Electronics Basics: Prototyping using breadboards

Dec 17, 2020

An introduction to breadboards for electronics prototyping: how the rows of holes connect under the surface, how the power rails work, and when to solder.

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In this image you can see a simple circuit with a battery, a resistor and a LED.

Simple circuit with blue battery, LED, and resistor connected on white breadboard with glowing blue LED

The elements are displayed inside a tiny white box called breadboard:

Small white breadboard with rows of holes arranged in a rectangular grid pattern

The breadboard has 17 sets of 5 interconnected elements on one side, and 17 sets of interconnected elements on another side.

Small white breadboard with rows of holes arranged in a rectangular grid pattern

Under the surface, the 5 holes in a set are connected with each other, so we can easily create electric connections.

This is a tiny board useful for simple prototyping.

This is a bigger board:

Large white breadboard with extensive grid of holes and red and blue power rail markings along the edges

The principle is the same, and we have more elements on the outer border, the ones wrapped inside the red and blue lines:

Close-up view of breadboard showing red and blue power rail lines with numbered connection points

In this case the items are connected longitudinally, orthogonally to the 5-elements sets in the inside of the board:

Breadboard with blue jumper wires inserted showing how power rail connections run lengthwise

They are used to connect the positive and negative poles of the battery (or any other power source) to the board, so your elements on the board have easy access to them.

It’s common to use red wires for the + positive pole and black wires for the - negative pole:

Breadboard with red and black jumper wires connected to power rails demonstrating positive and negative connections

You typically prototype a circuit using a breadboard:

Complex electronics prototype with blue microcontroller board connected to breadboard via colorful jumper wires

and once you’re ready to move on you can solder it into a perforated board.

Tagged: Arduino · All topics

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