Bread board etc.

There are "white solderless breadboards". They can be okay for stuff like audio op amp circuits, blinking LEDs, and MCU projects using small, slow chips such as PIC-16 or ATmega, which still come in DIP packages.

Trouble is, they have a lot of stray capacitance between rows (~ 2 pF iirc, which is about 10x worse than a PC board), a lot of stray inductance (10-20 nanohenries per row, not counting the long floppy wires) and no ground plane.

That makes it difficult to get higher-speed circuits working.

Once you've been using the breadboard awhile, the contacts become flaky, leading to hard-to-debug problems.

On the other hand, it's easy to change stuff and see what happens.

Forty years ago, when I was a teenager, I built myself a box with dual tracking power supplies and a white plastic breadboard on top of it. Worked fine. Never did build anything on it, though--I switched to dead bug style and have never looked back.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

With solderless breadboards you usually end up debugging the breadboard, the interconnections and the parasitics.

It is almost always better to use dead bug, live bug, manhattan, or any of the other techniques where you solder components together in an ad-hoc fashion.

Done properly, the results can be good, robust and a good indication of how a circuit would work if make on a PCB. Indeed, often for one-offs it is unnecessary to actually make a "proper" PCB.

I looked up dead bug on an electronics site but found nothing.

Where do I find them ?

I have some empty boards with letters on the top along with multiple holes. And 4 solder tabs on each end.

Could not really figure out how to use it. Looks like it would be easy to short stuff out using it ?

Andy

Andy

before soldering?

solderless breadboards are what you should use:

You see 2 columns of holes on each side, all the holes in each column are c onnected to each other. The column with the red line usually gets connected to +5 volts and the blue column goes to ground. Then you see rows of 5 holes. Each of those holes are connected. Insert your resistors and stuff in the holes. Everything plugged into the h oles of one row are the connected. Get an ohm meter and check it out.

Does that make sense? Keep posting if you need help.

Here is an example:

YOU make the 'dead bug'...

Sounds like some sort of solderless breadboard, you insert wires and components in the holes, once you figure out which way the connections run...like these:

Hope that helps! Welcome to the looney bin...

John :-#)#

If you want to be able to disassemble it and re-use the parts, wire wrap can perform better than a breadboard. I don't know how the parasitics compare but the connections won't be loose.

Nowadays parts are so cheap, and decent sockets so expensive, that wire wra p doesn't make much sense, ISTM.

A loopstick coil for an AM radio cost me a week's allowance BITD.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Why not solder? Simulate first, maybe.

You can do nice hand-built circuits on copperclad FR4.

That last one got shipped to a customer.

What sorts of circuits are you considering?

Well the sockets can be re-used too. And parts can be expensive when you're young.

That's what I mean. I only had lunch money, so I went without lunch for months at a time.

So with the FR4, would I scratch around areas I did not want to connect with others?

I would like to keep my soldering iron plugged in.

Is their a circuit I can make where I can set the time from 10 minutes to 1 hr and then have the power shut down? That way I minimize burning out my tip if I forget to unplug it.

Soldering iron is 30W.

Andy

There are also soldered breadboards. Of course having a small solderless one is a good idea for a lot of the kind of stuff you might do, as long as you're aware of the main issues. Low frequency only, and beware of worn out contacts.

it before soldering?

azsan0dr_e

connected to each other. The column with the red line usually gets connect ed to +5 volts and the blue column goes to ground.

holes of one row are the connected.

It makes sense. I will order one and experiment.

Andy

Thanks.

It looks like a Solder-less Breadboard with the copper on the back would be easier than the one with the jumper wires.

I could not find a place that sells them ?

Andy

You probably need a Dremel for that. Scratching it with a sharp hand tool would make it hard to get the right width of the gap, and since it would look messy it might be hard to tell if the cut is complete and not shorted. Also it would be easy to accidentally rip a big piece of foil off.

The fire hazard is more important than the tip. Just unplug it. A timer is more trouble than it's worth. It would cut off when you're in the middle of using it.

Solderless with copper sounds like a contradiction in terms. I don't know what you're refering to. Maybe you mean perforated boards that must be soldered, not solderless. In that case look at DigiKey.com

Anyway DigiKey and Mouser are probably your best sources. DigiKey has a lot of perforated prototype boards.

BangGood has a $20 oscilloscope (only 200kHz but it's useful until you can get a better one) and other nice kits. They also have cheap tools like a Dremel knock-off which you'll need to make boards like John Larkin's examples.

But if money isn't too tight, get a real Dremel. It'll probably last longer. It has so many uses you'll wonder how you lived without it. Wear safety goggles because they do sometimes spew schrapnel.

I do it successfully with an "X-Acto" knife. An ohmmeter is useful for telling when the cut is complete. ;-)

Get an iron with an automatic shut off.

soldering iron 25W, solder for electronics with flux core. And if you're feeling luxurious, a wet bit of cellulose sponge or denim to clean the tip on.

Yes, white press-in breadboards, but almost none of us use or recommend them. I'd recommend the circuit boards with a matrix of holes, a copper pad at each hole. Insert parts, solder, then solder wire on as your tracks. Very cheap from China.

There are also various PCB-less ways to make things. I still remember once making a product as a hairball as a teenager, the parts were just all soldered onto each other! There are better ways than that :)

NT

You have several options:

Dremel (don't scratch) isolated regions.

Dead bug: glue IC's face down and wire them up.

Live bug: mount them rightside up, maybe using surface-mount adapters. Or bend DIP leads out horizontal, glue the parts down, wire. Or bend some leads out and solder others to ground.

We use a twist timer.

Dremel with a carbide dental burr. They are cheap on ebay.