Kicad is a wonderful program. Learning curve is bit sharp though. I was wondering it will be great if there is a way to provide a bread board for quick prototypes like in TinkerCAD. After spending a lot of time, I created my own bread board in kicad but they don’t work quite the same as in TinerCAD.
What is Tinkercad and what would be the relationship (that you seek) between the breadboard and the software? The breadboard that you show does not resemble anything other than a breadboard. In other words, it does not resemble any purpose-specific pcb design.
Breadboard that can let users place and connect components with ease, before they design the final PCB.
TinkerCAD bread board:
@Nick_Ray
You could always set your grid to 0.1 inch and draw a graphic line to represent the extremities. The dots could represent the holes and use thin tracks or graphic lines of various colors to represent jumpers… just some thoughts if you like the constraints imposed by bread-boarding or using that matrix pre-etched and drilled board.
I’ve posted a few times about making BreadBoards and PerfBoard so won’t repeat here except to say you can make the Board as OP shows above but, can add a 3D-Model to the Footprint that more reasonably represents something on your workbench…
This particular 3D of BreadBoard is a Low-Height version
Shown below with Chip and LED’s…
The basic purpose of Kicad is to make printed circuit boards. Between metric and imperial it is even getting harder to put stuff on a breadboard for the stuff that you can still get onto one. I bought relays that won’t fit my imperialistic breadboard.
Bottom line is that this is probably too niche for the developers to worry about at this point. Especially since there are other products out there.
I agree - sort of… But, I’m sure you, too, have experimented and have done a few ‘What if’ concepts. Sure, many don’t pan out as we hope.
Playing around with ideas is what Engineers do, you know that.
I’m reminded of the time I was told you can’t do that. Nonetheless, I did it - the first Electromechanical Thrust-Vector Control System to successfully reach orbit. If I had listened to others, well, you get the idea. It’s the “…worry about…” part and follow-on action that separates the wheat from the chaff…
it won’t surprise me to someday see Kicad having some BreadBoard functionality and it’s user’s interest (I suspect) that will help motivate Coders to consider what they code…
See all that stuff flying into space these days? Where do you think that came from?
My point is that we are losing the ability to breadboard whether we want to or not. A manufacturer’s last concern is ‘will it fit on a breadboard’.
Must be nice to work with bigger toys. 
I’ve used 3 pin sections of 0.1" headers for a SOT-23. You can solder two pins directly to the header, and use a short wire for the third pin.
I’ve also made my own breadboard friendly parts such as a LM7805 solered to a 2x3 header for more mechanical stability and a small heatsink already attached.
When working with TO-220 MOSfets on breadboards it’s a good idea to add small TVS diodes directly between the gate and source.
I have used breadboards quite a lot, but I have never liked the pictures of breadboards with the colored wires. Those wires do not mean anything to me, and you do not learn anything from those pictures. You can’t even see whether those wires are correct. On the other hand, some circuit is quite easy to build on a breadboard if you have the schematic. The schematic also gives meaning to what a circuit does and how things are connected.
But overall, things are more going in the direction shown below, and that is indeed not going to play well on a breadboard. 
Simulation may end up being the best/only option in the not too distant future. 
He, he, been there, done that, along with the occasional burnt finger. 
Breadboarding is the main reason I keep all my old THT small components.
The OP started with a suggestion for “virtual” breadboard and stripboard. I cannot quite see a purpose for a virtual breadboard.
The Schematic, PCB, 3D & Simulation are all brilliant uses of virtual with a computer, but placing virtual components on a virtual breadboard only to then transfer those to real components on a real breadboard I think is just wasted effort.
Stripboard is a good idea as a virtual product. It is a good way to plan the position of components, track cuts and solder/wire bridges. JMHO.
VeeCad supports various strip board layouts and imports KiCad net lists. Its also FOSS software. Might be worth a look for this sort of software rather than trying to (ab)use KiCad to achieve this.
Are you quoting that, or it was you who worked on that?
The ‘amateur’ telescope making group had NASA people on it. Once when the general question ‘what was the most difficult thing you had to design baffles for’ one list member dropped, ‘The LEM because of the high contrast environment’. You kinda knew from context in other posts this guy knew his stuff, but I think I broke my jaw when it hit the floor on that one.
It is nice to know some peoples background here and it explains why it is so hard to keep things Kicad focused sometimes. You KNOW the knowledge is right here.
I think this should be my last post. I simply do not qualify or deserve to write posts in the same forum as you do.
Congratulations on your work. It would be super amazing to read or hear to all the stories you probably have in your backpack
Thanks!
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
