My Top Ten Most Useful Breadboard Tips and Tricks

Step 3 LED's

LED's are commonly used in the debugging/development of most any electronic circuit.

Well, these breadboard-friendly LED's aren't quite as quick to make as bending around some leads, but they are indefinitely reusable and will save you a lot of space on your breadboard.

Because they have a current-limiting resistor built-in and the lead-spacing is 0.4", they plug directly between your power/ground rail and the main breadboard section. And even better, they can be stacked side-by-side.

I used 0.03" thick single-sided pcb, 3mm LED's, 240R surface mount resistors, and SIP header pins to make these. The only trick is to leave the pins in the header until after you have soldered them, in order to preserve the spacing. And to get them to stack side-by-side, I ground the sides of the LED's a bit with a Dremel.

Here's a video showing how I made them: http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b103/klee27x/?action=view&current=LED_BreadOut.mp4

Comments

[abartky]

Thanks for the video, wish I could solder like that ;-) As a hardware newbie I didn't recognize all the tools you were using. What tool were you using to cut the board (looks like scissors) and what was in the syringe? Also on the dremel, which bit were you using? Thanks in advance :-)

[klee27x]

Yeah, those were just scissors for the main cuts. PCB 0.03" and thinner is pretty easy to cut. I trimmed the excess off the sides with a pair of strong shears, because of the extra solder bead I had to cut through. I filled the syringe with zinc chloride, an aggressive soldering flux. That is how I'm able to "paint" those pin connections so easily. What you don't see is that after the video, I ran the circuit under the faucet to wash off the residue. Zinc chloride is a common plumber's flux, for soldering copper pipes. It should be used with care for electrical work, because the residue is conductive and corrosive. I mainly use it for tough connections (nails, battery terminals) or for awkward joints that would otherwise require 3 hands. The bit I was using in the Dremel is a tungsten carbide cutting bit. It was actually labeled as a "grout removal" bit. I've never removed grout, but it looked wicked aggressive, and it turned out to be just great. The less aggressive cutting bits leave a smoother edge but can take a longgg time to get the same volume of cutting... esp with a battery powered Dremel. You're welcome!

[mikeeve]

The instructions are somewhat sketchy. The SIP pins, resistor, and LED are soldered to a small rectangle of copper clad. The engraver is used to divide the rectangle into 3 electrically disconnected surfaces by removing 2 thin lines of copper from the rectangle. Right? Thought this might help anyone as inexperienced as me.

[klee27x]

Yes, you understand the idea. I actually just cut a strip of board a half inch in width. Then I etched 2 lines along the length of the strip. Then I soldered the pins, cut board, solder pins, cut, etc.... Then I used a piece of the leftover plastic from the SIP headers as a jig to hold the things while soldering the other bits on, so the legs wouldn't move anywhere.

[klee27x]

Ah, what the heck. I just added a video to the step in case anyone has any lingering doubts. :)

http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b103/klee27x/?action=view&current=LED_BreadOut.flv

[mikeeve]

Thanks! That really helps. I picked up a couple of other little techniques from that short video. Just goes to prove the old saying, "A flash video is worth 3 megabytes!"

[cfishy]

Great tip! But I can't do surface mount...

[geeklord]

im thinkin really thin solder helps with that.

[osgeld]

and a dot of super glue, just make sure its right and working beforehand

[casshan]

If you've got some alligator clips laying around, those work for holding components on boards, too. I use them at work to keep things where I want them when I'm soldering.

[briefer]

Actually, you can take a "dot" of solder resin and use it to hold the SMT part down long enough to get at least one or two pins soldered. You can get small containers of solder resin at Radio Shack. Dip a dot out with a tooth pick and use it as "glue" to hold down the smt piece.