I am not using breadboards often, and now I know why: I was not using them in an effective way. Your video definitely gave me some good tips that I wil put to good use ! Thanks for that, and happy 2024 !

@paulpkae

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for the comment, and happy new year to you!

I have learned more in the last two videos than I did watching prob forty others. Kudos! and thank you

@paulpkae

Ай бұрын

Thankyou. More video on their way, make sure you Subscribe.

For jumpers I mostly use the old telephone installation copper wire, but the one that was used on the street that had 2 or 4 solid copper wires in parallel with a steel tensioning wire. It was once ubiquitous before the fiber optics rollout.

Cool, didn't know there were longer leg versions.

I like the resistor pack idea. I've been using resistor arrays, which do a similar thing but are more expensive and take up more space but are discrete resistors. Which can be good and bad. For LEDs it's bad because you need a bunch more wires. Your method seems a lot nicer. I will have to try that! For some reason I thought the resistor pack/networks were in series, not parallel to the first pin.

@paulpkae

6 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment. I think resistor packs come in varying arrangements, but the vast majority are in parallel to a common pin.

Great video and some good tips, shame about Maplin, we had a store here in Bournemouth, I miss that place. Videos like this that tell us honestly about the quality of stuff are always welcome.

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment. Yes, I miss Maplin too. There is nothing like it left on the high street anymore and we are all forced to buy remotely which has its risks.

For LEDs, especially if most of your projects are 5V or less, you can get special LEDs thst have an integrated resistor from DigiKey or similar vendors. If you look carefully inside the lens you can see a small black speck on the top of the anode wireform. That black speck is the integrated resistor, chosen for safe operation at 5V. I'm not sure how much lower, but at 3.3V you can still see it illuminated. Not sure if the integrated resistor is enough current limiting at the 9V this video is using. Among the sizes they come in is 0.1" pitch. I find these small ones useful on proto boards like Arduino. Hold one I/O pin low and toggle an adjacent I/O appropriately for quick and simple diagnostics. (I first discovered them at a place I worked that used them to keep the BOM count down.)

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment. It may just be me, but I prefer to select my own resistor size and know exactly what's going on. It's a control thing 😁

@Sembazuru

7 ай бұрын

@@paulpkae That's fair. I was just letting you and other people know that those things exist. Your use of resistor networks for LED current limiting is a good pointer for others. Resistor networks are also very useful in digital circuits. If one needs to provide either pull-down or pull-up resistors for a data or address buss they come in really handy. For your audience, it should be said that there are two common types of resistor networks. The type you demonstrated are "Bussed", meaning all the resistors share a common pin. There are also is "Isolated" where none of the resistors in the package are connected. (Those are filter terms to use on sites like DigiKey when ordering them.)

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

@@Sembazuruy thanks again, your comments and sharing knowledge is very much welcomed; handy to know there are Bussed and Isolated types. I recall resistor packs being used on old style "MFM" HDD's back in the 80s to terminate the data chain. You had to remember to fit one to the last drive in the ribbon cable to prevent help alleviate signal reflections.

Thanks !

I hold all my jumper wires in the same place. There is M-M, F-F, M-F and it is hard finding the type I want, I looked if there are different colored 'black housing(the ones at each end of the wire) to buy, that would have been helpful to just look for a green housing at the tip for M-M(ex)(3 colors for each type M-M, F-F, M-F ). I thought to try to color them myself, markers don't look good on black. Metallic paints scratch out. Another idea is to color code a small part of the wires above the black housing. I tried markers they don't look good, and I stopped.(other thoughts: metallic paint may flake off if wire is bent?)(maybe using paper tape? but it may come loose?) Either one big stripe of different colors on the wire, or same color but in segments(1 line M-M; 2 lines F-F; 3 lines M-F)

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Wow. Your pushing "organising" well beyond what I have done. I'm not too fussed about the wire colours, but I do try to keep Black for GND, Red for +V and sometimes I match the colour coding of my four channel scope. For example, I might use channel one, which is Yellow, to monitor an input and channel two, which is blue, to monitor an output stage.

@drawings4896

7 ай бұрын

​@@paulpkae I meant, is hard finding for example Female-Female wire in a pile of Male-Male, Female-Female, Male-Female, I pick one, wrong one(Male-Male), I pick another one, wrong one(Female-Female), etc. If they had the little black rectangle housing(the one that slides on the little metal connector that are at the the tips of the wire, not the wire color itself) at the tips of the wires with different colors, example: Male-Male = green housing (on both sides) Female-Female = yellow housing (on both sides) Male-Female = black housing (on both sides) In that pile of breadboard wires, I could just look at either side of the connector that has yellow housing, and that will be what I was looking for, Female-Female. (if I would want red wire female-female, I would look for yellow housing connector with red wire) (If I would want black male-male wire, I would look for green housing connector with black wire)

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

@@drawings4896 ah OK understood. You could probably add small diameter coloured heat shrink to the ends. Once heated it would form around the plastic perfectly and would not flake or fade over time.

@drawings4896

7 ай бұрын

Thanks, that is a good idea. I will try on the wire above the connector, I think if I put it on the connector it will make it thicker and I think it may not fit when connecting the wires side by side on the breadboard.

Great combo. The ut61e and those propes were my daily driver for the longest time. The ut61e is my only dmm i wont donate. Id donate a fluke first haha

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

I have been very pleased with both the UT61E and the Probe Master probes. I am tempted to buy myself the UT61E Plus version.

@jstro-hobbytech

7 ай бұрын

@@paulpkae the non + has better input protection and does temperature reading. The + drops all that for hfe measurement. People think uni-t is low-end but look at their products line. They make feature rich spectrum analyzer gear and everything. If you notice, they're rarely give out review samples because they know it's quality. I wish they'd pick a meter and have it ul certified. The ut81 has an awesome screen but costs a fortune and had garbage input protection. I'd buy one otherwise.

Generally, I’ve found using 600mil DIP IC packages with these types of breadboards problematic with so many pins wasted under the DIP package. Back in the day 40+ years ago, this style of breadboard was unaffordable to enthusiasts. Thanks for your insights.

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for the comments. I often wonder where my electronics hobby would be now if all this stuff was readily available and affordable when I was a child.

@jstro-hobbytech

7 ай бұрын

@@paulpkae affordable being the big one. I didn't get a guitar until I was 15 and wanted one since I could speak. I never got a decent one until my second year of university because I sold my pc. I've practiced almost every day since and I'm 45. I can shred like a maniac. I'd like to record something while I still can though hahaha.

0:30 Wouldn't it be nice if you could part it horizontally in the middle (maybe adding stripes of different widths) so you could add say a RasPi Pico to the board and still have four holes you could use for connecting on each side of the Pico? Just a thought...

Link to some of the products you were talkinh about?

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching and yes good point. I have added some parts to the comments above. The K&H Breadboard and Jumper Wire kits are no longer available from the suppliers I previously purchased from. If I find some good alternatives, I will update again.

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

By pure coincidence, RS PRO have just emailed me a link to the K&H jump wire kit which I have now also added. They must have noticed me searching for it a couple of days ago.

instead of using specialized jumper wire, im just using wires from stripped scrap wire

No you DON'T throw it in the bin.... Use the flimsy Amazon jumpers as permanent, soldered links. I hate idiots that just throw shit away, because they can't be bothered to repurpose. And anyway, why bother to buy the link kits? Just get yourself some 22-23AWG tinned wire (1/4W resistor lead gauge) and slide over some coloured insulation (from recycled wire), then cut and bend to length. Note: I quite often retain a small compartment for naked (tinned) wire offcuts - from resistors. Even better - Guitar string offcuts make very robust breadboard jumpers and can be bent tight (90deg ends) and rigid; again, with a length of coloured insulation or small gauge heatshrink. Guitar string offcuts can also be cleanly bent into a curve, making for a very neat circuit layout; if a link needs to be robust, but pliable; say as a frequently used test probe, or hook-up, then *wound* guitar string offcuts work very well and will spring back into place after use; an added advantage of a light 'wound' string means for a more secure 'grip' within the female connectors of the breadboard matrix, due to the helical outer winding. Guitar string offcuts also work well for vertical stand-offs to a mounted daughter board etc... The make for neat bus connections too. Properly tinned, guitar string cores can also be soldered easily due to being largely nickel-steel alloy. Tip: Meaning that snapped strings (above the nut) can be repaired, by joining with a double slip or Lover's Knot and soldered across the knot, giving your string extra time on the fretboard, esp when times are lean. I NEVER throw away old guitar strings for this very reason. Finally - Amazon should be boycotted. I don't go anywhere near it. Not one of my pennies are going into Bezo's wallet.

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment. Don't worry, I'm not throwing anything away and already had in mind to utilise them for permanent boards as you suggest. Still remains a disappointing product though and another lesson learnt. Hopefully by sharing my experience it will help others make a more informed decision on what to buy. As for Amazon, I really like the convenience and given there's no electronics stores left on the high street in the UK, there's little option but to buy online these days.

@strenter

6 ай бұрын

​@@paulpkaeYou might need to ask yourself whether using Amazon is part of the problem that there are no such stores left? Just a thought...

Amaz*n have the K&H but yes, 36€ plus tax

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks. That's not too bad a price, they were much more from what I found previous. Looking at the UK site, there is currently a large one @£40.90 and a standard one @£30.76.

bin, nope, still good for soldering

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Yes indeed, that's actually what I intend doing, so its not entirely wasted. Remains disappointing though.

If YOU GET THE SCREW TERMINALS IN THE CORRECT PITCH, THERE ARE MANY VARIATIONS.

@paulpkae

7 ай бұрын

Thanks for your comment. Yes there are many variations, but the ones linked in my description above have worked perfectly for me.