How to use a solderless breadboard for building electronic circuits

 Solderless breadboard is a convenient way of testing out prototype electronic circuits. It is also a good educational tool. There are sets of 5 clips within the holes on either side of the central notch. They are the active terminals used for mounting electronic components. Each set in a row are connected to each other.


The columns on the left side of the notch are named A, B, C, D, E and those to the right side are named F, G, H, I, J. These are the terminal strips. The notch provides for air circulation and cooling when Dual-in-line pin Package Integrated Circuits (DIP IC) are inserted in such a way that one set of pins go into column E and the other set goes into column F. In a full sized breadboard, the rows are numbered 1 to 65. Breadboards can be connected to each other to form a larger breadboard using the dovetail connectors on the side.

The columns on either side of the named ones are the bus strips to provide power supply. One of these can serve as the ground terminal. The other column can be used for the supply voltage.

In this breadboard, consecutive 25 terminals in a column of the bus strip are connected to each other electrically.

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