Bread Boards: Explained.

 

Bread Boards:

                Breadboards are used to prototype circuits. If you've got a starter kit with your Arduino or Raspberry Pi you probably have one. They come in many sizes for the most part the standard large size and slightly smaller size. The bigger bread boards have lines running all the way down the longest side which are known as the power rails. This is because you can plug your microcontroller or power supply into them to provide power to the components. On the inside running perpendicular to these are the component lines and these are where you place your components. This is where you can build your circuit. Smaller bread boards work exactly the same as the larger ones though they don't have the power rails running down. On each side by flipping over a breadboard and pulling off the backing, you can see how they work. These pieces of metal run all the way along the board and connect all of the components together that you need. If you were to pull out one of the metal lines on your breadboard, you will see that there are all small metal crimps that are designed to grab the legs of the components. This is why they're so useful. It means you can make circuits without having to rely on learning how to solder or using a soldering iron and it's very easy to prototype things quickly. One of the feature of the breadboard that you'll see is that down the middle there is a channel and this channel is a specific size and for a specific reason. The reason is that it's there is because many integrated circuits or chips comply to a standard called dual inline packages. For example, if we have an l293d motor IC that is designed for driving motors in a circuit, it fits perfectly over that little channel.

                You're wondering why this plastic device that you have that helps you make circuits is called a breadboard. It harks back to the history of DIY electronics when people also wanted to prototype quick circuits but they didn't want to have to get soldering iron out or anything like that. What they would do is they'd get an actual breadboard from their kitchen and they would use that with their components along with some screws or some nails or some thumbtacks to make quick circuits just to test things out or learn about electronics. So that is in brief what a breadboard is and what you can use one for.

                                                                                                                                                              

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