Switch Board Hack
From Abdotcom
Ok, so i often find myself needing to adapt say.. my plantronics headset (3 pin mini jack) to my desktop computer mic input.. or.. i need to adapt my headphones to work with my headset.
I've created countless modules to do these tasks, but the jacks are expensive and the time spent soldering on something i'm gonna use infrequently is a waste.
So i created a bit of a solution. My brother, being the electrical engineer dork that he is, had an old prototyping breadboard laying around. If you're not familiar, these things are useful in that you can connect wiring, resistors, switches, lights, etc up to a modular board in order to prototype stuff without permanently sticking it together. So you can debug before you start printing circuit boards.
Combine that with my jack connections and you get the portable switchboard:
With this baby i can connect my ipod, laptop and headset mic together in to all kinds of input and output configurations. All ya need to do is reorder the traces inside and you can reconfigure its function on the fly. (you could also add switches, resistors, leds.. whatever. just like any other breadboard)
How To
Coming soon
Links to Parts
- Small Breadboard (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F002%5F002%5F000&product%5Fid=276%2D175) (probably just right for an altoids tin)
- Larger 6 inch Breadboard (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F002%5F002%5F000&product%5Fid=276%2D174) (I dremeled one of these to fit.)
- Jumper Wire Kit (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F002%5F002%5F000&product%5Fid=276%2D173) I used these both for the leads soldered to my audio jacks and to configure the breadboard.
- I can't seem to find the 1/8th inch jacks and 3/32 inch jacks i used.. but they're at every radio shack i've ever been in.
