Breadboard

Applied Electricity & Electronics Lab

 The Breadboard
This presentation will:
Explain what a breadboard is.
Identify reasons for using a breadboard.
Review the guidelines and tips for proper bread
boarding.

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 What is a Breadboard?
A breadboard, sometimes called a proto-board, is
a reusable platform for temporarily built
electronic circuits.

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 How A Breadboard Works
Electric component leads Top View
and the wire used to
connect them are inserted
into holes that are arranged
in a grid pattern on the
surface of the breadboard.
A series of internal metal Cut-Away View

strips serve as jumper

wires. They connect
specific rows of holes.

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Buses

Groups of 5

Groups of 5

Buses
The front side of a Breadboard
Buses

Group
of 5
The back side of a Breadboard

Metal strips

Metal strips
 The Breadboard
What You Dont See:
Two rows of short isolated
vertical strips (70 single strips
Horizontal strip of Horizontal strip of per row) of copper wire
copper wire. copper wire.

Horizontal strip of Horizontal strip of

copper wire. copper wire.
Breadboard Connections
How the groups and buses work

Continuity
No continuity

Continuity

Nocontinuity
No continuity
Series circuit

1 kW

560 W

470 W
Parallel circuit (with a common mistake)

470 W 560 W 1 kW
 Why Breadboard?
1) It takes less time (and money) to breadboard
a circuit than to design and fabricate a
printed circuit board (PCB).
Because of the cost, a PCB should be
reserved for the final working design.
2) As a complement to circuit simulation,
breadboarding allows the designer to see
how, and if, the actual circuit functions.

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 Why Breadboard?
3) Breadboards give the designer the ability to
quickly change components during
development and testing, such as swapping
resistors or capacitors of different values.
4) A breadboard allows the designer to easily
modify a circuit to facilitate measurements of
voltage, current, or resistance.

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Breadboard: Guidelines and Tips
Use as few jumper wires as possible. The breadboard
should be used to make the majority of the
connections between the components.
Keep jumper wires as short as possible. A jumble of
wires is difficult to troubleshoot.
Breadboard a circuit so that it looks as close as
possible to the layout of the schematic circuit. This
makes troubleshooting easier.

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