I am building a tool that will help bring software developers further into the fold of electronics. When I am simulating a circuit on breadboard, I notice, as the complexity of the circuit increases, I have to manually manage a mess of peripheral components and wiring. To solve this problem, I want to build a device that augments the breadboard to replace peripheral components and wire with programmatic internal components. On top of this function, I want the device to route each pin to all other pins, so I can reconfigure and check all pins of the same value simultaneously with high level software interfaces, using arduino. I also want to download and share my designs with other developers without having to document or illustrate the arrangement and configuration of components.

What do you think of this idea? Could you imagine yourself using it? How much would you be willing to pay for it?

Renders: http://imgur.com/a/CDVLD

 

Is it simulation or actual hardware implementation? If the latter, how do you connect each pin to every other pin with proper isolation and low resistance? If the former, how is it different from currently available simulation programs?

If it provided true hardware implementation without wired connections and if the hardware was not limited to s few simple things like switches, it could be quite useful. Of course, it would have to allow the user to use whatever micro he chose. As for price, at least $200 and probably more.

John

 

The device operated by an optionally included micro.