Hello, I'm attempting to build a circuit and I'm not 100% sure how to properly set it up.

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I dislike the quality of newer breadboards, so tend to use "vintage" ones. But I can't find a USB power supply with the expected pin positions.

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Anyone know of any? I guess I could design and build one, but I'm lazy.

I always breadboard my projects before I build them. I don’t get very many built, because often, I can’t get the breadboard version to work.

Sometimes I can get things to work temporarily by wiggling components around. This tells me that some of the connections in the breadboard aren’t very reliable, but it’s always random. I’ve tested EVERY SINGLE connection on all my boards, and I never have trouble with most of them. Rarely I’ll find one that doesn’t give me continuity on a meter, so I’ll mark it and/or disable it. But I can’t believe that that’s the entire issue.

Sometimes I find jumper wires that are broken internally, so they get tossed out. But I’m not going to check every wire every time I use it.

I usually DO test each component as I use it, but that’s not practical for most ICs. I’ve almost never found that I have bad resistors, caps, diodes, etc., but I don’t know if I’ve got counterfeit chips that don’t work.

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I know so little about what I’m doing that I don’t see the obvious mistakes I make. I’ve been doing this for about 8 years, but I’m not learning much, because the projects rarely work, and I can never seem to figure out why.

It’s very confusing and frustrating, and except for the amount of money and time that I already have tied up in the hobby, I’m on the edge of quitting. Am I alone in this?

Where do I even begin? so im trying my hand at effects pedal circuits. I initially started with modifications to a DOD 250 circuit, and it worked the first time that I tried it! Great!

Now I needed to order parts to continue modifying it. several days/weeks go by and I come back to my prototype and it no longer works. I get no sound from it whether it is powered or not, bypassed or not. there's no sound period.

several circuits later, trying different things, building upon different stuff - I get no signal, no results, no progress or improvement. eventually I end up building a fuzz face circuit and it's here that I am systematically putting a part in and checking the signal to see if it is going through, over and over again. in the end, I was able to get the output and the input to meet and work properly, however when the circuit is powered there was no fuzz effects. it's just the regular clean tone; there's not even amplification, and the potentiometers don't work. This was short lived as i eventually lost signal again and couldn't retrieve it. Before you ask, yes i did test all the part, before and after, to make sure they functioning correctly.

so I'm at this point now where I'm completely out of ideas. every single tip, troubleshooting, guide, and piece of advice that I've come across, I've tried and it doesn't work. even something like a 7-minute fuzz, which only has like seven parts to it, does not work.

the only thing that I can think of at this point that might be the problem is the power supply cuz I'm just running this off of a 9 volt battery that's connected by wires to the breadboard. I'm thinking that I might want to get like a DC jack to plug into the breadboard, but I don't know if that's going to work. Or maybe i need to ground the breadboard itself? How do you even do that?

I've tried everything at this point and my motivation and morale, and sanity is at an all-time low with this. Help. Please.

My son (9) has gotten into electric circuits and I'm all about feeding this interest. For a school project he's attempting to replicate the Electronic Dice board from the URL below (it's pretty far down the page)

https://www.instructables.com/Ten-Breadboard-Projects-For-Beginners/

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I've tried very hard to be hands-off and just provide him guidance and help when he absolutely needs it. The project presentation is in 2 days, and he's pretty stumped on this. Right now, when powered up, the first LED lights up but that's it. The button does nothing.

Any pointers at all?? I'd love to help him succeed at this but I'm stumped!

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I know there are a lot of breadboard holders out there, most of them seem like they are more like enclosures or meant to be more permanent. I'm looking for something like a base with clips sized for holding a 420 point breadboard in place. This is for a learning exercise where a bunch of students will make their own breadboard designs and then plug it into a larger device with other connections, so the breadboard will basically be "hot-swappable".

Decided to try and make a nightlight for my newborn and I want to try and have it so it can be either white, yellow or both. But I can't figure out how to get two switches to work independently of each other.

First time doing something like this so please explain it to me like I'm 5

Besides the fact that the 555 timer is labled and incorrectly. Does this circuit even work? Whole class of 4 of us can’t figure it out.

Hey guys I'm pretty new to this, I'm taking an electrical one class, but I'm still in my first term. I'm interested in taking on more breadboard projects but I'm having a hard time interpreting schematics onto an actual breadboard. Are there any good guides on the two together specifically?

Hi. I’m new to this. I’m just trying to make a simple circuit and was wondering value this is. I’m having trouble making distinctions of the colors. Thanks.

Hey, using GPIO expanders (MCP23017) for an array of buttons. Each button is connected between GND and an input pin of the expander. I've enabled the 100k internal pull-up resistor on the MCP23017 (and verified that I did this correctly), so the input pin should idle high at 5V and the button will pull it low when pressed.

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This does not happen. When unpressed, the voltage measured between GND and the input pin is about .1-.2V (should be 5V). When I measure between the input pin and the Vcc that I'm providing the expander, the difference is also about .1-.2V (should be 0V). The difference between GND and Vcc is a consistent 5V.

When I press the button, it works properly, pulling the input pin to 0, but why will the input pin not idle high? Is it floating? I can't figure out what voltage it's at and my measurements don't make any sense. What am I doing wrong?

I am a retired guy that still likes learning new things. I have been messing around with a breadboard and understand the very basics. I was in the medical field, RN, so am very much a visual learner. A few YouTube videos are helpful but many seem to pass over things quickly without much explanation.

What learning tools would you recommend for someone like me?

Is Amazon the only place to get good parts for breadboards, or is there another place to try? What brands are recommended?

Hi, i have this type of li-on battery and i'm wondering how can i connect to a breadboard (whitout solder). Thank you!

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So, I finally completed my breadboard and it matches the truth table like I had hoped. But something is wrong. I brought the breadboard home (kept safely in my little component box) and it sat on the sofa for a little. I went to go check it again (just for fun) but now the LEDs won't turn on. I know it isn't the LED's, as I have tried a different LED. All the cords are fully plugged in as well. Could the slight cold from outside have messed it up during transfer?

Tl:dr my breadboard LEDs aren't turning on despite my board being correct.

I tried to get an example but no luck. Would anyone have a link picture or advice?

I'm helping my son with a science project, and we're building this Soil Moisture Tester. That portion is pretty straightforward, but an adjustment my son would like to make is to add a way to automatically water the plant when the moister alarm triggers (this will be an additional experiment he'll perform)

After a bunch of googling, it seems that this solenoid should work with a gravity based water source. However, I'm unclear how to adjust the voltage from the experiment to power the solenoid. Perhaps I could use a 9V battery like this, but do I need to change around the various resistors?

Also, to be clear, I'm not planning on doing the experiments for him...and he will build the breadboard with my supervision :) Much of the point of the experiment is to test his hypothesis and measure plant growth daily, but I do want him to push himself beyond what is required for his grade level...so for this portion of the experiment, he'll need my help, and his teacher is ok with that.

I’m very new to this and can’t seem to figure out why this isn’t working. I tried setting up a simple led following a video i saw on youtube but it won’t work . I’m using a regular led with a 100 ohm resistor.