These techniques involve fastening the components and wires to some structure providing a secure mechanical location (such as a phenolic or fiberglass board with holes drilled in it, much like a breadboard without the intrinsic spring-clip connections), and then attaching wires to the secured component leads. Those spring clips have a small contact area, and thus cannot support high currents without excessive heating.įor greater permanence, one might wish to choose soldering or wire-wrapping. Also, breadboards are limited to fairly low-current (less than 1 amp) circuits. If you pick up a breadboard, turn it upside-down, and shake it, any components plugged into it are sure to loosen, and may fall out of their respective holes. First and foremost, they are intended for temporary construction only. For example, the three-resistor circuit just shown could also be built on a breadboard like this:Ī parallel circuit is also easy to construct on a solderless breadboard:īreadboards have their limitations, though. The result is an extremely flexible platform for constructing temporary circuits. Thus, when a wire or component lead is inserted into a hole on the breadboard, there are four more holes in that column providing potential connection points to other wires and/or component leads. The connection pattern joins every five holes along a vertical column (as shown with the long axis of the breadboard situated horizontally): These metal spring clips are joined underneath the breadboard face, making connections between inserted leads. Underneath each hole in the breadboard face is a metal spring clip, designed to grasp any inserted wire or component lead.

A photograph of a real breadboard is shown here, followed by an illustration showing a simple series circuit constructed on one:

A more common method of temporary construction for the hobbyist is the solderless breadboard, a device made of plastic with hundreds of spring-loaded connection sockets joining the inserted ends of components and/or 22-gauge solid wire pieces.

This technique, however, proves impractical for circuits much more complex than this, due to the awkwardness of the jumper wires and the physical fragility of their connections. Using a Solderless Breadboard for More Complex Circuits

Simple breadboard circuits