Breadboards - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 09:45:51 am
content: For breadboards I buy about 3 times more than I need and throw them out after a couple of uses.As soon as you use pin headers on a cheap bread board it's done for.I often buy one from each of the larger suppliers on ebay or amazon. Test them, pick the one I like and then order that one until it disappears.The current one is the Amazon special with the split power rails. While moderately annoying, and I have run out of all my premade 2 hole hook up wires joining them, they do actually make good contacts, at least initially.As breadboards and breadboard brands shift and switch it would be nice to have a sticky thread type thing were people give up to date recommendations for breadboard sources.Sure, we can all go to an actual electronics distributor like RSComponents or Farnell/CPC and buy "gauranteed" breadboards for £30-100 each.How many of us are going to do this however? Possibly the professionals who can stick it on a PO and hope to get it approved. The rest of us are spending single figures on breadboards.There are gems out there. Ben Eater found a good brand. Now it's out of stock everywhere except for scalpers.Any up to date suggestions on breadboards you swear by?

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 10:15:57 am
content: Ben Eater uses the BusBoard brand:https://eater.net/breadboardsI have a few breadboards I bought when there were still local brick and mortar stores. (20+ years ago). I do not do many projects, and these still work satisfactory.I've also bought some from Aliexpress. and with both sources, some you throw away after the first attempt to use them, others are good enough to get the job done, even the cheap chinese versions.About a year ago I bought a new scope, and also added one or two BusBoard BB830's to the order. Now they cost EUR10 a piece.https://www.eleshop.nl/busboard-bb830-breadboard-5221.htmlQuality is indeed better as of all the other breadboards I have. Wires are a bit easier to insert, and the holes align better with the contacts underneath them. But the difference is not very shocking. I only did some brief tests and have not used them for projects yet, so no extensive review.I also never had problems with headers (0.6 to 0.65mm square pins) on my bread boards.I also measured some "dupont wires" and they also have a similar thickness.I never use very thin wires in breadboards though. The thinnest I put in my breadboards is bare IC's. I just measured them, those pins are 0.23mm thick, but the breadboard clamps them over their width, and that is 0.48mm.I also use quite a lot of solid wire on my breadboards, especially for short connections, and the wire I use has a 0.72mm diameter, so that would be 0.4 square mm.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 10:20:49 am
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 09:45:51 amYou can always use a longer jumper.Suggestion: Switch to solderable breadboards. As for anything effectively unbranded from Amazon, Ali, etc. there is nothing one can say that applies to what someone else ordering the same thing will get. In my experience, connecting the two rails on solderless breadboards is as reliable as any other connection.If you switch to solderable, I suggest switching to 24 awg with heat resistant insulation like Kynar or its generic.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 11:29:12 am
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on May 28, 2025, 10:20:49 amI hear ya. One thing that put me off "prototype esk" was that I learnt from "Great Scott" on YouTube. So I learnt the pain staking art of using 5Amp fuse wire neatly bent into 90 degree angles to layout the circuit on the rear of the board. However it's also f'ing tedious and I got sick of burning myself.I did get so annoyed I grabbed the insulated hookup wire instead. But as you point out, basic PVC, et.al. insulation just rapidly melts up the wire and you still get burnt..., just a sticky plastic burn instead. You grab it with the micro needle nose pliers and think, "Ha! I got it". Until you pull the pliers away and the whole insulation peels off and comes with it.Heat resistent insulated hook up wires may be the solution there. In fact others on the same project journey as I have done exactly this. A back board of birds nests of heat resistant hookup wire.From my RC high current days I would jump towards silicon insulation, but I'm not sure about 24/26AWG silcon wire.Breadboards I use for "proofing circuits". When I have the schematic for, say, a reset circuit (to prevent false boots) which will hold reset low on power up for a period of time so that the CPU is actually fully energised when it actually triggers on the clock the first time.I put it on the schematic and it will go onto a PCB print sooner or later, but I have no idea if it works. I got it off ChatGPT, so it's likely at least partly wrong, although it did produce an actual circuit picture from an actual manual, so I might get lucky. However, as I will be running VERY slow clocks at first, I do need to breadboard this out and scope it to see if it does what it's supposed to do and doesn't have an action of 0.1micro-seconds when I need an action of 0.5seconds.Once I know a circuit works, I usually move straight to PCB prototyping.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 11:42:44 am
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on May 28, 2025, 10:15:57 amDupont are a whole other "cheap = bad" thing. The bundles you buy from China with 200 dupoints assorted in length and gender are basically "Single insertion". Two if you are lucky. They are like lake flies. Born, bonk, die.I learnt this repeatedly when putting them onto MCU programmers and gluing them together to create custom headers for the MCUs and programmers. I was very proud. Each and every time though they would become unreliably, make poor connections and end up in the bin.Someone here posted a link to more "offical" Dupont cables from a proper distributor and while they cost a relative arm and a leg, they had a datasheet which specified tens of thousands of insertions.It all comes down to materials. For many things "generic steel" or "generic aluminium" is great. For others the material science matters.In the case of both breadboards and Dupont the property in question is the materials elasticity, plasticity and its memory effect. "Generic" steal or random alloys just wont work.... more than once or twice.Breadboards are hard to insert because the metal is not elastic enough. When you splay them open with a large square pin header they are too "plastic" and do not fully recover to their original shape. In dupoints the little retainer spring tab just gets bend down flat the first insertion. Like engine headbolts, they are single use as a result.Where I have had more success, if the "steel pin" hook up wires. The ones with the very sharp, very stiff pin, a little rubber booty to help you hold it and hten basic 26AWG wire. These have the stiffness to open any flute, but dont open it much at all.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 12:00:54 pm
content: If you switch to Kynar (generic: polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)) you will never want to switch back to PVC. I got mine from OK Industries when it was independent. It's been acquired by Jonar and is not the same. This is an example of the original. Note, you can solder right next to it without burning. See the almost overlapping wires. I've even had them more densely packed than that. JohnEDIT: More recently, I got some for half the price from AliExp, and it seems identical to what I got from Jonar and returned (Amazon). Both brands (OK Industries/Jonar and no brand from Ali) were a tiny bit thinner, and the yellow is translucent rather than opaque. The red version is opaque.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:04:24 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 09:45:51 amSolderless breadboards are indeed crappy and unless you are anexpertand know exactly what you are doing they cause many frustrating and time-wasting problems. Fortunately there are fast, simple, cheap alternatives ways of creating reliable prototypes.https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2020/07/22/prototyping-circuits-easy-cheap-fast-reliable-techniques/notes good/bad properties, historical techniques, and good modern prototyping techniques and products.https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2024/03/16/practical-traps-with-a-one-transistor-audio-amplifier-solderless-breadboards-and-oscilloscopes/shows a surprising example of how solderless breadboards can trip up even experienced people.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:06:39 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 28, 2025, 02:04:24 pmPutting the OSC probe in the wrong row, but the adjacent row and then debugging why my clock signal looked like it got dragged through a hedge.... although that taught me a lot.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:08:07 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 02:06:39 pmEven after correcting such trivial cockups (which we've all done), solderless breadboards are still problematic. Read the references given.

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:15:27 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 09:45:51 amI don't know about the UK, but in the US the BusBoard BB830 is available on both Amazon and Digikey. $8.75.I have a collection of them, and they work fine. The power rails are continuous.But I need better Dupont jumpers. Ben Eater probably makes his own.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:51:21 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on May 28, 2025, 02:15:27 pmAll the ones I have come with plenty of free inductance. What more do you want?

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:10:58 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 28, 2025, 02:51:21 pmAt no extra charge?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:38:52 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on May 28, 2025, 03:10:58 pmAbsolutely free, and they didn't even bother to mention it. But why would they; it is simple physics, 1nH/mm being the rule of thumb

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:44:45 pm
content: What I'm also getting is a lot of free capacitance when the jumper wire doesn't quite make a connection with the crimped pin. They don't charge for that either.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:47:20 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 09:45:51 amNot a sticky thread, but a long thread about breadboards and several cheap ones (towards the end) is:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3m-breadboards-for-cheap/

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:59:04 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on May 28, 2025, 03:44:45 pmJust so.They also throw in a variable resistor, and sometimes a not very sensitive microphone

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 06:30:50 am
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 11:29:12 am”Not sure” in what regard? I got a whole assortment of 24AWG silicone, mostly from AliExpress, and it’s great. Some brands of silicone wire have more “memory” than others, i.e. “take a set” and retain bends: the ones with more memory are better for board wiring, internal wires, etc, while the ones with less memory are better for test leads.I don’t see any reason not to use it for prototyping.Another type of insulation I really like is irradiated polyolefin*; it too completely resists melting (even direct contact with the soldering iron). I dont know of any brands that are widely available worldwide, but in Europe I know of two companies that make it: Helukabel’s Helutherm 145, and Huber+Suhner’s Radox 125 and Radox 155. (In all three products, the number is the temperature rating in °C.) The insulation is a tad stiffer than normal PVC, but in addition to the heat resistance, they’re also easy to strip, and they all have nice, tight stranding that doesn’t fray the instant you strip it, so they’re also really nice for crimping.I’ve been meaning to order some TE Spec 44 (irradiated polyalkene** inner layer, irradiated Kynar outer layer) and Spec 55 (irradiated Tefzel) wires, which I’ve heard are really nice, too.*<rant> I wish wire and heatshrink manufacturers would specifywhichpolyolefin they use when they say “polyolefin”, since the word refers to a very broad group of polymers. Wire and heatshrink clearly use a narrow subset of them, and I’d love to know what exactly. The most common polyolefins in general are polyethylene and polypropylene, but “polyolefin” wire and heatshrink don’t look or behave anything like PE or PP, irradiated or not, so I’m pretty certain it’s not those. At work, almost everything I use needs to be evaluated for chemical compatibility, so knowing exactly what I’m dealing with is more than a little helpful…</rant>** apparently “olefin” and “alkene” are synonyms, so polyalkene is polyolefin. But I don’t know if it’s the same polyolefin as in Helutherm and Radox.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 06:33:19 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on May 28, 2025, 03:47:20 pmWhat’s sad is that A.S. eventually raised its prices significantly, eroding much of the savings. They’re still a bit cheaper than buying 3M ones from a distributor, but not the massive savings it once was. I regret not having bought more of them before that gravy train dried up.

author: Zenith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 09:29:38 am
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 09:45:51 amSeems a bit extreme and it must work out dear. Wouldn't it be better to buy a 3M or similar in the first place? I have the same two breadboards I've been using for the past 30 years. This was before AliExpress came along with some very cheap and nasty offerings, and outright fakes. They came from a mainstream supplier and weren't particularly cheap. I don't know whether they are 3M.My general view of solderless breadboards is that they are great, as long as you don't have more than about a dozen components, don't use long trailing wires, and expect them to have a lot of parasitic capacitance.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 09:31:52 am
content: Quote from: Zenith on May 29, 2025, 09:29:38 am... and inductance, which is often more problematic than capacitance.

author: tatel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 01:21:21 pm
content: https://www.tme.eu/en/katalog/universal-pcbs_100110/?art=WBU-502L&page=21https://www.kandh.com.tw/electronic-training-equipment-and-breadboard-accessories.htm

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 03:15:23 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on May 28, 2025, 02:15:27 pmI have made a bunch myself, by dismantling PCB headers with square pins, solering wires between them, adding a tiny bit of hot glue and then put shrink tube over the ends. It takes quite a lot of time to make these, but they can be used for years.I don't like the kits with pre-bent wires, because the flat wires on the BB form obstructions for too many other holes. I do have a quite good stipping pliers (from AMP) and when I make jumper wires, I bend them in approximately a half circle. So not flat on the PCB, but also a lot less sloppy then the "dupont" wires which are too long and I don't like the wiring mess.

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 03:23:11 pm
content: For (semi) permanent prototypes, I quite like using lacquered "enameled" wire. You can solder it without stripping the wire first (but you do need a hot iron). This system has also been used for many years. Mike used the "Roadrunner" system 30 years ago, and those PCB's probably still work.I put a bit more work into it, and put the wiring on the same side as the (THT) parts, This keeps the wiring far away from the soldering iron. I've never had big problems with shorts in the wiring. It is quite reliable, and I have some DIY projects which I built this way running for 20 years and still going strong.I do not like the tight bundles of wires. This adds capacitive coupling. It's better to spread the wires around a little bit.

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 05:03:44 pm
content: I guess I should mention that when you've successfully tested your circuit, and are ready to make a permanent soldered version, you can either lay out a board and order it from China, or, you can keep these in stock:https://www.ebay.com/itm/265276759831

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 05:45:43 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on May 29, 2025, 06:30:50 amI'm also frustrated by not knowing which of the many olefins are used in cross-linked polyolefin heat-shrink tubing. The 3M Regulatory Data Sheet quotes over a page of what isnotcontained therein.https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSu9n_zu8l00xl82vlxmSMv70k17zHvu9lxtD7xt1evSSSSSS-

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 06:22:56 pm
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on May 29, 2025, 03:15:23 pmI bought a crimper and a full set of bits. Originally I figured I could then order a strip of genuine metal innards. Never have ..yet.DuPont and JST headers.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 08:49:22 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 29, 2025, 05:45:43 pmHahah! Well it’s good to know, I guess, that they don’t contain nuts, gluten, flavorings, GMOs, asbestos, human or animal tissues, or radioactive compounds!