CHUSBIE552

Thursday 11 December 2014

Cheap Breakout Boards From China (Are They Any Good) Part 2

This is part 2 of my series reviewing cheap tech from china, part one and more info can be found here.

Tiny 25 Point Bread Boards


So second little china post jiffy bag arrived on the 3/12/14. It contained 7 Teenie Tiny 25 point bread boards.

OK, I realise these are not breakout boards but when I saw them I had to give them a go, just look how cute they are.

Breadboards are an easy way to prototype circuits without the hassle of soldering ( In Truth I Love Soldering but normally prototype on breadboards)

These breadboards where 0.99GBP for all 7 making them less than 0.15GBP each this is not including 0.29GBP postage but that's not too bad.


 The Breadboards have 25 holes that wires or conponent leads are pushed into, the grip seems strong enough to gently hold the wire and make a good electrical connection.

The conductors inside the breadboards run in 5 lines this means that the that 5 lines of 5 holes are connected allowing you to build simple circuits. Unfortunately because there is no break in the middle they are not DIP compatible so no mini Punk Synth's never mind they are still good for all types for passive components and discreet semiconductors like transistors.    

In this photo you can also see that the bases are detachable from the breadboards on the base there are two pegs, I found out later that Seeed Studio sell a kit with 12 of these breadboards and a peg board base so you can fashion your circuits together.


So I decided to Laser cut my own base to it. I have uploaded it to ThingiVerse if you wish to have a go at cutting your own.


Here's my version I have inlaid Sugru into the lettering the power is where you can stick a battery pack.  The Sugru was slightly out of date but still good, Just goes to prove keep your out of date Sugru, your never to sure when it will be useful :)

In Conclusion:

These are some of the things that don't seem very useful until you need them. With a based board, mine or Seeed Studios I don't find them very useful. But as a single Tiny breadboard just when you want a single tac switch, transistor, led or even join some wires, when a mini breadboard feels too big or space in you project is a bit tight these work for me. 

They seem electrically sound for low level voltages, ie. 0 -12 Volts I wouldn't go much further then that. I also like the ability to remove the peg base and maybe use a double sided sticky pad, would recommend insulating tap on the exposed contacts beforehand, just to avoid and blue smoke related mishaps. ;)

I give these 4 Sparks useful would like to see some that are DIP compatible can't win them all,  but the build quality is not bad.

      

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