How to Use Solderless Breadboards

Author: Wayne Eggert
Date: 09/19/2009

Introduction:
In this tutorial I'll explain what electronic breadboards are, how to use them and why you should be ashamed for not having at least one in your electronic arsenal yet!  We'll learn how breadboards are layed out, some of the types of breadboards that exist, and how to wire up a simple circuit on a breadboard.

What is a Breadboard?
Breadboards are to the field of Electronics what calculators are to the field of Mathematics -- you don't *need* to use a breadboard, but like a calculator it certianly makes getting to the solution quicker.

Let's first take a look at what breadboards are not..

Not Electronic Breadboards

Okay, now that we got that sillyness out of the way and you've realized the "bread board" in your kitchen isn't going to cut it, here are some electronic breadboards:


Electronic "Solderless" Breadboard

See the resemblance to the kitchen breadboard?  Me neither..

Solderless breadboards like those pictured above are used to connect electronic components together.  There's no soldering involved, just spring-loaded clips that are electrically connected throughout the breadboard and allow you to build circuits by simply pushing components into tie points (the little holes in the photos above).  Some breadboards will have letters at the top and bottom of the columns and numbers beside the rows.  These aren't absolutely needed, but useful when you have complicated circuits that take up much of the board and make it hard to tell if you're in the right row/column when you're connecting components on the board.

As you can see in the photos above, breadboards come in many different sizes.  When you're looking to purchase a breadboard they will usually say something like "800 tie points" and that usually also gives a good indication of the size of the breadboard if you're  buying online without a picture. You don't need every size breadboard, but having a few smaller ones for little projects and a large breadboard (like the middle photo above) allow you to work on multiple projects at once.

Lets see how breadboards work..

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