What is your breadboard/prototyping station like?

[phaeton]

Sometimes the long wires to the pots create their own problems,

What kinds of problems?

[EBK]

EBK:  Oddly, I build lots of circuits, but not a whole lot of them become permanent ones.  I think I'm just in this for the tinkerage.  I like to experiment around with stuff, tweak this and that, and when I'm happy with what I've got I draw out the schematic for my book o' schematics, write up my notes and that's it.  I guess I'm content in that someday I *could* build something to use if I wanted to.  The small collection of physical stuff I own is great to have though.  I do have a Si Rangemaster clone (you can see it in the background of my pic above) that I use to beat up my Laney (a la Toni) and I've got a "something something headphone practice amp with speaker emulator and CD input something something" project that never gets finished but I think I get the most fun out of 'meddling'.  Does it mean I'm lazy?  Dumb?  Who knows.

The answer to your two questions: no and no.  What you've described sounds awesome to me.  My method is more a product of just coping with a severely compressed schedule rather than anything else.  I build for the thrill, but I'm envious of those who have  more time for tinkering and careful note taking.

[stallik]

Stallik- where did you get those little boards at?  The ones that your pots and switches are jumped to on the sides?

Picked them up at a local Maplins store.  I thought they were pretty standard. Regarding the pot values, I insert whatever the circuit requires. so far, I have had enough spaces but I know I'm going to run out soon.

[Rob Strand]

What kinds of problems?

It's susceptible to interference and buzz.  Occasionally you get oscillations.
You can run the wires along the ground metal to reduce the problem.
At the end of the day it's an annoyance.  Every time you have an issue you blame
the long wires, so you make them shorter, sometimes it fixes it sometimes it doesn't.
At some point you just don't want to deal with it and before you know it the leads end-up staying short!

[phaeton]

My method is more a product of just coping with a severely compressed schedule rather than anything else.  I build for the thrill, but I'm envious of those who have  more time for tinkering and careful note taking.

The careful note taking is borne of being on the wrong side of 40 and not having a consistent timeframe for this sort of thing.  Right now I'm on a 2-week staycation (so I've done a rash of stuff, some electronics-related, some not) but most of the year I work full time and go to school part time.  I've been doing this to myself off and on for almost a decade.  I also have this weird issue where I get super excited about a certain subject, and can only do that subject- nothing else.  It cycles between electronics, programming, playing guitar, etc and lasts about a month or so each.  They're all peripherally related, but it means that I generally don't get good at any of them and I've got a bigger pile of unfinished projects than you can shake a carbon-comp resistor at.  This week I'm having fun building chipamps and tweaking stompbox design elements and whatnot, but between Jan 17 and April 17 I may not have the time to touch anything.

[Les Turnbull]

During the warmer months my garage is the tinkering station .




But now its cold the kitchen hob and couch will have to do when our lass is out .

[karbomusic]

karbomusic - that Digilent board looks SUPER nice, but I'm too much of a cheapskate for something like that.  Maybe when I am better skilled (someday?) and could make use of all those features.

It's actually for studying EEs and class work so anyone with an .edu address can get one for a student discount of 250 USD or so. I'm not a student but for some reason they sent me one a couple years ago at the reduced price. I'm certainly spoiled with it but at the same time, it streamlined my work/testing immensely and really cut down on the head scratching as I was able to test stuff so easily. I like it so much, I would weep like a baby if something happened to it.

[LightSoundGeometry]

karbomusic - that Digilent board looks SUPER nice, but I'm too much of a cheapskate for something like that.  Maybe when I am better skilled (someday?) and could make use of all those features.

It's actually for studying EEs and class work so anyone with an .edu address can get one for a student discount of 250 USD or so. I'm not a student but for some reason they sent me one a couple years ago at the reduced price. I'm certainly spoiled with it but at the same time, it streamlined my work/testing immensely and really cut down on the head scratching as I was able to test stuff so easily. I like it so much, I would weep like a baby if something happened to it.

we had something similar in EE classes called a black box for digital to give the different voltages and currents with all switches etc built in ..everything else is done on computer software nowadays. we used National Instruments software which is around 100 bucks or so with student discount

http://www.ni.com/en-us/shop.html

software only last one year ..you can buy the actual hard copies of stuff but is expensive ..im over here working with a ebay multi tester and a vicci vc9 ..heck Im still saving for a 1000 dollar guitar and second amp ..sucks being a home owner on a budget but at least I am warm and not starving ..and I do have an amp and guitar but would someday enjoy a real work of art like 500 dollar warmoth body.

[Rob Strand]

During the warmer months my garage is the tinkering station .

Telequipment D52 oscilloscope.

[analogMensch]

      

Breadboard, deluxe edition!

All connectors are soldered to the small board in the upper right corner. So I don't have to mess around with loose wires and things like that.

Connectors are...
- 2x Western 8P8C shielded cat6
- 1x XLR female
- 1x XLR male
- 5x 4mm sockets for power/multimeter/whatever (red and blue one are connected to the LED through a constant current circuit, can manage everything up to 100Vdc)

I have some 1/4" jack adapter cables hanging around at my workbench for directly connecting things. Also have some special boxes with 8P8C connections for testing things.


         

This is my true bypass looper pedal with 8P8C connection. You can use it as a basic looper pedal. Or you can leave the send, return and power jacks without a plug and use a single shielded pair ethernet cable to run send, return, power, switching and LED to the breadboard. The little circuit board gives me send, ground (audio) and return (upper 3x2 pin header) and also Power +, Power - and ground (earth) (lower 3x2 pin header). It also have a button for switching and a blue led for status.

I got this to perfection over the last twelve years. I always live and lived in small rooms, so I prefer to have things I can easily unplug and put it aside until the next day. So with this solution I just have to unplug power and the eternet cable, put the breadboard on the shelf and have a free table again. The looper can stay in the signal chain, cause without power it's just a bypass.