Make Your Own U Shaped Breadboard Wires

Have you ever had a project involving a solderless breadboard and small pieces of wires?

Are you tired of using jumper cables that are too long for the breadboard?

In this quick tutorial, I'm going to show you how to use staples and paperclips to create some customizable breadboard wires.

This is extremely helpful when it comes to making your projects look neat and professional.

In this project, I will be using colorful, vinyl coated paper clips and small staples to conduct electricity.

I will also be comparing a simple LED setup with paper clips, staples and the standard jumper cables.

Step 1: Find Paper Clips/staples

The only components that you need to make this are paper clips and or staples.

I will be using the vinyl-coated paper clips for this project. These are much stronger and thicker compared to the silver version.

As for the staples, I will be using the standard, silver colored version.

Step 2: Bend/Cut

After you find the paperclips, use the precision pliers to bend the paperclips to match the size of the gap that you want to fill on the breadboard.

Once you are satisfied with the length of your new improvised wires, cut off the vinyl coated area, just like a standard wire.

As for the staples, make sure that you leave large gaps to avoid frying the components. The staples are not coated with vinyl like the paperclips.

Step 3: Final Product

In this example, I used a basic LED setup that would normally use up to 12 M-M jumper wires.

Thanks to my improvised wires, I was able to achieve the same goal without making a mess.

Step 4: Paper Clips VS Staples VS Jumper Cables

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the same project, presented using three types of wires.

as you can see, the first two setups are more compact compared to the third version.