@Amos:
I am no expert but I think this is how it works:
- You use a breadboard to prototype the circuit, make sure everything works
- Then, you either:
- solder everything on a generic PCB (included in the bundle),
- or solder everything on a daughter board, specifically designed for this circuit,
The custom daughter board option will give a more compact device, but you have to design and make (etch) it.
Yep, following the instructions on Pocketmoon's blog you can breadboard the design first if you're keen to try it out, but obviously the chunk of breadboard can be quite 'large' for head mounting
The design on my website can be downloaded and etched onto some copper board if you want to home-brew. I did a batch and we distributed what was left to some guys in the Alpha forum to check it all worked. The final "pro" boards are just commercially fabricated ones, so much much neater and higher quality, and should be with us fairly soon I believe - Dead Fred is arranging that.
Provided you're ok with a soldering iron, these "daughter boards" that will marry the Arduino and the MPU dev boards together will be by far the simplest and neatest approach (short of a fully fabricated, dedicated surface mount design - which I'm working on but would be a pretty serious piece of commercial fabrication if it ever saw the light of day, and not something one could really "DIY" without a lot of experience).
The prototyping board that Hobby Components give you is a middle-ground step really - more permanent than breadboard, not as compact or neat as the daughter board design.