Lead time as short as two weeks from campaign end. See manufacturing and fulfillment sections below for more details.

BreadShield is a shield that maps Arduino pins to breadboard ties without jumper wires. It inserts into both of them, firmly bridging them together mechanically and electrically.

What problems it solves

Many projects start with connecting an Arduino and a breadboard using jumper wires. But jumper wires can easily become too many to manage, forming a mess of spaghetti that is difficult to trace and debug. To disconnect the breadboard temporarily or to swap it, you have to undo and rewire it. This can lead to errors if you forget how the board was wired in the first place. And most importantly, since the sockets are occupied by jumper wires, you cannot use any shield boards!

Too mamy jumper wires can lead to a messy project that is hard to manage.

Shields and jumper wires cannot co-exist in one project.

Introducing BreadShield:

The Arduino shield for breadboards

Like you, we have suffered enough. One day we asked, what if all of those messy jumper wires could become one shield? So BreadShield was born. BreadShield maps standard Arduino Uno R3 pins to one row of pins that can be inserted directly into a breadboard.

BreadShield connects an Arduino Uno with an HD44780 LCD with only 1 jumper wire, instead of 11 parallel jumper wires above.

BreadShield Benefits

• Have major Arduino pins on your breadboard instantly
• Swap between breadboards swiftly
• Never worry about messed up connections
• No more tracking back-and-forth between the Arduino and the breadboard

No more choosing between shields or breadboards

You no longer have to make a choice between using existing shields and using a breadboard - with BreadShield, you can use both! And you can stack the shields as high as you want.

BreadShield Pinout

Click for full-size image.

BreadShield vs. Jumper wires

BreadShield can be used in countless projects, thanks to the popularity of both Arduino and breadboards. It can even work with other hardware that is Arduino-compatible, such as HiFive1 Rev B.

Take a look at a few examples below. Aren’t the ones on the right tidier?

Connecting Arduino Uno to a HD44780 display, in jump wires. vs. in BreadShield

Connecting Arduino Uno to two servo motors, in jump wires. vs. in BreadShield

Connecting Arduino Uno to a row of LEDs, in jump wires. vs. in BreadShield

Connecting Arduino Uno to an integrated circuit chip, in jump wires. vs. in BreadShield.

Auto-alignment of headers for easy soldering

Keeping the stackable headers upright is always a challenge when soldering an Arduino shield. It’s not a problem for BreadShield, which is the first shield that automatically aligns the header. We’ve carefully tuned the diameter of the pad holes to be slightly bigger than the pins’. Once inserted into the holes, the headers will stand up straight, or perpendicular to the shield, automatically. Since they remain in position (thanks to the friction) you don’t need to hold them using tools like a "third hand" or a "helping hand". Just solder.

Auto-alignment of headers for easy soldering.

Comparison

BreadShield is Open Hardware

Front and back of BreadShield v0.3 in KiCAD. Click for full-size image.

We will make our Github repo public with all design files, and our thoughts in interating the prototypes, as soon as the campaign concludes. So help us reach our goal! The world needs BreadShield.