Have you ever been going along building a circuit on a breadboard, and suddenly, you need to check something with the multimeter, but your good probes are nowhere to be found, and your backups are too large to fit?

This instructable will go through how to make a standard 1/4W carbon film resistor into a cheap probe adapter for use with breadboards.

Step 1: Gather Parts.

This instructable is fairly simple, and only requires four items.

A generic 1/4W carbon film resistor (the most common type. If you are unsure of your resistor type, its probably this)
Some needlenose pliers.
A multimeter.
A breadboard

Step 2: Start Crushing

First, you need to remove the paint that is covering the outside of the resistor. You don't need to get all of it, just the on the two wider sections. This paint holds the leads in place against the resistor itself.

Try to get as much as you can, because the less you have left, the easier step 3 will be.

Step 3: Pull

This step is fairly simple, just pull on both leads until they separate from the central resistor portion. Some resistors are easier to pull apart than others, but if you work at it enough, it should separate.

Step 4: Use

Thats it! Now you have two probe extenders for your multimeter, for under a quarter USD (if you paid more, you seriously need to reconsider where you buy your electronic parts, not even Radio Shack is that high).

Alternative use:
If you wanted to, you could use this for testing more finished circuits as well. The leads are straight off of a resistor, so they can easily be soldered into a circuit to create a test point, for probing into tight spots that you frequently need to access.