How to Breadboard with Integrated Circuits

One of the great things about solderless breadboards is that they are made to accept Integrated Circuits for prototyping. If you are not sure what integrated circuits are, don't worry about it, we'll cover them later.

See the groove down the middle of the breadboard? That's to separate the top rows of 5 from the bottom rows of 5. Straddle that groove with the integrated circuit as shown below.

How to Make it Permanent

Once you have your circuit layed out the way you like it, you can make it permanent in a protoboard. There are many different protoboards out there in many different sizes. One of our favorites is from www.futurelec.com, and is called the protoboard 777 for $1.50.

The thing we love about this protoboard is that the copper traces on the bottom (in the photo) are very similar to a solderless breadboard. Plus, there are rows of two holes connected all the way around the perimeter of the board.

The way that you use a protoboard is you place the components in the top. The top is the side without copper. Place components one at a time. You can hold them in place with tape, or hot glue. Then flip the board over and solder each component pin in place. Then make connections on either the top or bottom with short wires, solder in place. Here are some examples of what protoboard circuits can look like. These are not particularly good examples, they are just a couple of random examples.

And here is what the bottom can look like. Again, not a particularly good example.

This type of wiring is called point to point wiring. Point to point wiring is generally fast to assemble, but slow to debug and repair. Most people start with point to point wiring, and it is a very common circuit assembly technique.

Conclusion

In this guide we introduced the solderless breadboard and wire kits. If you are interested in learning electronics, these are two of the first things that you should purchase. After you have created a circuit that you want to make permanent, then move it to a protoboard, like the protoboard 777.