Electronics - Soldering and breadboards

It turns out I'm probably struggling with this new soldering skill thing because I'm practising on dirty circuit boards. It seems hot metal doesn't enjoy the company of grease, and corrosion.

Who knew.

Actually it seems lots of people knew.

Just not me.

What I needed was a blank bit of nice new circuit board, and some random bits to solder to it.

So I went into an electronics store, and said I needed a project board, and around two dozen assorted inexpensive components.

They said "sure, which two dozen part do you need?"

I explained that it didn't matter.

They looked at me as if I were a nut case, and sold me this lot for $5.



The big square thing on the left is the project board. It's just a blank circuit board with lots of circles of copper on it. It allows you to solder things to it easily.

Or at least I hope it does.

It looks like this up close.

My components are resistors. They each have quite a long wire attached to each end. I'm hoping I can solder my components on right at the end of the wires. so I can cut them off, and practice soldering them on again. I might even get the hang of soldering before I have to cut the components too low to be able to use again. If I manage, they wont even go to waste. Not that I know what to do with them, but at least my work area will look a bit like I know some stuff.


I also bought a bread board.

A bread board is another thing with holes in it, but this one has little metal clips in the holes that allow you to plug the components in without soldering them. This allows you to experiment and work on a prototype before actually committing to soldering it up permanently.

From what I understand it wouldn't be a very robust way to make a project, so a bread board isn't instead of soldering, but is a reusable first step in laying out your project and testing it.