Track 9: Getting the Fish Back Together

Plug-in breadboards are convenient for prototyping, but there’s no chance that this mess is ever going to fit back inside the Billy Bass enclosure:

A breadboard and a mess of wiring connected to two halves of a Billy Bass

As a temporary measure, I decided to extend the JST connectorised cables out of the rear of the enclosure, then mount the breadboard between the legs of the stand.

I had a couple of JST XH cable extenders handy from previous projects, where they were used for extending the balance port of LiPo batteries. I ordered a couple more to make up the set—overall, we need two 2-wire cables, one 4-wire and one 6-wire. I drilled a hole in the rear of the fish, since the cables wouldn’t quite fit comfortably through the existing wall-mounting holes, then passed the cables through.

Inside rear of Billy Bass with four short cable extenders passing through a hole

These cables could then be connected up inside:

Two halves of an open Billy Bass with existing cabling attached to cable extenders

The fish could then be reassembled as it originally was.

Outside rear of Billy Bass with four short cable extenders passing through a hole

The breadboard is then a “convenient” fit between the legs of the stand:

Rear view of Billy Bass with a messy breadboard underneath it

“Convenient” is in quotes there because this arrangement does make it difficult to access the switch and impossible to change the batteries. However, when necessary it can be slid sideways and removed from its normal position. It is, however, still quite fragile.

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