No power rails leaves me derailed...
April 3, 2012 12:00 PM Subscribe
Help save my arduino project: I cannot find any information on how to wire things to a solderless breadboard that does not have any power rails.
Being completely new to hobby electronics, I bought what seems to be the wrong kind of breadboard. It does not have power rails (the panels with the red and blue lines), which renders all of the wonderful tutorials I've found on how to wire LEDs to breadboards useless. I can go buy another board, but not until the weekend and I'm dying to get this going now.
I can't find a single tutorial on how to work with this breadboard. It just has the standard two panels (columns?) with alpha letters over the top and numbers down the side. Can you help, either by giving me some instructions here or helping me to find a tutorial? (I need a resistor on the LED.)
Being completely new to hobby electronics, I bought what seems to be the wrong kind of breadboard. It does not have power rails (the panels with the red and blue lines), which renders all of the wonderful tutorials I've found on how to wire LEDs to breadboards useless. I can go buy another board, but not until the weekend and I'm dying to get this going now.
I can't find a single tutorial on how to work with this breadboard. It just has the standard two panels (columns?) with alpha letters over the top and numbers down the side. Can you help, either by giving me some instructions here or helping me to find a tutorial? (I need a resistor on the LED.)
The rails just let you access power anywhere on the board by distributing it down the rail, horizontally (if its oriented like in your link) The rest of the breadboard distributes power vertically, by column. So instead of wiring the + and - of the component into the rail, you'll be wiring it directly into your power and ground on the Arduino.
Honestly, though? Just buy a breadboard with rails. You're going to waste a lot of time and get really frustrated if you handicap yourself from the start.
posted by griphus at 12:07 PM on April 3, 2012
Honestly, though? Just buy a breadboard with rails. You're going to waste a lot of time and get really frustrated if you handicap yourself from the start.
posted by griphus at 12:07 PM on April 3, 2012
Yep. The power rails are just a convenience. If you look at the back of your breadboard you should be able to see which holes are connected. In the diagram you linked to, each half-column of 5 holes are connected together, and can act as a mini power rail.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 12:07 PM on April 3, 2012
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 12:07 PM on April 3, 2012
Best answer: The power rails are just a convenience, they are not necessary to build any projects. Look at Tom Igoe's breadboard notes to get an understanding of how one works.
See here for an example of how to wire an LED to pin 2 with the board you're talking about.
posted by tip120 at 12:09 PM on April 3, 2012
See here for an example of how to wire an LED to pin 2 with the board you're talking about.
posted by tip120 at 12:09 PM on April 3, 2012
Best answer: Also, just as a sidenote, I've found that the Arduino forums are really good for these sort of questions, with the added bonus of not having to wait a week between each.
posted by griphus at 12:25 PM on April 3, 2012
posted by griphus at 12:25 PM on April 3, 2012
I'd second the suggestion to get another breadboard, when you can. Electricity is tricky enough to figure out (at first) as-is.
Assuming your breadboard is just like the one you linked to, but without the power rails: Each group of five holes is electrically connected. If you need power to more than one component, just run power wires between them to connect them together electrically, then connect one of them to power. Or you could make a mini "power rail" out of one of your rows. It really doesn't matter as long as the electrical connections are consistent.
If this sounds confusing, it probably is. Power rails are as much for visualization tool as they are for convenience. If this is just a basic "making LEDs blink" project you're working through, though, you might learn something by doing it the hard(er) way.
posted by neckro23 at 12:38 PM on April 3, 2012
Assuming your breadboard is just like the one you linked to, but without the power rails: Each group of five holes is electrically connected. If you need power to more than one component, just run power wires between them to connect them together electrically, then connect one of them to power. Or you could make a mini "power rail" out of one of your rows. It really doesn't matter as long as the electrical connections are consistent.
If this sounds confusing, it probably is. Power rails are as much for visualization tool as they are for convenience. If this is just a basic "making LEDs blink" project you're working through, though, you might learn something by doing it the hard(er) way.
posted by neckro23 at 12:38 PM on April 3, 2012
Response by poster: Wow, quick, good answers. I think I will get another breadboard, but the picture tip120 linked to sure makes it look easy. I'll try it with the one LED and see how that goes.
posted by kitcat at 1:04 PM on April 3, 2012
posted by kitcat at 1:04 PM on April 3, 2012
I just bumped into this, but it seems like something that might help you deal with breadboards just a bit better.
For what it's worth, the projects they're illustrating do all their power management through an Arduino micro-controller.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:06 PM on April 6, 2012
For what it's worth, the projects they're illustrating do all their power management through an Arduino micro-controller.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:06 PM on April 6, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
Chips should go down the middle, so there are pins on each side of the divider.
To power something, just connect the power source to one of the columns. Add a jumper between columns in order to connect them.
posted by bondcliff at 12:04 PM on April 3, 2012