Learn the art of 'Manhattan' style prototyping as quickly as possible. Not only is a sheet of copperclad cheaper, but the results are far more reliable.
I do that frequently, but it's no substitute for a solderless breadboard. It would be stupid to break out the soldering iron if all I wanted to do was wire up a few components to a microcontroller or something. Unless one has extreme tunnel vision there is no one size fits all approach. If you still insist that breadboards don't work then you either haven't used a good one or haven't used it properly.
Precisely!
Experimenting and building a one-off or a prototype are two different things! Soldering stuff to a copper board is not the same thing as being able to plug in and out random components to rows of sockets, especially if you're working with rows of ICs or something.
Breadboards absolutely have their place and using decent quality ones makes all the difference to the experience. The OP asked about the variable quality of solderless breadboards (of which there is a huge variation), not tangential methods to avoid using shoddy breadboards or advice regarding having bad connection problems or whatnot...
I
really didn't mean my reply to turn this into some kind of breadboard - non breadboard holy war! I was just suggesting an alternative technique that the OP is probably not be familiar with. Looking at his posting history it has mostly been solar stuff, some Arduino and a little 'how to solder smd ICs. Can we just leave it at that!
I don't use breadboards myself - well ok, I have a little one that I occasionally plug a module or dip IC into for quick test. It has a variety of insertion pressures depending on which holes I use. Even something like an Arduino Nano takes up a lot of real estate.
My only thoughts on them are:
1. When you get your circuit nicely working, you then have to dismantle it an build it in some other form, hopefully, having a correct schematic first... and of course you have to find a bodge for anything only available in smd [EDIT: or big].
2. All breadboards become unreliable, even the best. It's only a matter of time, purchase price and care of use. Some start off that way, the expensive ones may have a decent life if treated very carefully (lead diameter and contaminants). Ultimately you will start debugging intermittent connections rather than circuits on a hole by hole basis. If you're really lucky you realise that you need to write it off it before that happens.
It seems that the OP is already suffering from that.I guess my
relevant advice to the OP in that case is, buy an expensive one, treat it with great care, [and know when to bin it].
Hah, now I actually have to analyse it, I do have an opinion on them, I'd never thought about it that deeply.