How to Use a Breadboard to Prototype a Circuit Board

Many people take up a hobby with electronics from an interest in amateur radio, TV or other types of electronics. The progression may lead to designing custom circuits. To test and refine a circuit they can be prototyped on a breadboard. A breadboard allows you to build, test and refine the circuit without the trouble and expense of full production of the circuit on a printed circuit board. Read on to learn how to use a breadboard to prototype a circuit board.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Power supplies for the required voltages
• Required components for circuit
• Connector wires of various lengths
• Breadboard
• Volt meter to monitor signals

1. Design the circuit you need to build on paper and check all values of resistors, capacitors, integrated circuits (ICs) and other components, to make sure that the circuit is going to produce the desired result.

2. Determine the power requirements that you will need for the project. Typically, voltages of +5V, +15V and -15V are needed for most circuits in common use. Based on these voltages, assign power planes to the breadboard. There are four different power planes available on most breadboards. One is reserved for a ground plane.

3. Connect the appropriate power supplies to the assigned power planes and ground to the ground plane. Do this using a single solid core wire of about 18 or 20 gauge copper wire to connect each power supply and ground to the assigned planes on the breadboard.

4. Center the ICs required in the circuit on the breadboard. They should span the main center channel that runs lengthwise on the breadboard. This will provide each pin of the IC with its own set of sockets to make other connections to the rest of the circuit. There will be four available connections for each pin of the IC.

5. Continue to wire the circuit by placing connector wires (short pieces of solid core copper insulated wire with ¼ inch of insulation stripped from each end) or component leads in the available sockets. Remember that each column of sockets connects together and that the columns on the top half of the breadboard are not connected to the column of sockets on the bottom half of the board.

6. Check the entire circuit to make sure that you have put it together exactly as you have designed on paper.

7. Use connector wires to connect the power to the circuit and then switch on the power supplies.

8. Apply the input signal and monitor the output of the circuit for the result.

Tips & Warnings

• Because of the variability of the exact values of the components, you may have to tweak the values of the various components to obtain the exact desired result from the circuit.