Lifetime. I have breadboards that are over 20 years old. It is a wear and tear device, if you use it often, the spring contacts may weaken, and if they become unreliable, BB are cheap enough today to replace without a second thought. If you own a no name one [ the best I've used were made by US makers in the US typically that's up the late 1980s before it got outsourced elsewhere ] and the contact tarnishes, its easier to replace it than clean it as if one contact is bad, the others maybe too that you don't know about.
There are things you should know about them:
They are designed for low power and low frequency electronics
Thus the lead size are typically for devices using < 1A. If your leads do not enter easily into the socket, its too big. Once the metal spring is deformed, that socket is essentially toasted
Because there are always pairs of electronic contact between a plastic sheet, there is
always, parasitic capacitance, therefore any design using a BB should be kept under the frequency this capacitance becomes a problem, typically 1 MHz, you can get away probably to 2 MHz, but it really depends on what the true capacitance is and that depends on the type of plastic used and its thickness.
If your design is over 1 MHz, or is RF based, do not use a breadboard unless you know what you're doing and compensate for stray capacitances.
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/bob-pease-breadboard.htm
The great Bob Pease, National Semiconductor's crown jewel, wrote an article many years back that described how breadboarding can be useful for prototyping even sophisticated circuits as long as the limitations are understood and heeded. Many times I have searched the Internet looking for a picture of the breadboard I recalled seeing, but to no avail. Finally, I wrote to him asking if he remembered it and he responded by saying it is the one featured on the cover of his book, "Troubleshooting Analog Circuits." You can click on the image to the left for the full picture, but the breadboard portion is show full-size below. If you would like a copy of his book, please click on the smaller thumbnail to the right.
Bob wrote, "THIS was actually the breadboard for the LM131 V-to-F converter - which I designed in 1977, and which is still being designed in, today, and is still in production. Yes, it can be used to convert voltages to F - and then you use a counter, to make a very linear digital conversion - or for F-to-V."
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
