Power Your Breadboard With USB

I am writing this Instructable because I´ve got a lot of questions about my little USB-powersupply for my breadboard and a lot of request to write an instructable about it. I needed a new one anyway because my old one died because of a cat with sharp teeth.

I think that it is safe to say that most of the people who make (big or small) electronics-projects have a pc or laptop in theire hobbycorner and a lot of projects need 5V for IC's or microcontrollers. So using power from a USB cable isn't that farfetched and lets face it: a lot of devices around us use a USB-connection to get their power or to charge their batteries.

For this Instructable you can use any USB-connector you like (or you can even cut the cable and solder the wires) but I will use a B-type. The pins always have the same function for all types of connectors.

 

Pin#	Color Cable	Function
1	Red	Vcc (5V)
2	White	Data-
3	Green	Data+
4	Black	Ground

Voltage = 5V
max Current = 500mA

 

In this Instructable we will make a very simple power supply with only the USB-connector and a power-on led. But you can add whatever you fancy such as a power on/off switch or or a regulator to get 3,3V (fused or not) or........

So for this Instructable we need:

• USB B connector
• Some headerpins
• An LED
• A 150Ohm resistor
• Something to hold the lot together
• soldering iron and solder

Please be careful when soldering. Children should always work under adult supervision!

Soldering everything together is actually very easy.

• Connect the led with pin1 (Vcc) of the USB-connector and then connect it to pin4 (ground)  with the resistor inbetween.
• Connect pin 1 with one pin of the headerpins and pin 4 with the other.
• I soldered another pair of pins to the board but they are not connected. They just give some extra stability when connected to the breadboard.