Busboard Prototype Systems has created this funky little pattern on their single-sided solder breadboards that quite useful. Instead of simple left/right extensions to pads, this design brings pins from both sides of an IC to a common side… and more. We came up with five handy ways to use the Zig-zag protoboards, including:

• Gather all pins from an installed IC to one edge of the board (makes for an easy ribbon-cable attachment!)
• Use extra pad pins to add debug or breakout headers between chips connections
• Super-easy twinning/buffering signals across multiple chips (think teaming up LED or motor drivers like a team of horses!)
• Simple fanning out of signals to multiple ICs
• Easy multiplexing of signals from microcontrollers to external dataflow control chips

It’s a bit daunting to see the board up close, but see our convenient usage examples for how to best use a Zig-zag board!

Specifications:

• Board Size Factor 2: 100 x 80mm (3.94 x 3.15″), 1.6mm (1/16″) thick
• Single-sided 1oz/ft²copper FR4 circuit boards (lead free and RoHS compliant)
• Soldermasking for easy pad identification and solder control
• 2.54mm (0.1″) spaced 0.94mm (0.037″) holes, ideal for IC leads or square post headers
• 31 x 38 hole pattern, with 62 separate BusBoard traces