Electronics Cookbook

Chapter 20. Construction

20.0 Introduction

This chapter deals with practical techniques for making solderless prototypes and then building more durable versions of them.

20.1 Create Temporary Circuits

Problem

You want to construct a circuit quickly and easily without having to do any soldering.

Solution

Using a solderless breadboard (Figure 20-1) is a great way to temporarily build an electronic design because you can easily swap out different components without having to desolder (Recipe 20.6). Once the design is right it can be transferred either to a prototyping board (Recipe 20.2) or a circuit board of your own design (Recipe 20.3).

Breadboards are available in many shapes and sizes. I recommend having a good supply of 400-point breadboards (often called half-breadboards) as these are a great size to accommodate a couple of chips and a whole load of components. For those situations where you need more prototyping area breadboards can be clipped together.

Figure 20-1. A Selection of Breadboards

Figure 20-2 shows how a 400-point breadboard is constructed of rows of five holes, all connected together by a clip. Note that there is a break in connectivity between “abcde” and “fghij.”

The “supply rails” in pairs down the sides of the board are all connected together and can be used for any purpose, but generally the ones marked in blue or with a “–” next to them are used for ...