Breadboards are reusable solderless circuit boards (PCBs) with electrical contacts arranged in a number of rows and columns. Because breadboards have built-in electrical contacts, you don’t need nearly as many wires as you would have had to use without the circuit board, which consolidates what could’ve been a rat’s nest of electronic components and wires into a neatly arranged circuit. Your components are inserted across tracks and, if required, tracks can be joined with wires. The most common breadboard used today, with its white plastic and pluggable (solderless) contacts, was designed in 1971 by Ronald J. Portugal.
Most often breadboards (also known as plugboards) are used to construct a temporary circuit for prototyping or general experimentation; since breadboards don’t require solder, you can quickly and easily assemble and disassemble a circuit design . . . and you can use the same breadboard later for another design. These features make breadboards especially appropriate as school laboratory equipment, allowing students to expand their knowledge of electronics by building circuits from schematics — a type of procedural knowledge — and this sort of hands-on project will help students retain what they’ve learned.
Breadboards are also commonly used by hobbyists and professionals looking to test components or when designing/building complex circuits, because these solderless boards are “lower stakes” than stripboards (veroboards), which are used to build permanent soldered prototypes or one-offs and which can’t be reused without going to a whole lot of trouble. Since these breadboards are reusable, they are an economical choice for those who frequently build prototypes or experiment with circuitry.
So, as you can see, breadboards do a whole lot of good in the classroom and in the hands of hobbyists and professionals who need an easy, economical way of experimenting and designing complicated circuit boards.
No comments:
Post a Comment