26 Understandable electric circuits

Equipment and components

Breadboard
Resistors: 12 O (2), 100 O (2), 2.7 kO (2), 3.9 kO, 8.2 kO, 1.1 MO, 15 kO,
470 O, 18 O, 56 kO, 4.7 kO
Digital multimeter

Background information
Breadboard guide
The Universal Solderless Breadboard, or usually known as the bread-
board, is one type of circuit board. It offers an easy way to change com-
ponents or wire connections on the breadboard without soldering.
The breadboard is a good training tool and is usually used in the lab to perform
experiments on electric or electronic circuits, or for professionals to build
temporary electrical or electronic circuits to try out ideas for circuit designs.
Figure L1.1 is a photograph of a small breadboard, and Figure L1.2 is
what the underneath of the breadboard looks like.

Figure L1.1 A breadboard

Figure L1.2 The underneath of the breadboard

The breadboard contains an array of holes where the leads of components

and jumper wires can be inserted. The bottom of the board has many strips
of metal, which is laid out as shown in Figure L1.2. These strips connect
the holes on top of the board. The top and bottom rows will be used to
connect the power supply. Figure L1.3(a) is a simple circuit, and Figure
L1.3(b) shows how to build this circuit on the breadboard.

Resistor colour code guide (four band)

Most resistors are very small and it is hard to print the values on them.
Usually the small resistors have different colour bands on them, and the