Using the Breadboard
(Socket Board)

The bread board has many
strips of metal (copper usually) which run underneath the board.
The metal strips are laid out as shown below.

These strips connect the holes on the top of the
board. This makes it easy to connect components together to build
circuits. To use the bread board, the legs of components are placed
in the holes (the sockets). The holes are made so that they will
hold the component in place. Each hole is connected to one of the
metal strips running underneath the board.
Each wire forms a node. A
node is a point in a circuit where two components are connected.
Connections between different components are formed by putting their legs
in a common node. On the bread board, a node is the row of holes
that are connected by the strip of metal underneath.
The long top and bottom row of holes are usually
used for power supply connections.
The rest of the circuit is built by placing components
and connecting them together with jumper wires. Then when a path
is formed by wires and components from the positive supply node to the
negative supply node, we can turn on the power and current flows through
the path and the circuit comes alive.
For chips with many legs (ICs), place them in
the middle of the board so that half of the legs are on one side of the
middle line and half are on the other side.
A completed circuit might look like the following.
This
circuit is from our Microcontroller Beginner Kit.

We have three sizes of breadboards and jumper
wire sets for sale. Click
here for more information
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This page last updated on August
6, 2004. |