Professional Prototyping Hardware Defined (Breadboard, Jumpers, low R stuff)

[Mecanix]

Failed to find a dedicated prototyping section on the forum so I'll just ask here;

What defines 'professional grade hardware' when it comes to breadboard and jumper wires construction? So far I've only managed to get rip'ed off by so many sellers who've claimed having the hardware I was looking for to end up with a whole lot of non-recycle waste. From severely warped Bboards, steel contacts that, well, doesn't contact up to Rs0.7Ω between 4 holes on the LCR, etc etc. Not going to get into the badly crimped Dupon jumper leads with probably fake AL core and oxidized connectors (Rs0.235Ω/50mm, wtf!). /rant_over, thank you!

My current solution: I've managed to find 1 seller (one, literally) who have "true" phosphor bronze contacts with a surprisingly consistent spring action all across holes (round they are) with fair Rs and Cs results. For the jumper leads I have a feeling I have no other choice but to make them myself out of some single core tinned oxygen-free copper wiring and terminated with a machined gold plated pin (Rs0.012Ω/50mm).

So... how do "you" do it? Please share because not only I'm wasting a whole lot of time sourcing rubbish (just so I can test them, because sellers don't), I can't seem to find anyone that sells "fully tested" and effective prototyping kits out there. Am I missing anything??

ps. I understand that prototyping on solder-less boards isn't exactly a 'professional' approach, but I seriously doubt any of you (us?) have any choice e.g. to rig a quick circuit simulation.

[Ian.M]

You don't need OFC copper jumper wires, the minuscule conductivity improvement  OFC copper provides over ordinary electrical grade copper is swamped by the contact resistance at the ends.  Don't use 'Dupont' jumpers for on-board connections, only use them for external connections.  For on-board connections use 24 to 26 AWG insulated solid-core tinned copper wire, cut to fit the specific circuit.  Either make up your own' 'Dupont' jumpers, or buy them from a first world supplier, preferably one with a bricks&mortar presence on your continent, (ideally in your country), not from a far east eSeller.  That way, QC becomes their buyer's problem, not yours.

Far east breadboards are a total crap-shoot and there's far more crap than gold (or even bronze )out there.  There are a very few western breadboard manufacturers  left. Its a fairly frequent topic here, see:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/who-made-the-high-quality-breadboard/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3m-breadboards-for-cheap/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/what-is-so-great-about-3m-breadboards/

[Mecanix]

Thanks for your input Ian. No surprise this is a recurrent topic and issue, we don't have anyone testing their (potentially garbage) BB and leads. No specs, Rs/Cs tests, no material properties, tolerance, nada, just nothing, just a "Buy my Holed and Oxidized garbage for a few bucks, gents". On the location comment, I did source from self-called reputable and professional sellers to find out most if not all source their stuff out of the great orient for cents and re-sell for dollars. Literally thrown away 20+ BB and 100's of dupon leads today... those same I sourced from these 'local' guys over the last 2~3 weeks.

I think the challenge is to find someone in that "Far-East" who actually manufacture quality prototyping equipment. The kits I have shown on those op's pics is in fact mfg in the far-east, so are those machined gold plated pins & tinned copper wiring I got. I'd share the contact but not here to "advertise". Feel free to do so if you know anyone who does test before selling prototyping kits, by all means!

Just curious as how you guys mitigate this (apparently recurrent) problem. This needs to be sorted out (I think). Ridiculous what we have access too... as if any bloody circuit will work or behave with the stuff I've received, what a mess lol. Just about okay for the led blinker, perhaps?

[Mecanix]

Year 2020 and still having to cope with absolute garbage sold to prototype high tech stuff, what an embarrassment. Good god guys
Feel free to name & shame those who sells those few bucks BB and oxidized fly leads, this sh*t needs to stop. Wasted literally 20~30 hours trying to get a "half-functional" kit. Not a $ issue, at all, that time guys...

[MosherIV]

Sorry, cannot point you to suppliers other than RS or Farnell/Element14.

There is no need for prototype bread boards in commercial electronics development in most companies now. Most prototypes are 1st try pre-production PCBs. Has been like that at every company I have worked at for more than 15 years now.

[KE5FX]

How professional prototyping is done:



Click to enlarge, and note the distinct lack of solderless breadboards. 

[Fred27]

I can't see how professional and breadboard go together. Breadboards can be useful for quickly checking something but as soon as you get anywhere near "professional" prototyping you should really be spinning up a PCB.

[tggzzz]

ps. I understand that prototyping on solder-less boards isn't exactly a 'professional' approach, but I seriously doubt any of you (us?) have any choice e.g. to rig a quick circuit simulation.

Who cares whether or not it is "professional"; what matters is the results. Solderless breadboards are the work of the devil: you spend more time debugging the construction than you do debugging your circuit, due to variable (on a second-by-second basis) contact resistance, inductance and capacitance. Professionals avoid solderless breadboards because they are ineffective.

To rig a quick circuit simulation, I would use LTSpice.

To rig a quick circuit, I always use "manhattan" or "rats nest" or "dead bug" techniques. They are fast, effective, and can even be a deliverable to a customer. That isn't just my opinion, it is the opinion of many "masters".

Have a look at the references below...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/copperless-perfboard-wire-wrap-for-rf-prototyping/msg2672034/#msg2672034
https://bristol.hackspace.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=resources:pcb#avoiding_solderless_breadboards

[tggzzz]

I can't see how professional and breadboard go together. Breadboards can be useful for quickly checking something but as soon as you get anywhere near "professional" prototyping you should really be spinning up a PCB.

Not necessarily, for example

[ChristofferB]

I agree with the copper clad prototyping thing.

Bread boards are an inherently problematic solution, and "proffessional" through-hole prototyping systems (wirewrap, vero-wire etc.) are not cheap at all.

I think it boils down to, if you need a high quality bread board, then you don't. You need an altogether better solution.

For analog circuits, I find manhattan prototyping on copper clad board is exactly as fast as breadboarding.

[Siwastaja]

Agree, use solder.

The more you solder, the quicker you get with it.

It doesn't need to be pretty. It may or may not use a copper clad ground plane. Whatever floats your boat.

Plugging an IC, a few passives and ten dupont wires into a breadboard takes 1 minute.

Soldering the same stuff ("Manhattan" style for example) takes about 2-3 minutes once you get into it.

The small amount of "saved" time is irrelevant, because the latter is way more reliable, and because then you will be measuring The Thing for 15 minutes before you do a small iterative chance (soldering for 10 seconds, swapping a part or something).

Spinning a PCB, OTOH, takes from a day to a week. Maybe two hours if you have in-house quick prototype fab, but then you likely won't have through hole plating or multilayer so quite limiting. In any case, this is a non-option for early prototyping where quick (minutes) cycles are important. At the later stage, you spin a PCB which completes all the 1000 expected parts and connections, then make the 10 necessary modifications to it. This works when you have most of the things kinda nailed down, but not when you still need proof-of-concepts.

I haven't used a breadboard for a decade. I don't understand the argument how they would be handy even for the "simple" stuff. Soldering time is O(n), just like breadboarding!

[E-Design]

As a professional in the electronics design industry, I will say this. Breadboards and jumper wires will never be considered "professional" - no matter how reliable and nice looking.one makes them. Today, PCB's are far too easy and low cost to be messing around with any of that other stuff. One goal of a prototype is to take a first cut at the actual design - so that means just go for a first cut PCB. It could be hacked up of course to fix bugs and even have some of those copper clad boards, but its not going to be sitting on a solderless breadboard.

Thats not saying solderless breadboards aren't useful or important. Indeed, they allow some very fast investigation for some things that could make sense. But in my mind, that would be done before getting a first cut proto PCB.
Just another opinion.

[Mecanix]

Not necessarily, for example

Work of art, and skillful. Thanks for sharing those, inspiring. Pretty much what I've been bound too lately, although not as elegant, similar processes were imposed to get result in some of the real-life sim I had to put up with (i.e. single layer pcb cnc mill'ed with a 30deg endmill and then manually drilled). Tried/failed chemical etching fantasies though (tried once mind you, and wont ever again lol), and now hope to move on to bread-boarding shall we have a semi-professional approach to that. When I say semi I mean by that ultra low impedance (preferably), stable contacts and some decent leads & pins. For some fck ing strange reason this is nowhere to be found although fairly easy to achieve diy with the right material/construction, I'm guessing.

Not having access to half-functioning kits commercially, in 2020, is just mind boggling to me. Bet eSellers feeding off the ignorant a buck at at a time selling warped plastics and oxidized non-treated surfaces/ferrous materials is all okay still today and the way to go! Go figure...

[joeqsmith]

We were using 3M breadboards in the 70's/80's.  Consider that most of the circuits were digital and we were using a lot of 4000 CMOS back then.  Circuit boards cost a lot more back then and we would spend a lot more upfront time tying to workout any problems.   I wish I had some pictures of some of the crazy things we had built using them.  Some were works of art.   

[sokoloff]

Not my year, but 6.111 was one of my favorite undergrad courses. We had a “nerd kit” (briefcase with multiple breadboards and a back plane connector similar to the TI NuBus). This year looks like more generic kits. Final project was with at least one other student (by requirement) which meant usually multiple of these kits linked together.

[phil from seattle]

I use solderless BBs for a number of things but mostly to power up some part or module to see how to talk to it. Nothing high speed, though. Mainly the SBB just holds the parts in place to keep them from shorting. As others have said, go straight to PCBs if you can.  I will often buy or make simple breakout or "partial" boards before spinning up the "final" pcb. I use OSHPark for that a lot. Not super fast but very cheap for small stuff.  Others will etch or mill small test boards.

You can find breakout boards for a lot of the standard IC footprints, by the way.

[tggzzz]

Not necessarily, for example

Work of art, and skillful. Thanks for sharing those, inspiring. Pretty much what I've been bound too lately, although not as elegant, similar processes were imposed to get result in some of the real-life sim I had to put up with (i.e. single layer pcb cnc mill'ed with a 30deg endmill and then manually drilled). Tried/failed chemical etching fantasies though (tried once mind you, and wont ever again lol), and now hope to move on to bread-boarding shall we have a semi-professional approach to that. When I say semi I mean by that ultra low impedance (preferably), stable contacts and some decent leads & pins. For some fck ing strange reason this is nowhere to be found although fairly easy to achieve diy with the right material/construction, I'm guessing.

No need to resort to milling per se. The gaps in those PCBs were hand cut using a dremel and a spherical dental burr - and a little practice.

Do have a look at the "manhattan" examples I pointed to in https://bristol.hackspace.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=resources:pcb#avoiding_solderless_breadboards You will find them educational.

[tggzzz]

Not my year, but 6.111 was one of my favorite undergrad courses. We had a “nerd kit” (briefcase with multiple breadboards and a back plane connector similar to the TI NuBus). This year looks like more generic kits. Final project was with at least one other student (by requirement) which meant usually multiple of these kits linked together.

And then somebody dropped some equipment onto the bench with a thump, and you had to figure out which connection had moved. Not my idea of a good use of my time.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

Someone who is a 'professional' will not throw out breadboards cause some people on the internet say they are not 'professional'. Just because a picture of Jim Williams' desk doesn't have a breadboard on it does not mean a) he never used them and b) you shouldn't use them.

Use whatever works. If breadboards work for your application, great. I still use them a lot because sometimes I just need to quickly add a low-speed buffer in front of a signal or something like that, and guess what, making a PCB takes time. It has nill to do with cost, or effort, or performance. It has to do with 'I need to test this *now*', and a breadboard works.

Know the limitations, and go with them. I agree that for most prototyping work, you should just get it onto a cheap PCB when it is anything fast or sensitive. It is so easy to do that, so there is no reason not to. But never feel like you shouldn't use a breadboard in a situation 'because it is not professional'.

[tggzzz]

Someone who is a 'professional' will not throw out breadboards cause some people on the internet say they are not 'professional'. Just because a picture of Jim Williams' desk doesn't have a breadboard on it does not mean a) he never used them and b) you shouldn't use them.

Use whatever works. If breadboards work for your application, great. I still use them a lot because sometimes I just need to quickly add a low-speed buffer in front of a signal or something like that, and guess what, making a PCB takes time. It has nill to do with cost, or effort, or performance. It has to do with 'I need to test this *now*', and a breadboard works.

Know the limitations, and go with them. I agree that for most prototyping work, you should just get it onto a cheap PCB when it is anything fast or sensitive. It is so easy to do that, so there is no reason not to. But never feel like you shouldn't use a breadboard in a situation 'because it is not professional'.

My comments have been about solderless breadboards, not about other types of breadboards. Contrary to your statement, Jim Williams used breadboards extensively - as shown in the picture.

You should indeed use whatever works and know the limitations. Beginners are unlikely to know the latter and how it affects the (probability of the) former. More importantly, they are unlikely to be able to distinguish between the consequences of a construction technique and the consequences of their design.

Finally, it is not solderless breadboard vs PCB - there are many alternatives, as illustrated in https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2020/07/22/prototyping-circuits-easy-cheap-fast-reliable-techniques/ Many of those are obsolete, but manhattan and a few others remain valuable.

Manhattan and dead-bug techniques are also fast to implement, especially when considering debugging time.

[tooki]

It’s so frustrating how in ANY question about (solderless) breadboards, the anti-breadboard brigade comes out with their anti-breadboard nonsense, acting as though:
a) prototyping were the only thing done on breadboards (it’s not; they’re more for experimenting, which is different from prototyping)
b) all breadboards were created equal, which they’re decidedly not, and
c) because breadboards aren’t suited to all types of circuits (which is absolutely correct), that they have no value for any purpose whatsoever (which is dead wrong).

[tooki]

Not my year, but 6.111 was one of my favorite undergrad courses. We had a “nerd kit” (briefcase with multiple breadboards and a back plane connector similar to the TI NuBus). This year looks like more generic kits. Final project was with at least one other student (by requirement) which meant usually multiple of these kits linked together.

And then somebody dropped some equipment onto the bench with a thump, and you had to figure out which connection had moved. Not my idea of a good use of my time.

If that was enough to cause a connection to move, then the breadboard was junk to begin with, or has been so horribly abused as to have merited throwing out long ago. A high quality breadboard that hasn’t been abused holds onto leads and wires tightly.

My comments have been about solderless breadboards, not about other types of breadboards. Contrary to your statement, Jim Williams used breadboards extensively - as shown in the picture.

The picture shows lots of soldered prototypes using various methods, but NO breadboarding!! 

Breadboard ≠ prototype!!!!

[tggzzz]

It’s so frustrating how in ANY question about (solderless) breadboards, the anti-breadboard brigade comes out with their anti-breadboard nonsense, acting as though a) prototyping were the only thing done on breadboards (it’s not; they’re more for experimenting, which is different from prototyping), and b) all breadboards were created equal, which they’re decidedly not.

I knowingly and deliberately express strident views about solderless breadboards. That's based on my unnecessarily having wasted too much time with them, and having seen beginners have more demoralising experiences. If a beginner's circuit fails to work, all too often they incorrectly think "I'm not clever enough and this is too difficult for me; I'm giving up".

In that context, I don't see any significant difference between experimenting and prototyping.

As for not all breadboards being equal... Agreed. The problems are identifying the better (not good) ones before purchasing them, and what happens if poor ones have been purchased (or become poor over time).

[tooki]

It’s so frustrating how in ANY question about (solderless) breadboards, the anti-breadboard brigade comes out with their anti-breadboard nonsense, acting as though a) prototyping were the only thing done on breadboards (it’s not; they’re more for experimenting, which is different from prototyping), and b) all breadboards were created equal, which they’re decidedly not.

I knowingly and deliberately express strident views about solderless breadboards. That's based on my unnecessarily having wasted too much time with them, and having seen beginners have more demoralising experiences. If a beginner's circuit fails to work, all too often they incorrectly think "I'm not clever enough and this is too difficult for me; I'm giving up".

But your tone is unnecessarily alarmist and discouraging, needlessly antagonistic, and ultimately unhelpful.

I am now working at a technical training center, where dozens of apprentices (almost entirely teenagers) come for classes each year. Breadboards are essential to lashing together the basic circuits used to learn electronics theory.

And heck, even the breadboarding failures are valuable, in that they teach troubleshooting skills, and learning the limits of your equipment.

Your message, which is ultimately “use the right tool for the job” would be far better received if you delivered it in an intellectually honest, useful way, instead of as a cantankerous harpy.

In that context, I don't see any significant difference between experimenting and prototyping.

Then it’s been far too long since you were a beginner.

As for not all breadboards being equal... Agreed. The problems are identifying the better (not good) ones before purchasing them, and what happens if poor ones have been purchased (or become poor over time).

Well, it’s not hard to identify a good one: buy a 3M.

Wearing out is indeed the bigger challenge. Now, in my experience, even a fairly abused 3M still holds onto leads quite well. Others here on the forums have noted that they’re still using the same ones 30 years later.

Meanwhile, I’ve relegated most of the fleabay breadboards I originally bought to being little more than soldering jigs. Ain’t nobody got time fo’ 2 ohm contact resistance!


P.S. I edited my post above after you responded to it, FYI.

[tggzzz]

And then somebody dropped some equipment onto the bench with a thump, and you had to figure out which connection had moved. Not my idea of a good use of my time.

If that was enough to cause a connection to move, then the breadboard was junk to begin with, or has been so horribly abused as to have merited throwing out long ago. A high quality breadboard that hasn’t been abused holds onto leads and wires tightly.

Those caveats are important. Ensuring they are valid is non-trivial in the real world.

There are easy alternatives with better performance and more repeatable results; not using them is somewhat peverse IMNSHO