Breadboard

This article is about the device used in electronics prototyping. For the device used in optics labs,
see optical breadboards. For the food preparation utensil, see Cutting board.

A solderless breadboard with a completed circuit

This 1920s TRF radio manufactured by Signal is constructed on a wooden breadboard

A breadboard (protoboard) is a construction base for a one-of-a-kind electronic circuit, aprototype.

In modern times the term is commonly used to refer to a particular type of breadboard,
the solderless breadboard (plugboard).

Because the solderless breadboard does not require soldering, it is reusable, and thus can be used
for temporary prototypes and experimenting with circuit design more easily. Other, often historic,
breadboard types don't have this property. This is also in contrast to stripboard(veroboard) and
similar prototyping printed circuit boards, which are used to build more permanent soldered
prototypes or one-offs, and cannot easily be reused. A variety of electronic systems may be
prototyped by using breadboards, from small analog and digital circuits to complete central
processing units (CPUs).

A binary counter wired up on a large solderless breadboard

The hole pattern for a typical etched prototyping PCB (printed circuit board) is similar to the node pattern of the
solderless breadboards shown above.

Contents

• 1 Evolution

• 2 The solderless breadboard

o 2.1 Typical specifications

o 2.2 Bus and terminal strips

 2.2.1 Diagram
o 2.3 Jump wires

o 2.4 Inside a breadboard: Its construction

o 2.5 Advanced solderless breadboards

o 2.6 Limitations

• 3 Alternatives
1. Evolution
In the early days of radio, amateurs would nail bare copper wires or terminal strips to a wooden
board (often literally a board for cutting bread) and solder electronic components to them. [1].
Sometimes a paper schematic diagram was first glued to the board as a guide to placing terminals,
then components and wires were installed over their symbols on the schematic. Using thumbtacks or
small nails as mounting posts was also common.

Over time, breadboards have evolved greatly, with the term being used for all kinds of prototype
electronic devices. For example, US Patent 3,145,483[2], filed in 1961 and granted in 1964, describes
a wooden plate breadboard with mounted springs and other facilities. Six years later, US Patent
3,496,419[3], granted in 1970 after a 1967 filing, refers to a particular printed circuit board layout as
a Printed Circuit Breadboard. Both examples also refer to and describe other types of breadboards
as prior art.

The now common, classic, usually white, plastic pluggable (solderless) breadboard, illustrated in this
article, was designed by Ronald J Portugal of EI Instruments Inc. in 1971[4].

2.The solderless breadboard

2.1 Typical specifications
A modern solderless breadboard consists of a perforated block of plastic with numerous tin
platedphosphor bronze or nickel silver alloy[5] spring clips under the perforations. The clips are often
called tie points or contact points. The number of tie points is often given in the specification of a
solderless breadboard.

The spacing between the clips (lead pitch) is typically 0.1" (2.54 mm). Integrated circuits (ICs) indual
in-line packages (DIPs) can be inserted to straddle the centerline of the block. Interconnecting wires
and the leads of discrete components (such as capacitors, resistors,inductors, etc.) can be inserted
into the remaining free holes to complete the circuit. Where ICs are not used, discrete components
and connecting wires may use any of the holes. Typically the spring clips are rated for 1 ampere at
5 voltsand 0.333 amperes at 15 volts (5 watts).
2.2 Bus and terminal strips

Logical 4-bits adder where sums are linked to LEDs on a typical breadboard.
Example breadboard drawing. Two bus strips and one terminal strip in one block. 25 consecutive terminals in a bus
strip connected (indicated by gaps in the red and blue lines). Four binding postsdepicted at the top.
Close-up of a solderless breadboard. An IC straddling the centerline is probed with anoscilloscope probe. The
solderless breadboard is mounted on a blue painted metal sheet. Red and black binding posts are present. The black
one partly obscured by the oscilloscope probe.

Solderless breadboards are available from several different manufacturers, but most share a similar
layout. The layout of a typical solderless breadboard is made up from two types of areas, called
strips. Strips consist of interconnected electrical terminals.

terminal strips
The main area, to hold most of the electronic components.
In the middle of a terminal strip of a breadboard, one typically finds a notch running in
parallel to the long side. The notch is to mark the centerline of the terminal strip and provides
limited airflow (cooling) to DIP ICs straddling the centerline[citation needed]. The clips on the right
and left of the notch are each connected in a radial way; typically five clips (i.e., beneath five
holes) in a row on each side of the notch are electrically connected. The five clip columns on
the left of the notch are often marked as A, B, C, D, and E, while the ones on the right are
marked F, G, H, I and J. When a "skinny" Dual Inline Pin package (DIP) integrated circuit
(such as a typical DIP-14 or DIP-16, which have a 0.3 inch separation between the pin rows)
is plugged into a breadboard, the pins of one side of the chip are supposed to go into column
E while the pins of the other side go into column F on the other side of the notch.
bus strips
To provide power to the electronic components.
A bus strip usually contains two columns: one for ground and one for a supply voltage.
However, some breadboards only provide a single-column power distributions bus strip on
each long side. Typically the column intended for a supply voltage is marked in red, while the
column for ground is marked in blue or black. Some manufacturers connect all terminals in a
column. Others just connect groups of e.g. 25 consecutive terminals in a column. The latter
design provides a circuit designer with some more control over crosstalk (inductively coupled
noise) on the power supply bus. Often the groups in a bus strip are indicated by gaps in the
color marking.
Bus strips typically run down one or both sides of a terminal strip or between terminal strips.
On large breadboards additional bus strips can often be found on the top and bottom of
terminal strips.

Some manufacturers provide separate bus and terminal strips. Others just
provide breadboard blocks which contain both in one block. Often
breadboard strips or blocks of one brand can be clipped together to make
a larger breadboard.

In a more robust and slightly easier to handle variant, one or more

breadboard strips are mounted on a sheet of metal. Typically, that backing
sheet also holds a number of binding posts. These posts provide a clean
way to connect an external power supply. Several images in this article
show such solderless breadboards.

2.2.1 Diagram
A "full size" terminal breadboard strip typically consists of around 56 to 65
rows of connectors, each row containing the above mentioned two sets of
connected clips (A to E and F to J). Together with bus strips on each side
this makes up a typical 784 to 910 tie point solderless breadboard. "Small
size" strips typically come with around 30 rows. Miniature solderless
breadboards as small as 17 rows (no bus strips, 170 tie points) can be
found. These are more kind of a novelty item than of great practical use.

2.3 Jump wires

The jump wires for solderless breadboarding can be obtained in ready-to-
use jump wire sets or can be manually manufactured. The latter can
become tedious work for larger circuits. Ready-to-use jump wires come in
different qualities, some even with tiny plugs attached to the wire ends.
Jump wire material for ready-made or home-made wires should usually be
22AWG (0.33 mm²) solid copper, tin-plated wire - assuming no tiny plugs
are to be attached to the wire ends. The wire ends should be stripped
3/16" to 5/16" (approx. 5 mm to 8 mm). Shorter stripped wires might result
in bad contact with the board's spring clips (insulation being caught in the
springs). Longer stripped wires increase the likelihood of short-circuits on
the board. Needle-nose pliers and tweezers are helpful when inserting or
removing wires, particularly on crowded boards.

Differently colored wires and color coding discipline are often adhered to
for consistency. However, the number of available colors is typically far
less than the number of signal types or paths. So typically a few wire
colors get reserved for the supply voltages and ground (e.g. red, blue,
black), some more for main signals, while the rest often get random colors.
There are ready-to-use jump wire sets on the market where the color
indicates the length of the wires; however, these sets do not allow applying
a meaningful color coding schema.

2.4 Inside a breadboard: Its construction

The following images show the inside of a bus strip.

inside breadboard 1 inside breadboard 2 inside breadboard 3 inside breadboard 4

inside breadboard 5 inside breadboard 6

2.5 Advanced solderless breadboards

Some manufacturers provide high-end versions of solderless breadboards.
These are typically high-quality breadboard modules mounted on some flat
casing. The casing contains useful equipment for breadboarding, for
example, one or more power supplies, signal generators, serial interfaces,
LED or LCD display modules, logic probes, etc.
 Solderless breadboard modules can also be found mounted on devices
like microcontroller evaluation boards. They provide an easy way to add
additional periphery circuits to the evaluation board.

2.6 Limitations

An example of a complex circuit built on a breadboard. The circuit is an

Intel 8088single board computer.

Due to large stray capacitance (from 2-25 pF per contact point),

high inductance of some connections and a relatively high and not very
reproducible contact resistance, solderless breadboards are limited to
operate at relatively low frequencies, usually less than 10 MHz, depending
on the nature of the circuit. The relative high contact resistance can
already be a problem for DC and very low frequency circuits. Solderless
breadboards are further limited by their voltage and current ratings.

Solderless breadboards usually cannot accommodate surface mount

technology devices (SMD) or non 0.1" (2.54 mm) grid spaced components,
like for example those with 2 mm spacing. Further, they can not
accommodate components with multiple rows of connectors if these
connectors don't match the dual in-line layout—it is impossible to provide
the correct electrical connectivity. Sometimes small PCB adapters called
breakout adapters can be used to fit the component to the board. Such
adapters carry one or more components and have 0.1" (2.54 mm)
connectors in asingle in-line or dual in-line layout. Larger components are
usually plugged into a socket on the adapter, while smaller components
(e.g. SMD resistors) are usually soldered directly onto the adapter. The
adapter is then plugged into the breadboard via the 0.1" connectors.
However, the need to solder the components onto the adapter negates
some of the advantage of using a solderless breadboard.

Complex circuits can become unmanageable on a breadboard due to the

large amount of wiring necessary.
Uses of Breadboard
A breadboard is used to make up temporary circuits for testing or to try out an idea.
No soldering is required so it is easy to change connections and replace components.
Parts will not be damaged so they will be available to re-use afterwards.

Almost all the Electronics Club projects started life on a breadboard to check
that the circuit worked as intended.

The photograph shows a typical small breadboard which is suitable for

beginners building simple circuits with one or two ICs (chips). Larger sizes are
available and you may wish to buy one of these to start with.

Connections on Breadboard

Breadboards have many tiny sockets (called 'holes') arranged on a 0.1" grid. The leads
of most components can be pushed straight into the holes. ICs are inserted across the
central gap with their notch or dot to the left.

Wire links can be made with single-core plastic-coated wire of 0.6mm

diameter (the standard size). Stranded wire is not suitable because it will
crumple when pushed into a hole and it may damage the board if strands
break off.

The diagram shows how the

breadboard holes are
connected:

The top and bottom rows are

linked horizontally all the way
across as shown by
the redand black lines on the
diagram. The power supply is
connected to these rows, + at the
top and 0V (zero volts) at the
bottom.

I suggest using the upper row of the bottom pair for 0V, then you can use the lower row
for the negative supply with circuits requiring a dual supply (e.g. +9V, 0V, -9V).
The other holes are linked vertically in blocks of 5 with no link across the
centre as shown by the blue lines on the diagram. Notice how there are
separate blocks of connections to each pin of ICs.

Large Breaboards
On larger breadboards there may be a break halfway along the top and bottom power
supply rows. It is a good idea to link across the gap before you start to build a circuit,
otherwise you may forget and part of your circuit will have no power!

Building a Circuit on Breadboard

Converting a circuit diagram to a breadboard layout is not straightforward because the

arrangement of components on breadboard will look quite different from the circuit
diagram.

When putting parts on

breadboard you must
concentrate on
their connections, not their
positions on the circuit diagram.
The IC (chip) is a good starting
point so place it in the centre of
the breadboard and work round
it pin by pin, putting in all the
connections and components for
each pin in turn.

The best way to explain this is

Monostable Circuit Diagram
by example, so the process of
building this 555 timer circuit on breadboard is listed step-by-step below.

The circuit is a monostable which means it will turn on the LED for about 5
seconds when the 'trigger' button is pressed. The time period is determined by
R1 and C1 and you may wish to try changing their values. R1 should be in the
range 1k to 1M .

Time Period, T = 1.1 × R1 × C1

For further information please see 555 monostable.

IC pin numbers

IC pins are numbered anti-clockwise around the IC

starting near the notch or dot. The diagram shows the
numbering for 8-pin and 14-pin ICs, but the principle is
the same for all sizes.

Components without suitable leads

Some components such as switches and variable

resistors do not have suitable leads of their own so
you must solder some on yourself. Use single-
core plastic-coated wire of 0.6mm diameter (the
standard size). Stranded wire is not suitable because it will crumple when pushed into a
hole and it may damage the board if strands break off.

Building the example

circuit

Begin by carefully insert the

555 IC in the centre of the
breadboard with its notch or
dot to the left.

Then deal with each pin

of the 555:

1. Connect a wire
(black) to 0V.
2. Connect the 10k Monostable Circuit on Breadboard
resistor to +9V.
Connect a push switch to 0V (you will need to solder leads onto the
switch)
3. Connect the 470 resistor to an used block of 5 holes, then...
Connect an LED (any colour) from that block to 0V (short lead to 0V).
4. Connect a wire (red) to +9V.
 5. Connect the 0.01µF capacitor to 0V.
You will probably find that its leads are too short to connect directly, so put in a
wire link to an unused block of holes and connect to that.
6. Connect the 100µF capacitor to 0V (+ lead to pin 6).
Connect a wire (blue) to pin 7.
7. Connect 47k resistor to +9V.
Check: there should be a wire already connected to pin 6.
8. Connect a wire (red) to +9V.

Finally...

• Check all the connections carefully.

• Check that parts are the correct way round (LED and 100µF capacitor).
• Check that no leads are touching (unless they connect to the same
block).
• Connect the breadboard to a 9V supply and press the push switch to
test the circuit.

If your circuit does not work disconnect (or switch off) the power supply and very
carefully re-check every connection against the circuit diagram.