5 ms·

Finally someone made this! I’ve been waiting for a crosspoint switch based breadboard since I first found out about crosspoint switches. Unfortunately this loo

Finally someone made this! I’ve been waiting for a crosspoint switch based breadboard since I first found out about crosspoint switches. Unfortunately this looks like it uses some rather limited parts probably for cost reason so the switches only support +-8v at 1MHz. Even a decade ago the SOTA was over a GHz with a much wider voltage range ($$$$$$).

milesvp 3y ago
Yeah, selling for $289. I’m guessing these aren’t cheap to make. At least $30 BOM, but since it’s small batch, might have even made the mistake of letting the BOM get up to $100. I’m not sure who the taget audience is. I want to impulse buy, but I’m not convinced yet that it would improve my workflow. The video shows a rats nest, but the first rule of breadboarding is to use wires that make it easy to trace. Worse, is now there’s one more layer to debug. My suspicion is that this is a tool that will be solid in a few iterations, and will eliminate many of the headaches breadboards add not mentioned in the video, namely parasitic capacitance and inductance. I am interested in what I could do with the thing based on the last part of the video though. Being able to trivially reroute signals in realtume could open up a lot of possibilities.
- ansible 3y ago
  This is a super-neat design, and I'm glad someone has made it. But I would never buy it, in part because of the cost. It is really neat though.
  - type0 3y ago
    You need to tinker often for it to be useful. I find less and less usage for the breadboards when you can simulate most of the things in software and then put it on the prototype board in a neat package
  - synecdoche 3y ago
    Which simulation software would you recommend?
    - ansible 3y ago
      I don't have a simulation software recommendation, though /u/type0 might. I would recommend just using an "expensive" prototype board, that costs maybe $20 USD, instead of over that costs $4. There are different levels of quality with regard to the little clips that grip the wires and components. The wires are really the least problem in experimenting with electronics.
    - a_rabid_squid 3y ago
      I actually love using Falstad, it's fairly simple which is great because usually I just want to look at the ideal behavior of things to get the circuit working before I worry about the exact characteristics of every part. This link will take you to that crosspoint switch demo. https://tinyurl.com/yr34sym6 https://tinyurl.com/yr34sym6 https://wokwi.com/ https://wokwi.com/ is great for simple, digital only stuff. https://fritzing.org/ https://fritzing.org/ will kind of lay out the PCB for you, but it's kind of a pain in the ass. Wokwi and Fritzing are more "Breadboard Simulators" than real circuit simulators, but they do have their place.
gorkish 3y ago
Their specs list the switches as being -3dB at 50MHz, so I would probably expect them to pass almost anything that I would ever consider building on a breadboard; where did you get the lower ratings? I think that the +/- 8V is just the tolerance for the onboard microcontroller.
- dkersten 3y ago
  In this video[1] he mentions +- 9V tolerance of the switches: “each connection can pass plus minus nine volts at fifty megahertz and are tested up to a hundred milliamps” [1] https://youtu.be/_k0aKM68Xl4?si=xjVgkdbT7TK3dkTD https://youtu.be/_k0aKM68Xl4?si=xjVgkdbT7TK3dkTD
Kirby64 3y ago
Crosspoint switches today, even expensive ones, still have a problem with impedance. They might not be as slow as 50 MHz, but the 65 ohm impedance is a killer for quite a few circuits, and the high tens-of-ohm impedance isn't uncommon.
jacquesm 3y ago
I don't get these comments. On the one hand 'Finally someone made this!' followed by a bunch of complaints about the limitations. If finally someone has made this and there are some limitations isn't that normal for anything new? Can you improve on it? If so then please do so!
- swatcoder 3y ago
  Many many people can celebrate something even while acknowledging its shortcomings and don’t find any insult when that’s done. It’s a cultural thing maybe, but for those of us, it’s easier to let ourselves do so than artificially act like something must either be perfect or trash. We can just say “Oh, this is that. I like this part but not that part. Cool!” and feel like we put it all out there.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- SeanLuke 3y ago
  We are debuggers by nature. It's a (bad) force of habit.
- madengr 3y ago
  [dead]
- a_rabid_squid 3y ago
  Fun fact, the first popular modern breadboards with power supplies and switches and stuff we use today were $1,300 in 1974 dollars, so ~$9,855 today accounting for inflation. Also, I’m the guy who made this and you’re absolutely spot on. I’m constantly working on making this better and cheaper as time goes on. It’s totally open source so I hope people will write firmware to do the things they want with it and share it with others who want to do that thing as well.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I've been watching your project from inception and I think you're on to something, keep doing this and you'll definitely go places. Also: I'd suggest contacting the Adafruit people, they're right in your sweet spot and may have both good product ideas around what you're doing and a massive audience and market. On top of that they're nice.

milesvp 3y ago

Yeah, selling for $289. I’m guessing these aren’t cheap to make. At least $30 BOM, but since it’s small batch, might have even made the mistake of letting the BOM get up to $100. I’m not sure who the taget audience is. I want to impulse buy, but I’m not convinced yet that it would improve my workflow. The video shows a rats nest, but the first rule of breadboarding is to use wires that make it easy to trace. Worse, is now there’s one more layer to debug. My suspicion is that this is a tool that will be solid in a few iterations, and will eliminate many of the headaches breadboards add not mentioned in the video, namely parasitic capacitance and inductance. I am interested in what I could do with the thing based on the last part of the video though. Being able to trivially reroute signals in realtume could open up a lot of possibilities.

ansible 3y ago
This is a super-neat design, and I'm glad someone has made it. But I would never buy it, in part because of the cost. It is really neat though.
- type0 3y ago
  You need to tinker often for it to be useful. I find less and less usage for the breadboards when you can simulate most of the things in software and then put it on the prototype board in a neat package
- synecdoche 3y ago
  Which simulation software would you recommend?
  - ansible 3y ago
    I don't have a simulation software recommendation, though /u/type0 might. I would recommend just using an "expensive" prototype board, that costs maybe $20 USD, instead of over that costs $4. There are different levels of quality with regard to the little clips that grip the wires and components. The wires are really the least problem in experimenting with electronics.
  - a_rabid_squid 3y ago
    I actually love using Falstad, it's fairly simple which is great because usually I just want to look at the ideal behavior of things to get the circuit working before I worry about the exact characteristics of every part. This link will take you to that crosspoint switch demo. https://tinyurl.com/yr34sym6 https://tinyurl.com/yr34sym6 https://wokwi.com/ https://wokwi.com/ is great for simple, digital only stuff. https://fritzing.org/ https://fritzing.org/ will kind of lay out the PCB for you, but it's kind of a pain in the ass. Wokwi and Fritzing are more "Breadboard Simulators" than real circuit simulators, but they do have their place.

gorkish 3y ago

Their specs list the switches as being -3dB at 50MHz, so I would probably expect them to pass almost anything that I would ever consider building on a breadboard; where did you get the lower ratings? I think that the +/- 8V is just the tolerance for the onboard microcontroller.

dkersten 3y ago
In this video[1] he mentions +- 9V tolerance of the switches: “each connection can pass plus minus nine volts at fifty megahertz and are tested up to a hundred milliamps” [1] https://youtu.be/_k0aKM68Xl4?si=xjVgkdbT7TK3dkTD https://youtu.be/_k0aKM68Xl4?si=xjVgkdbT7TK3dkTD

Kirby64 3y ago

Crosspoint switches today, even expensive ones, still have a problem with impedance. They might not be as slow as 50 MHz, but the 65 ohm impedance is a killer for quite a few circuits, and the high tens-of-ohm impedance isn't uncommon.

jacquesm 3y ago

I don't get these comments. On the one hand 'Finally someone made this!' followed by a bunch of complaints about the limitations. If finally someone has made this and there are some limitations isn't that normal for anything new? Can you improve on it? If so then please do so!

swatcoder 3y ago
Many many people can celebrate something even while acknowledging its shortcomings and don’t find any insult when that’s done. It’s a cultural thing maybe, but for those of us, it’s easier to let ourselves do so than artificially act like something must either be perfect or trash. We can just say “Oh, this is that. I like this part but not that part. Cool!” and feel like we put it all out there.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
SeanLuke 3y ago
We are debuggers by nature. It's a (bad) force of habit.
madengr 3y ago
[dead]
a_rabid_squid 3y ago
Fun fact, the first popular modern breadboards with power supplies and switches and stuff we use today were $1,300 in 1974 dollars, so ~$9,855 today accounting for inflation. Also, I’m the guy who made this and you’re absolutely spot on. I’m constantly working on making this better and cheaper as time goes on. It’s totally open source so I hope people will write firmware to do the things they want with it and share it with others who want to do that thing as well.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I've been watching your project from inception and I think you're on to something, keep doing this and you'll definitely go places. Also: I'd suggest contacting the Adafruit people, they're right in your sweet spot and may have both good product ideas around what you're doing and a massive audience and market. On top of that they're nice.