Taking the ESP32 Off the Breadboard

There is a point where a breadboard prototype stops feeling temporary and starts feeling unnecessarily cramped. For me, that point usually arrived as soon as I added an ESP32.

Most ESP32 development boards are wide enough to consume nearly all the useful space across a standard breadboard. Once the board is installed, only a single row of connection points may remain accessible on either side. The ESP32 technically fits, but every jumper wire becomes a small routing problem and the breadboard has very little room left for the circuit it was supposed to hold.

The usual workaround is to bridge the ESP32 across two breadboards. That restores access to the pins, but it also doubles the footprint and allows the development board to dictate the shape of the entire prototype. What began as a simple test circuit quickly becomes a wide collection of breadboards, jumper wires, and loosely positioned modules.

After fighting with that arrangement one too many times, I started with a different question: what if the ESP32 did not need to occupy the breadboard at all?

Close-up of an ESP32 mounted beside a breadboard on a blue DIN-rail carrier, with USB and Dupont wiring connected.

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The breadboard is carrying the wrong thing

A breadboard is most useful when its rows are available for the circuit being explored. Resistors, sensors, level shifters, driver components, and temporary connections all need somewhere to go. A wide development board consumes that space before the experiment has really started.

Using two breadboards solves the electrical-access problem, but not the physical-layout problem. The controller remains in the middle, USB access competes with jumper wires, and every additional module extends the arrangement in another direction. It works, but it becomes difficult to move, revisit, or keep assembled.

The problem was not the ESP32 or the breadboard. It was asking one surface to hold both the controller and the circuit.

Move the controller, not the circuit

The ESP32 DIN-mount prototyping system moves the development board off the breadboard and mounts it alongside the prototyping area. Dupont connectors can be fitted only to the ESP32 pins the circuit actually uses, then routed to a separately mounted breadboard or prototyping board.

This separates two jobs that are normally forced into the same space. The printed mount holds the controller and keeps its headers accessible; the breadboard is free to hold the circuit. The ESP32 can stay connected over USB while the experimental wiring remains visible and replaceable.

The mount also turns the controller into one module within the prototype rather than the object everything else must be arranged around.

A rail instead of a pile

DIN rail is useful here because it gives otherwise temporary parts a shared physical reference. The pieces can still be moved, replaced, or expanded, but they no longer need to balance on the desk as a loose chain of breadboards and cables.

That makes the system useful in the space between a quick experiment and a finished enclosure. A circuit can remain easy to change while becoming structured enough to move, store, demonstrate, or continue developing later.

What this changes

Moving the ESP32 away from the breadboard provides a few practical advantages:

• The ESP32 no longer consumes most of the breadboard's usable rows.
• USB, buttons, headers, and connected pins remain accessible.
• Breadboards and modules can be arranged around the circuit instead of around the controller.
• Larger prototypes can grow by adding DIN-mounted modules rather than rebuilding the entire layout.
• A successful experiment can remain assembled without becoming a loose pile of boards and jumper wires.

The intention is not to make breadboarding permanent or turn every experiment into an electrical cabinet. It is to preserve the flexibility of breadboard prototyping while giving the physical arrangement a little more structure.

The initial system

The first release includes mounts for a 26 mm-wide, 30-pin ESP32 development board, breadboards, 20 × 40 and 20 × 80 prototyping boards, and Ethernet ports. Support for other development-board formats can follow the same modular approach without changing the rest of the rail.

Together, these parts create a foundation that can expand as a project moves from a quick experiment toward something more substantial. The breadboard remains temporary. The layout no longer has to be accidental.

Model files

The printable parts, complete gallery, and current model revisions are available on Printables.