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How to Use a Breadboard

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Introduction

Breadboards are one of the most fundamental pieces when

learning how to build circuits. In this tutorial, you will learn a little bit
about what breadboards are, why they are called breadboards, and
how to use one. Once you are done you should have a basic
understanding of how breadboards work and be able to build a
basic circuit on a breadboard.

Suggested Reading

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Here are some tutorials and concepts you may want to explore
before learning about breadboards:

V,C,R, and Ohm’s Law

What is a circuit

Working with wire

Reading Schematics

Common Connectors

How to Use a Multimeter

History

If you wanted to build a circuit prior to the 1960s, chances are you
would have used a technique called wire-wrap. Wire wrap is a
process that involves wrapping wires around conductive posts
attached to a perfboard (a.k.a. a protoboard). As you can see, the
process can get rather complex very quickly.Although this method
is still used today, there is something that makes prototyping much
easier, breadboards!

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A wire-wrap circuit (image courtesy of Wikipedia user Wikinaut)

What’s in a Name?

When you picture a breadboard in your head, you may envision a

big piece of wood and a large loaf of freshly baked bread. You
wouldn’t be too far off either.

Bread on a breadboard

So why do we call this electronic “circuit builder” a breadboard?

Many years ago, when electronics were big and bulky, people
would grab their mom’s breadboard, a few nails or thumbtacks, and
start connecting wires onto the board to give themselves a platform

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on which to build their circuits.

Circuit on an “original” breadboard (image courtesy of mischka and

their awesome literal breadboard tutorial)

Since then, electronic components have gotten a lot smaller, and

we’ve come up with better ways to connect circuits, making moms
all over the world happy to have their breadboards back. However,
we are stuck with the confusing name. Technically, these are still
breadboards, but this discussion is going to be on modern,
“solderless” breadboards.

Why Use Breadboards?

An electronics breadboard (as opposed to the type on which

sandwiches are made) is actually referring to a solderless
breadboard. These are great units for making temporary circuits

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and prototyping, and they require absolutely no soldering.

Prototyping is the process of testing out an idea by creating a

preliminary model from which other forms are developed or copied,
and it is one of the most common uses for breadboards. If you
aren’t sure how a circuit will react under a given set of parameters,
it’s best to build a prototype and test it out.

For those new to electronics and circuits, breadboards are often the
best place to start. That is the real beauty of breadboards–they can
house both the simplest circuit as well as very complex circuits. As
you’ll see later in this tutorial, if your circuit outgrows its current
breadboard, others can be be attached to accommodate circuits of
all sizes and complexities.

Another common use of breadboards is testing out new parts, such

as Integrated circuits (ICs). When you are trying to figure out how a
part works and constantly rewiring things, you don’t want to have to
solder your connections each time.

As mentioned, you don’t always want the circuit you build to be

permanent. When trying to duplicate a customer’s problem,
SparkFun’s Technical Support team will often use breadboards to
build, test, and analyze the circuit. They can connect the parts the
customer has, and once they’ve gotten the circuit setup and figured
out the problem, they can take everything apart and put it aside for
the next time they need to do some troubleshooting.

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A circuit built on a solderless breadboard

Anatomy of a Breadboard

The major features of a Breadboard

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The best way to explain how a breadboard works is to take it apart

and see what’s inside. Using a smaller breadboard it’s easier to see
just how they function.

Terminal Strips

Here we have a breadboard where the adhesive backing has been

removed. You can see lots of horizontal rows of metal strips on the
bottom of the breadboard.

A SparkFun Mini Breadboard from the top (left) and the same
breadboard flipped over with the adhesive back removed (right).

The tops of the metal rows have little clips that hide under the
plastic holes. These clips allow you to stick a wire or the leg of a
component into the exposed holes on a breadboard, which then
hold it in place.

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A single strip of conductive metal removed from the above

breadboard.

Once inserted that component will be electrically connected to

anything else placed in that row. This is because the metal rows are
conductive and allow current to flow from any point in that strip.

Notice that there are only five clips on this strip. This is typical on
almost all breadboards. Thus, you can only have up to five
components connected in one particular section of the breadboard.
The row has ten holes, so why can you only connect five
components? You’ll also notice that each horizontal row is
separated by a ravine, or crevasse, in the middle of the
breadboard. This ravine isolates both sides of a given row from one
another, and they are not electrically connected. We’ll discuss the
purpose of this in just a bit, but, for now, just know that each side of
a given row is disconnected from the other, leaving you with five
spots for components on either side.

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An LED inserted into a breadboard. Notice how each leg of the LED
is placed on either side of the ravine. This prevents the connections
to the LED from being shorted.

Power Rails

Now that we’ve seen how the connections in a breadboard are

made, let’s look at a larger, more typical breadboard. Aside from
horizontal rows, breadboards usually have what are called power
rails that run vertically along the sides.

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A medium-size breadboard with the adhesive back removed to

expose the power rails.

These power rails are metal strips that are identical to the ones that
run horizontally, except they are, typically*, all connected. When
building a circuit, you tend to need power in lots of different places.
The power rails give you lots of easy access to power wherever you
need it in your circuit. Usually they will be labeled with a ‘+’ and a ‘-’
and have a red and blue or black stripe, to indicate the positive and
negative side.

It is important to be aware that the power rails on either side are not
connected, so if you want the same power source on both sides,
you will need to connect the two sides with some jumper wires.
Keep in mind that the markings are there just as a reference. There
is no rule that says you have to plug power into the ‘+’ rail and
ground into the ‘-'rail, though it’s good practice to keep everything in
order.

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Two jumper wires used to connect the power rails on both sides.
Always attach the ‘+’ to ‘+’ and the ‘-’ to ‘-’.

DIP Support

Earlier we mentioned the ravine that isolates the two sides of a

breadboard. This ravine serves a very important purpose. Many
integrated circuits, often referred to as ICs or, simply, chips, are
manufactured specifically to fit onto breadboards. In order to
minimize the amount of space they take up on the breadboard, they
come in what is known as a Dual in-line Package, or DIP.

These DIP chips (salsa anyone?) have legs that come out of both
sides and fit perfectly over that ravine. Since each leg on the IC is
unique, we don’t want both sides to be connected to each other.
That is where the separation in the middle of the board comes in
handy. Thus, we can connect components to each side of the IC
without interfering with the functionality of the leg on the opposite
side.

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Two DIP ICs, the LM358 (top), a very common op-amp, and the
ever-popular ATMega328 microcontroller (bottom).

Rows and Columns

You may have noticed that many breadboards have numbers and
letters marked on various rows and columns. These don’t serve
any purpose other than to help guide you when building your circuit.
Circuits can get complicated quickly, and all it takes is one
misplaced leg of a component to make the entire circuit malfunction
or not work at all. If you know the row number of the connection you
are trying to make, it makes it much simpler to plug a wire into that
number rather than eyeballing it.

These are also helpful when using instruction booklets, such as the
one found in the SparkFun Inventor’s Kit. Many books and guides
have circuit diagrams for you to follow along while building your
circuit. Just remember that the circuit you’re building doesn’t have
to be in the exact same location on the breadboard as the one in
the book. In fact, it doesn’t even have to look similar. As long as all
the electrical connections are being made, you can build your
circuit any way you’d like!

Binding Posts

Some breadboards come on a platform that has binding posts

attached to it. These posts allow you to connect all kinds of different
power sources to your breadboard. We’ll cover these more in the
next section.

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Other Features

When building your circuit, you are not confined to stay on just one
breadboard. Some circuits will require a lot more space. Many
breadboards have little nubbins and slots on the sides, and some
even have them on the tops and bottoms. These allow you to
connect multiple breadboards together to form the ultimate
prototyping surface.

Four SparkFun mini breadboards connected together.

Some breadboards also have an adhesive backing that allow you to

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stick them to many different surfaces. These can come in handy if

you want to attach your breadboard to the inside on an enclosure or
other project case.

*Some larger breadboards will often isolate one half of the

breadboard’s power rails form the other half (think top and bottom
half, not the sides). This is convenient if you have two different
voltages with which you need to power your circuit, such as 3.3V
and 5V. However, if you’re unaware whether the power rials are or
aren’t isolated, it can often lead to issues while building your circuit.
It’s always a good idea to use a multimeter to check for the
absence or presence of continuity in your breadboard’s power rails.

Providing Power to a Breadboard

When it comes to providing power to you breadboard, there are

numerous options.

Borrowing from Other Power Sources

If you are working with a development board such as an Arduino,

then you can simply pull power from the Arduino’s female headers.
The Arduino has multiple power and ground pins that you can
connect to the power rails or other rows on a breadboard.

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Connecting the Ground (GND) pin from an Arduino to a row on a

mini breadboard. Now any leg or wire connected to that row will
also be connected to Ground.

The Arduino usually gets its power from the USB port on a
computer or an external power supply such as a battery pack or a
wall wart.

Binding Posts

As mentioned in the previous section, some breadboards have

binding posts that allow you to connect external power sources.

The first step to using the binding posts is to connect them to the
breadboard using some jumper wires. Although it would seem that
the posts are connected to the breadboard, they are not. If they
were, you would be limited to where you could and couldn’t provide
power. As we’ve seen, breadboards are meant to be totally
customizable, so it would make sense that the binding posts are no
different.

With that, we have to connect wires to the posts in order to connect

them to the breadboard. To do that, unscrew the post until the hole
going through it is exposed. Slide the stripped end of your jumper
wire through the hole, and screw the post back down until the wire
is firmly connected.

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Typically, you only need to connect a power and ground wire from
the posts to the breadboard. If you need an alternate power source,
you can use the third post.

Now your posts are connected to the the breadboard, but there is
still no power. You can use many different methods to connect
power to the posts, and, thus, to the breadboard.

Benchtop Power Supplies

Many electronics labs have benchtop power supplies that allow you
to provide a wide range of voltage and current to your circuit. Using
a banana connector you can provide power from the supply to the
binding posts.

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A breadboard being powered through the binding posts from

banana cables.

Alternatively, you could use alligator clips, IC hooks, or any other

cables with a banana connection to hook your breadboard up to a
number of different supplies.

Another method of using the binding posts is to solder a barrel jack

to some wires, and then connect them to the binding posts. This is
a more advanced technique, and it requires some intermediate
soldering skills.

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The barrel jack is soldered to two wires that share the same holes
on the binding posts as the wires going to the breadboard. If your
breadboard doesn’t have binding posts, you could just plug the
wires from the barrel jack directly into the power rails.

Breadboard Power Supplies

Yet another method for powering your breadboard is to use one of

the many breadboard power supplies available. SparkFun carries a
number of kits and boards that you can use to plug power directly
into your breadboard. Some allow you to plug a wall wart directly
into the breadboard. Others allow you to pull power directly from
your computer via the USB connections. And, almost all of them
have the capability to adjust the voltage, giving you a full range of
the common voltages needed when building circuits.

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A SparkFun USB Breadboard Power Supply that pulls power from

your computer’s USB and has the option to choose between 3.3V
and 5V.

Building Your First Breadboard Circuit

Now that we’re familiar with the internals of a breadboard and how
to provide power to them, what do we do with them? We are going
to start with a simple circuit.

What You’ll Need

Here is a parts list to follow along with this circuit. If you have other
electronic bits and pieces, feel free to use them and change the
circuit up. Remember, there is often more ways than one to build
any given circuit. Some even have dozens of different ways that
you can build them.

This wish list assumes you don’t have any parts/tools and is
generous with quantities etc. For example, you only need one LED
for this project, but the pack listed has 20 LEDs in it. The same is
true with the hook-up wire. You don’t need that much (or all those
colors), but if you keep playing with circuits, it could come in handy.
If you don’t want the higher quantities check the bottom of the
product pages in the section called “Related Products” and you
should be able to find smaller quantities. Also, the breadboard
power supply doesn’t have headers, if you know how to solder and

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have the tools, solder the headers on yourself. If not, solderless

headers have been included in the wishlist as well.

Build the Circuit

Here is a small circuit on a breadboard.

A simple circuit, involving a button, an LED, and a resistor, built two

different ways.

The red board you see a Breadboard Power Supply, which supplies
5V to the power rails when it is connected to a 9V wall wart.

The circuit goes as follows:

There is a wire connecting the 5V power rail to the positive,

anode leg of an LED.

The negative, cathode leg of the LED is connected to a 330Ω

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resistor.

The resistor is then connected to a button.

When the button is pushed, it connects the circuit to ground

completing the circuit and turning on the LED.

Circuit Schematics

We cover how to read a schematic in another tutorial. However, it is

a very important part of building circuits, so it will be covered here
in short.

Schematics are universal pictograms that allow people all over the
world to understand and build electronics. Every electronic
component has a very unique schematic symbol. These symbols
are then assembled into circuits using a variety of programs. You
could also draw them out by hand. If you want to dive deeper in the
world of electronics and circuit building, learning to read schematics
is a very important step in doing so.

Here we have a schematic for the above circuit. Power (5V) is

represented by the arrow at the top. It then goes to the LED (the
triangle and line with arrows emitting out of it). The LED is then
connected to the resistor (the squiggly line). That is connected to
the button (the latch-looking symbol). Last the button is connect to
ground (the horizontal line at the bottom).

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This may seem like a funny way to draw a circuit, but it is a

fundamental process that has been around for decades.
Schematics allow people from different nationalities and languages
to build and collaborate on circuits designed by anyone. As
mentioned, you can build a circuit in many different ways, but, as
this schematic shows, there are certain connections that must be
made. Diverging from this schematic will give you an entirely
different circuit.

Practice Makes Perfect

The last bit of knowledge to leave you with is that there are tons of
resources and programs you can use to build circuits without
having to actually use your breadboard. One very common program
used by SparkFun is Fritzing. Fritzing is a free program that allows
you to build your own circuits on a virtual breadboard. It also
provides schematic views for all the circuits you build. Here we can
see the same circuits as above built using Fritzing.

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Notice that the green lines indicate to which rows and columns
each component is connected.

There are many other programs like Fritzing. Some are free, and
some are paid. Some will even allow you to build a circuit and test
its functionality through simulations. Go explore the internet, and
find the tools that work best for you.

Resources and Going Further

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what a

breadboard is and how it works. Now the real fun begins. We’ve
barely scratched the surface of building circuits on breadboards.
Here are some other tutorials you can check out to learn more
about components and how to integrate them into your breadboard
circuits.

Resistors

Capacitors

Diodes

LEDs

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Shift Registers

Integrated Circuits

Educators may be interested in these links.

Building Giant Breadboards

Using the SIK to Teach Breadboard Circuits

Or, if you have mastered your circuit building skills and want to
move to the next level, check out these tutorials.

How to Solder

Solderable Breadboard Hookup Guide

PCB Basics

Electronics Assembly

How to use Eagle the PCB Layout Editor

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