In this tutorial, we will tell you about the various types of the breadboard, how it is going to use for constructing circuits. These artciles covers solderless breadboards, copper-clad bare printed circuit boards, and vector boards
Solderless Breadboards
The breadboard is a solderless construction base used for developing an electronic circuit and wiring for projects with microcontroller boards. Currently, there are two types of solderless breadboards in the market including smaller size and larger size, all the breadboards are allowed to be expanded by connecting the same pieces. The images shown below gives an idea about how this breadboard looks like
Small 30 columns solderless breadboard.
Larger sized solderless breadboard with 60 columns .
We can start with 30 columns breadboard, in each column are numbered from 1 to 30 and have two sets of 6 rows marked from a to f and g to i. Each column is connected from rows a to f and rows g to i in the upper portion of the breadboard.
Columns above the upper portion of a to f and below the g to i are independent and not connected to any of the other columns in the breadboard. Those columns are marked with red and blues lines indicate red for the positive terminal and blue for the negative terminal.
When goes to 60 pin breadboard rest of the above details are same except its an extended version of 30 columns breadboard.
Quality is an important factor while purchasing a breadboard for your maker space. A high-quality solderless breadboard where the wells or holes are clear and allow for easy insertion of wire leads from electronics components such as resistors, capacitors, etc.
You can order boards that are made by well-known online platforms like amazon, digikey etc.
Power Rails in the breadboard
Along with numbering and letters, there are positive and negative signs marked on the top and bottom side of the breadboard and along with that marking blue and red color, strips are going. These points are used to connect the external power supply, batteries to the breadboard.
However, rails on either side are not connected so if you need more mins in power rails you can connect them both with jumper wires to establish the same power source on both sides. Keep note that you can connect the positive end of one side with the positive side of the other, and the negative side of one with the negative side of the other.
How to connect a battery to Breadboard
Connect the battery packs red wire to +ve bus and connect the black wire to the –ve bus
A quick tip: Generally breadboards can handle a power of 5v at 1 A buts it’s recommended to keep it below 0.5A for safety purposes. the power limits vary depends on the manufacturer’s specifications, locally-made board doesn’t have any datasheet for reference if purchased from Digikey, SparkFun you will get the power details for the datasheet
Other Boards
If you are making an analog circuit that going to use higher frequency you may go with a copper-clad board instead of breadboards, it’s safer and sounds good in terms of power rating.
To use these copper cad boards, you need to design circuits in eagle or kicad and use the simple and cheap method named the Iron box method to make the pc, drill holes and assemble components.
You can also by the perforated boards with fiberglass, its quire expensive board in the market but it withstands more compare to phenolic types board that are cheaper in market
