Python 3 and dealing with a few USB UART units, the software program allows you to talk with the Jumperless over a easy text-based person interface.
After you’ve got designed your Wokwi undertaking, you simply copy the URL and paste it into the Jumperless software — into one in every of eight selectable slots, permitting you to rapidly flick between initiatives on-demand. Choose the slot and the software program reaches out to Wokwi, downloads the undertaking, and converts it right into a netlist earlier than configuring the crosspoint switches accordingly.
You will know if it labored, as a result of all these RGB LEDs aren’t only for present: linked rows are highlighted in matching colours, making it simple to see the place every part ought to go. They do not match the wire colours chosen in Wokwi, sadly, however that is a minor grievance. Impressively, in addition they replace in near-real-time: make a change in Wokwi and hit save, and the Jumperless rewires itself in lower than a second.
From the best circuit to a full breadboard, modifications made in Wokwi are mirrored on the Jumperless in below a second. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
You are not simply restricted to wiring up fundamental elements, both. Including an Arduino Nano — or, within the firmware’s newest replace, an Arduino Nano ESP23, with extra pin-compatible boards to observe — to the undertaking allows you to not solely wire its pins wherever on the breadboard you please however even to jot down an Arduino sketch proper in Wokwi, and have it flashed to the bodily Arduino Nano put in within the Jumperless’ enlargement header robotically.
Superior customers
Utilizing the Jumperless with Wokwi feels a bit like magic. Whereas, admittedly, you are still chargeable for putting the precise elements, having the ability to translate wiring modifications to the bodily breadboard in a single click on is unbelievable — however that is removed from the one factor you are able to do with the Jumperless.
The 4 analog to digital converter (ADC) inputs on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 are current and proper on the Jumperless, with three level-shifted to 5V logic. The fourth is shifted to ±8V — and all 4 can be found to make use of within the Wokwi Logic Analyzer, together with a present sensing enter that may be linked to any breadboard gap. This, in fact, implies that the Jumperless just isn’t solely jumperless however will be debugged with out a bodily logic analyzer too.
That is a formidable sufficient checklist of superior options, however Cappuccio’s not performed there. The Jumperless additionally features a two-channel digital to analog converter (DAC), with one channel shifted to 0-5V and the opposite ±8V. These are absolutely controllable by the person, and can be utilized with a waveform generator built-in into the firmware — good to 40kHz and above, Cappuccio says. The second channel of the present sensor is linked to the DAC’s ±8V output, too, as a helpful bonus.
We’re not performed but, although. There is a small four-pin GPIO header to the top-left fringe of the board, away from the primary breadboard space. This could play host to add-ons, together with a recently-designed needle-tipped probe — unlocking the power to make use of the Jumperless fully offline, with no host pc. Simply join a USB energy provide or battery and the probe allows you to make or delete connections on the push of a button: simply pop the needle within the first gap adopted by the second and the switches can be reconfigured robotically.
The probe equipment, included as commonplace, permits a Jumperless for use as a standalone gadget, requiring solely energy. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
Add within the potential to modify between saved Wokwi undertaking slots — made simpler should you add a rotary encoder on the Arduino Nano header, to imitate a function which is to be constructed into the subsequent era Jumperless — and you have got a strong gadget. In the event you nonetheless want extra, there’s loads of scope to construct your personal software program for the Jumperless due to its easy text-based interface — a third-party Node.js-based graphical person interface is already in improvement.
The sticking factors
That is to not say the Jumperless is ideal — if it had been, Cappuccio would seemingly have much more free time. The firmware is below fixed improvement, although primarily so as to add new options. The Python-based bridge software program is purposeful and responsive, however surprisingly hungry: continually polling for updates to Wokwi initiatives sees it redline two CPU cores.
The Python-based Wokwi bridge, which doubles as a serial console, is purposeful however resource-hungry. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
There is not any getting across the worth situation, both. Whereas a regular half-size breadboard will set you again a greenback, and a pair extra for an honest choice of jumper wires, the Jumperless is $299 — unavoidably so, while you have a look at how a lot {hardware} is packed into the gadget. Even accounting for the very fact it could actually, for some initiatives, exchange a separate logic analyzer and benchtop energy provide, that is a steep payment for entry into the Jumperless world.
However the easy reality is there isn’t any competitors. In the event you want the options the Jumperless affords — and it has rather a lot to supply these prepared to experiment, from powering self-configuring synth patches to serving as a reverse-engineering platform for unknown chips, and even working as a rudimentary EEPROM programmer — then it is the one gadget for you, no matter worth. That is true even given the {hardware}’s limitations on routing complexity: the swap matrix is not fully-connected however depends on good routing, that means that it is potential to breadboard a circuit it could actually’t wire up — although we could not hit this theoretical restrict throughout our testing.
That worth additionally contains Cappuccio’s time — the maker is responsive on each the Jumperless discussion board and social media, and the fixed movement of firmware updates and new options proves his declare of concentrate on making the Jumperless pretty much as good as potential is not any lie — and a no-quibble assure: should you do not prefer it, ship your Jumperless again for a full refund. In the event you do one thing thrilling but inadvisable and someway break it, Cappuccio even guarantees to ship you the elements to get it again up and operating — and even to restore it for you, freed from cost.
There’s lots of {hardware} that goes right into a Jumperless, not least of which is the matrix of crosspoint switches on its underside. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
For these tempted by a Jumperless however postpone by the value, there’s an alternative choice: Cappuccio has launched the Jumperless design below the Weakly Reciprocal variant of the CERN Open {Hardware} License 2, whereas the firmware and software program are revealed below the permissive MIT license. This implies there’s nothing to cease you making your personal: the undertaking’s GitHub repository even contains manufacturing recordsdata alongside the KiCad undertaking recordsdata, able to be despatched off to the PCB fab of your alternative.
Conclusion
There’s nothing fairly just like the Jumperless, though the recently-unveiled Sandwizz comes shut — swapping a few of the superior options and helpful RGB LEDs for widespread elements built-in straight into the breadboard. The Jumperless is pricey, it is true, however for many who spend lots of time chopping and altering the wiring of their prototypes it might show invaluable.
It isn’t low-cost, however the Jumperless is near magic — and when you’re used to it could actually actually pace up a prototyping run. (📷: Gareth Halfacree)
For many who suppose the Jumperless does not go far sufficient, in the meantime, there’s hope: the Jumperless V5 takes the idea and dials every thing as much as 11, not solely including the rotary encoder for undertaking choice that’s an optionally available additional on the present revision however extending the RGB LEDs to each particular person breadboard gap — festooning the board with a complete of 455 LEDs, sufficient even for a two-line scrolling textual content show or low-resolution video playback. Present Jumperless homeowners will even be capable to choose up the V5 at-cost, Cappuccio guarantees.
In the event you’re pleased with the present Jumperless design, although, and do not thoughts the value, it is unlikely you will be disenchanted. The Jumperless is the closest factor to magic you are prone to put in your workbench, and it is solely getting higher.
The Jumperless is in the stores on Cappuccio’s Tindie retailer at $299, together with a equipment to assemble the probe; Hackster readers can get an additional ten per cent off with the low cost code ‘7B9F76F6’. Full sources and design recordsdata can be found on GitHub, whereas group discussions will be discovered on the Jumperless discussion board.