Breadboard beginner.

[makaze808]

OK, I'm on a little roll of good boards, etches , paints, labels and some very happy people playing my effects (I use the term my loosly). During my time here it has been said in several posts that a circuit is best bread boarded, then the tweaking is easier. I really fancy this but I dont know what to buy. So please can someone create me a shopping list of what I actually need material wise and and pointers to good tutorials etc are welcome.

Thanks.

Woz.

[Kearns892]

Ok, dont cheap out on a breadboard first of all, but other than the breadboard all you need are some jumper wires and alligator clips (preferably with wires already on them) you may also want to make one of these things.  http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/jake/breadboard.htm

[frank_p]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=69404.0

[Voodoo Blues]

Breadboard
Jacks
Switch
DC Jack
LED
Jumper Wire
Pots

Then anything need to make the circuit.

I went through this just last week.

[beatnik]

what is the best wire AWG to use with bboard?

[newfish]

Not sure of the specific AWG number, but try to go for solid core wire.

Stranded core *does* break off and leaves minute bits of wire in the holes.  Even if it doesn't cause shorts, it can make it difficult to put anything else in that particular hole.

Can't recommend the pre-packed jumpers enough.  They're exactly the right size to fit the holes, and are a breeze to use.

My prefered method of wires and sockets etc was to buy an extra set of jumpers and solder them onto a set of sockets - this way you always have imput / outputs for your BB projects.  You could go one further and solder some jumper wires onto croc.clips for use with pots / switches - or onto a 1/4" jack plug to plug the output from your BB directly into an amp.

With a bit of forward planning, you could even colour-code your connectors to make your life easier when you come back to your BB after sleep / work whatever.

Then start BB-ing simple boosters / fuzzes to really get to grips with each component's function if you feel so inclined...

Good luck!

[liquids]

AWG 22 is good for the breadboard, I find.  AWG 24 (PPP solid core wire) barely works--I find the PPP wire a little unstable and flimsy.

Jumper kits are good 'quick fix' for jumpers while you get the hang of bread boarding, and for one or two breadboards at a time.   I've liked moving to color-code the breadboard wiring.  Jumper kits color code by wire length.  I find this makes for a very nice rainbow effect on the breadboard, but little else.  But I do keep a jumper kit around when I'm too lazy to cut a new jumper and want to breadboard this project RIGHT NOW!  

The color coded breadboard wires -- sometimes breadboard projects are bird nests, and that is understandable, but the the more you can follow the bread visually the better, so some consistency and organization helps.  I've found that having wire color coded by connection type (jumpers to ground are black, jumpers to +9v are red, signal flow wires are blue, Vr wires are orange, etc) helps me quite a bit when I may need to debug, or when I come back to work on a board I was working on that no longer looks familiar.  

I can't say enough good things about circuit specialists solid core spools.  $6 for 100 ft!   http://www.circuitspecialists.com/level.itml/icOid/7944  The insulation on these seems to take a bit more abuse than the insulation of the wire in the jumper kits, FYI, but maybe I'm biased.      If anyone here has another good source for spools of insulated solid wire, I'm all ears.  

[spaceace76]

I can't say enough good things about circuit specialists solid core spools.  $6 for 100 ft!   http://www.circuitspecialists.com/level.itml/icOid/7944  The insulation on these seems to take a bit more abuse than the insulation of the wire in the jumper kits, FYI, but maybe I'm biased.      If anyone here has another good source for spools of insulated solid wire, I'm all ears.

Holy Hell! Look at all those colors!
Thanks for the tip!

[oldrocker]

For $6.00 you can buy a box of jumpers which are re-usable.  I bought a box 2 years ago and I'm still using them.  I do a lot of breadboarding even two projects at the sametime and didn't need more.

[Renegadrian]

Found this nice tutorial, hope it can help (actually it helps myself too...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7yPMbxQgcU