Getting Started With Raspberry Pi - How To Use Breadboard

Introduction

In my previous article – Understanding Raspberry Pi - GPIO, we talked about GPIO (General Purpose Input Output). In this article, we will discuss a handy tool – Breadboard – It is a must-have tool for everyone working on building simple to complex circuits and also when using Raspberry Pi.

Background You might be thinking about the name “Breadboard” and wondering if this has anything to do with bread. Well, Yes and No. The name breadboard comes from earlier days of electronic circuits, where people would literally use wooden boards (bread cutting boards) with screws or nails driven into them to make electronic connections. Let's see what a modern Breadboard is.

Modern Breadboards are rectangular pieces of plastic with a Grid of holes, that allow us to quickly and easily build electronic circuits by pushing electronic components into the holes.

Modern breadboards come in all sizes and shapes and in different colors. Some breadboards are transparent as well. The most common sizes are full-size breadboards, half-size breadboards, and mini breadboards. Also, most of the breadboards come with notches on the side that allows you to snap more than one board together.

Let’s take a closer look at how a bread board works. See the below full size and half size breadboards and also a clear/transparent breadboard.

The holes on a breadboard allow you to push the lead or metal legs of a component into them and tightly hold them into the place. This connection is strong enough such that the component won’t fall out of its own, but you can easily snap in or snap out a component in case you want to change/replace it from that place.

Breadboard is also called as solderless breadboards (less commonly used name) – because you don’t need to solder to bond the electronic components together.

Now, let’s take a closer look at a full-size breadboard. (fig 5.)

In the figure above, you see a full-sized breadboard. On either side of the breadboard are vertical lines or strips usually labeled with a 'red and black' or 'red and blue' lines and also having + or – sign. These lines are called busses or rails and are used to deliver power vertically to the entire circuit. Typically, the holes next to the red line (+) sign will connect to the positive battery terminal and the holes next to the blue line (–) sign will connect to the negative battery terminal.