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in electronics prototyping. For the device used in optics labs, see optical breadboards. For the food preparation utensil, see Cutting board.

A solderless breadboard with a completed circuit

This 1920s TRF radio manufactured by Signal is constructed on a wooden breadboard A breadboard (protoboard) is a construction base for a one-of-a-kind electronic circuit, a prototype. In modern times the term is commonly used to refer to a particular type of breadboard, the solderless breadboard (plugboard). Because the solderless breadboard does not require soldering, it is reusable, and thus can be used for temporary prototypes and experimenting with circuit design more easily. Other, often historic, breadboard types don't have this property. This is also in contrast to stripboard (veroboard) and similar prototyping printed circuit boards, which are used to build more permanent soldered prototypes or one-offs, and cannot easily be reused. A variety of electronic systems may be prototyped by using breadboards, from small analog and digital circuits to complete central processing units (CPUs).

A binary counter wired up on a large solderless breadboard

The hole pattern for a typical etched prototyping PCB (printed circuit board) is similar to the node pattern of the solderless breadboards shown above.

Contents
[hide] 1 Evolution 2 The solderless breadboard 2.1 Typical specifications 2.2 Bus and terminal strips 2.2.1 Diagram 2.3 Jump wires 2.4 Inside a breadboard: construction 2.5 Advanced solderless breadboards 2.6 Limitations 3 Alternatives 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Evolution
In the early days of radio, amateurs would nail bare copper wires or terminal strips to a wooden board (often literally a cutting board for bread) and solder electronic components to them.[1]. Sometimes a paper schematic diagram was first glued to the board as a guide to placing terminals, then components and wires were installed over their symbols on the schematic. Using thumbtacks or small nails as mounting posts was also common. Over time, breadboards have evolved greatly, with the term being used for all kinds of prototype electronic devices. For example, US Patent 3,145,483[2], filed in 1961 and granted in 1964, describes a wooden plate breadboard with mounted springs and other

facilities. Six years later, US Patent 3,496,419[3], granted in 1970 after a 1967 filing, refers to a particular printed circuit board layout as a Printed Circuit Breadboard. Both examples also refer to and describe other types of breadboards as prior art. The now common, classic, usually white, plastic pluggable (solderless) breadboard, illustrated in this article, was designed by Ronald J Portugal of EI Instruments Inc. in 1971[4].

[edit] The solderless breadboard

Bus and terminal strips

Logical 4-bits adder where sums are linked to LEDs on a typical breadboard.

Example breadboard drawing. Two bus strips and one terminal strip in one block. 25 consecutive terminals in a bus strip connected (indicated by gaps in the red and blue lines). Four binding posts depicted at the top.

Close-up of a solderless breadboard. An IC straddling the centerline is probed with an oscilloscope probe. The solderless breadboard is mounted on a blue painted metal sheet. Red and black binding posts are present. The black one partly obscured by the oscilloscope probe. Solderless breadboards are available from several different manufacturers, but most share a similar layout. The layout of a typical solderless breadboard is made up from two types of areas, called strips. Strips consist of interconnected electrical terminals. terminal strips The main area, to hold most of the electronic components. In the middle of a terminal strip of a breadboard, one typically finds a notch running in parallel to the long side. The notch is to mark the centerline of the terminal strip and provides limited airflow (cooling) to DIP ICs straddling the centerline[citation needed]. The clips on the right and left of the notch are each connected in a radial way; typically five clips (i.e., beneath five holes) in a row on each side of the notch are electrically connected. The five clip columns on the left of the notch are often marked as A, B, C, D, and E, while the ones on the right are marked F, G, H, I and J. When a "skinny" Dual Inline Pin package (DIP) integrated circuit (such as a typical DIP-14 or DIP-16, which have a 0.3 inch separation between the pin rows) is plugged into a breadboard, the pins of one side of the chip are supposed to go into column E while the pins of the other side go into column F on the other side of the notch. bus strips To provide power to the electronic components. A bus strip usually contains two columns: one for ground and one for a supply voltage. However, some breadboards only provide a single-column power distributions bus strip on each long side. Typically the column intended for a supply voltage is marked in red, while the column for ground is marked in blue or black. Some manufacturers connect all terminals in a column. Others just connect groups of e.g. 25 consecutive terminals in a column. The latter design provides a circuit designer with some more control over crosstalk (inductively coupled noise) on the power supply bus. Often the groups in a bus strip are indicated by gaps in the color marking. Bus strips typically run down one or both sides of a terminal strip or between terminal strips. On large breadboards additional bus strips can often be found on the top and bottom of terminal strips.

Some manufacturers provide separate bus and terminal strips. Others just provide breadboard blocks which contain both in one block. Often breadboard strips or blocks of one brand can be clipped together to make a larger breadboard. In a more robust and slightly easier to handle variant, one or more breadboard strips are mounted on a sheet of metal. Typically, that backing sheet also holds a number of binding posts. These posts provide a clean way to connect an external power supply. Several images in this article show such solderless breadboards. [edit] Diagram A "full size" terminal breadboard strip typically consists of around 56 to 65 rows of connectors, each row containing the above mentioned two sets of connected clips (A to E and F to J). Together with bus strips on each side this makes up a typical 784 to 910 tie point solderless breadboard. "Small size" strips typically come with around 30 rows. Miniature solderless breadboards as small as 17 rows (no bus strips, 170 tie points) can be found. These are more kind of a novelty item than of great practical use.

[edit] Jump wires

The jump wires for solderless breadboarding can be obtained in ready-to-use jump wire sets or can be manually manufactured. The latter can become tedious work for larger circuits. Ready-to-use jump wires come in different qualities, some even with tiny plugs attached to the wire ends. Jump wire material for ready-made or home-made wires should usually be 22 AWG (0.33 mm) solid copper, tin-plated wire - assuming no tiny plugs are to be attached to the wire ends. The wire ends should be stripped 3/16" to 5/16" (approx. 5 mm to 8 mm). Shorter stripped wires might result in bad contact with the board's spring clips (insulation being caught in the springs). Longer stripped wires increase the likelihood of short-circuits on the board. Needle-nose pliers and tweezers are helpful when inserting or removing wires, particularly on crowded boards. Differently colored wires and color coding discipline are often adhered to for consistency. However, the number of available colors is typically far less than the number of signal types or paths. So typically a few wire colors get reserved for the supply voltages and ground (e.g. red, blue, black), some more for main signals, while the rest often get random colors. There are ready-to-use jump wire sets on the market where the color indicates the length of the wires; however, these sets do not allow applying a meaningful color coding schema.

[edit] Inside a breadboard: construction

The following images show the inside of a bus strip. inside breadboard 1

inside breadboard 2

inside breadboard 3

inside breadboard 4

inside breadboard 5

inside breadboard 6

Advanced solderless breadboards

Some manufacturers provide high-end versions of solderless breadboards. These are typically high-quality breadboard modules mounted on some flat casing. The casing contains additional equipment for breadboarding, for example, a power supply, one or more signal generators, serial interfaces, LED or LCD modules, logic probes, etc. Solderless breadboard modules can also be found mounted on devices like microcontroller evaluation boards. They provide an easy way to add additional periphery circuits to the evaluation board.

[edit] Limitations

An example of a complex circuit built on a breadboard. The circuit is an Intel 8088 single board computer. Due to large stray capacitance (from 2-25 pF per contact point), high inductance of some connections and a relatively high and not very reproducible contact resistance, solderless breadboards are limited to operate at relatively low frequencies, usually less than 10 MHz, depending on the nature of the circuit. The relative high contact resistance can already be a problem for DC and very low frequency circuits. Solderless breadboards are further limited by their voltage and current ratings. Solderless breadboards usually cannot accommodate surface mount technology devices (SMD) or non 0.1" (2.54 mm) grid spaced components, like for example those with 2 mm spacing. Further, they can not accommodate components with multiple rows of connectors if these connectors don't match the dual in-line layoutit is impossible to provide the correct electrical connectivity. Sometimes small PCB adapters called breakout adapters can be used to fit the component to the board. Such adapters carry one or more components and have 0.1" (2.54 mm) connectors in a single in-line or dual inline layout. Larger components are usually plugged into a socket on the adapter, while smaller components (e.g. SMD resistors) are usually soldered directly onto the adapter. The adapter is then plugged into the breadboard via the 0.1" connectors. However, the need to solder the components onto the adapter negates some of the advantage of using a solderless breadboard. Complex circuits can become unmanageable on a breadboard due to the large amount of wiring necessary.

[edit] Alternatives
Alternative methods to create prototypes are point-to-point construction, reminiscent of the original breadboards, wire wrap, wiring pencil, and boards like stripboard. Complicated systems, such as modern computers comprising millions of transistors, diodes and resistors, do not lend themselves to prototyping using breadboards, as sprawling designs on breadboards can be difficult to lay out and debug. Modern circuit designs are generally developed using a schematic capture and simulation system, and tested in software simulation before the first prototype circuits are built on a printed circuit board. Integrated circuit designs are a more extreme version of the same process: since producing prototype silicon is expensive, extensive software simulations are performed before fabricating the first prototypes. However, prototyping techniques are still used for some applications such as RF circuits, or where software models of components are inexact or incomplete.

Electronics Basics: Using a Breadboard

By Earl Boysen and Nancy C. Muir A breadboard is a rectangular plastic box filled with holes, which have contacts in which you can insert electronic components and wires. A breadboard is what you use to string together a temporary version of your circuit. You don't have to solder wires or anything else; instead, you poke your components and wires into the little contact holes arranged in rows and connected by lines of metal; then you can connect your components together with wires to form your circuit. The nice thing about breadboards is that you can change your mind and replace or rearrange components as you like. You typically create an electronics project on a breadboard to make sure that everything works. If it's a project you wish to save, you can create a more permanent version. If you want to create a permanent version of your circuit, you need to create a soldered or printed circuit board; see below to find out how to go about that. There are a few different sizes of breadboards and you can link breadboards to make a larger circuit.

Wires pull it all together

When you place components in a breadboard, you don't get much action until you connect those components with wire. Wire used in electronics is copper surrounded by a plastic insulator, usually called hookup wire. Hookup wire comes in various diameters referred to as a gauge. The standard gauge measurement used in the U.S. is American Wire Gauge, also referred to as AWG. Someone decided at some point that the smaller the gauge, the larger the diameter of wire. For example, 20 gauge wire is 0.032" in diameter, and 22 gauge wire is 0.025" in diameter. Don't ask why just memorize this fact! Use solid wire never stranded wire between components within a breadboard because stranded tends to separate when you try to insert it into the holes of a breadboard. You can buy hookup wire in spools containing 100 feet of wire. If you are starting with only a few projects, you can get smaller spools containing as little as 30 feet of wire. The insulating plastic that surrounds wire is made in different colors. Pick up a spool of red and a spool of black. Using different colors helps you to identify the purpose of different wires in your project. You might also consider buying an assortment of different lengths of prestripped and prebent 22 gauge wire jumpers. Jumper wires which are used to connect components in a breadboard save you a lot of time you might otherwise spend cutting small wires to length, stripping them, and bending the stripped wire when you're building a breadboard.

Connectors
Finally, terminal blocks are used to connect wires from components such as speakers, motors, and microphones to the breadboard. A terminal block is a small block of plastic that you mount on a breadboard. You insert the wires into the terminal block through a hole in the block and then tighten screws to hold the wire securely. When choosing terminal blocks, the diameter of the pin that inserts into the breadboard or

circuit board is important. Some terminal blocks that work fine in circuit boards where the components are soldered in do not stay in place on breadboards.

Printed circuit boards

If you create a circuit on a breadboard and decide that it's worthy of immortality, you can make it permanent by soldering components in place on a printed circuit board. To do this, you have to get your hands on a universal printed circuit board. This is much like a breadboard except that you can solder all the connections you've made to keep them around. A universal printed circuit board has rows of individual holes throughout the board with copper pads around each hole and metal lines connecting the holes in each row, like in a breadboard. You mount parts on the face of the board and then pass leads through holes to the components. You can solder the leads to the copper pads on the bottom of the board. Universal printed circuit boards are available in a variety of patterns of contact holes and metal lines. You can get custom printed circuit boards made for your circuit; this is typically done by submitting a drawing of your circuit to a printed circuit board company. These boards eliminate the need to solder jumper wires between components.

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Splicing a Power Cord

By H. Ward Silver Power cords get damaged from all sorts of things; over-enthusiastic weed-whacking or hedge-trimming, forgetting that the car's battery warmer was still plugged in, even being chewed up by dogs and rodents! New cords aren't cheap as any hardware store patron knows. This task shows you how to make that cord almost as good as new for the cost of a little time and effort. It demonstrates repairing a 3-wire power cord but the same techniques apply to their smaller 2-wire power cord cousins. To splice a power cord, you'll need the following tools: a sharp knife, wire cutters, wire strippers, and a soldering iron and solder. You'll also need a 3-wire power cord and heat shrink tubing 1/4-inch diameter to fit the inner wires and a larger size 50% larger than the diameter of the cord. This project should take less than an hour: 1. Trim the separated ends of the cord and remove any frayed, wet, or oxidized wire. 2. Cut a 6-inch piece of heat-shrink tubing with a diameter 50% greater than the cord's jacket. 3. Trim 4 inches of jacket from each piece of cord. Avoid nicking the inner wires or their insulation by scoring the jacket and flexing the cord until the jacket breaks away cleanly. Untwist and straighten each wire. Remove any string or filler material. Slide the heat shrink tubing over either piece of cord. 4. To separate the splices of each individual wire, perform the splice at a different point on each pair of wires. On the left-hand piece of cord, cut the wires as follows: hot 2

inches from the jacket, neutral 3 inches from the jacket, ground do not cut. On the right-hand piece of cord, cut the wires as follows: Hot: do not cut Neutral: 3 inches from jacket Ground: 2 inches from jacket Strip each wire 1 inch. Each splice will be 1 inch apart, keeping plenty of insulation between the bare wires. 5. Cut three 1-1/2-inch pieces of 14-inch diameter heat shrink tubing. Slip one piece over each wire. 6. Starting with the neutral wire (it will be the easiest since both pieces are longer), cross the stripped wires at their midpoint and twist each around the other in opposite directions. This is a "Western Union" splice, originally invented for repairing telegraph lines in the mid-1800s! Continue twisting until the wires are snugly wrapped around each other. 7. Solder the wires together, center the heat-shrink tubing over the splice and shrink it. 8. Repeat Steps 6 and 7 for the hot and ground wires. 9. Center the large piece of heat-shrink tubing over the entire splice and shrink it. 10. Wrap the splice with good-quality electrical tape twice, once in each direction, overlapping each successive wrap at least 50%. At the end of the wrap, cut the tape and press it into place. Do not pull the tape apart; that causes the top layer to begin to separate. Eventually pulled-apart tape comes completely loose (flagging).

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Showing You My Etchings: Etching the Circuit Board

Creating the resist pattern on a new sheet of printed circuit board material really only gets your circuit board one third of the way done. For the next step, you need to etch that board to remove the unwanted copper. The copper that remains forms the printed circuit that makes your project work. You use something called etchant to etch your board. Etchant is a caustic (meaning it can burn you) chemical that dissolves copper. It's not like some acid that a monster in a Bmovie oozes out dissolving everything in its path; etchant doesn't fizzle away the copper on contact. The etching process actually takes several minutes. The copper that the resist pattern doesn't protect dissolves away first. The etchant finishes its job when it gets rid of all the copper in the exposed, resist-free areas.

First step: Inspecting the board

Think of etching as an unforgiving process. In the steps leading up to this process, you can modify or redo your work, to a certain extent. But when you reach the etching stage, you're making a commitment: After you etch, if you have an error in your circuit, you probably have to chuck the whole thing and start again. That's why you really, really need to inspect the board for errors in layout, missing traces

and pads, skips in the resist pattern, and other gremlins that produce a poor result before you actually etch the board: If you created the resist pattern from artwork appearing in a book or magazine, compare your board with the printed layout. Follow the traces from pad to pad and note any discrepancies. If you find any, you'll have to redo the artwork or fix any problems before you begin etching. If you created the resist pattern from your own design, or by using the direct-etch method, carefully review your work and compare it against a schematic or paper drawing. Be sure that pads and traces aren't too close together. At a minimum, all pads and traces should be 1/32nd of an inch apart, but more is always better here. Repairing a board after a shoddy etching job if you can do it at all is timeconsuming and frustrating.

Cleaning the board carefully, please!

After you inspect the board, wet a cotton ball with isopropyl alcohol and gently clean the exposed parts. Don't apply much alcohol because some types of resist may melt or distort when exposed to alcohol. Also, let the alcohol dry completely before immersing the board in the etchant fluid. Use isopropyl alcohol with a minimal water content. General purpose isopropyl alcohol that you buy at the drug store can have 30- to 40-percent water content. The more water mixed in with the alcohol, the more chance you have that the water will damage the resist. Look for so-called technical grade isopropyl alcohol, available at chemical supply outlets and school lab suppliers.

Kvetching about etching

Etching can be dangerous not only to your health, but also to your wardrobe. Most circuit board etchants, whether in liquid or powder form, are toxic and highly caustic. Never allow the etchant chemical to come into contact with your skin or your clothes. If you do get some etchant on your fingers or hands, wash it off immediately. Because etchant stains skin and clothing, avoid wearing your best party clothes when etching. Instead, wear a smock, your least favorite pair of pants, and old shoes. Also, wear eye protection to prevent the etchant from injuring your peepers if it splashes onto your face. Wear gloves to protect your hands against burns and stains. Choose gloves that let you work almost as well as if you didn't have gloves on at all. (So don't use those old gardening gloves for this kind of work.) Disposable plastic or latex gloves do a good job. Prolonged exposure to etching solution fumes can seriously injure you, so be sure to etch your circuit boards only in a well-ventilated area. All etchant solutions give off fumes, which can do serious harm to the mucous membranes in your nose and throat. You don't necessarily notice the effect right away. You may etch one or two boards and not be aware of the fumes. But an hour or two later, you feel an intense burning in your nose or throat that can last up to several days. Store unused etchant solution in a dark-colored plastic bottle designed for photographic chemicals and keep the bottle in a dry, dark, cool place. Clearly label the bottle with its contents and keep it away from children.

Mixing the etchant

If the previous section didn't scare you away from ever touching etchant, even with a ten foot pole, check out this section for the mad scientist portion of the process mixing the etchant. You find etchant, whether ferric chloride or ammonium persulfate, in three popular forms: Liquid, not concentrated Liquid, concentrated Powder (sometimes this comes as a semi-glutinous paste) You can get liquid, unconcentrated etchant at Radio Shack and most electronics stores. It comes in a plastic bottle ready for use. Just open the bottle, pour the etchant solution into a plastic (remember, never metal) tray, and you're ready to go. You can use unconcentrated liquid etchant to make more than one board, depending on the size of the boards. The etching action reduces as you increase the surface area of the board. For example, if the board measures 4 x 6 inches, with one side to etch, the board has 24 square inches of copper clad. Check the bottle for your etchant's recommended usage. Your particular solution may be able to etch up to 50 square inches of copper clad. This estimate assumes that you use the entire contents of the bottle. If you use less etchant, you also reduce the expected amount of coverage. The size and number of boards that you make determines how long the etchant lasts before it just can't etch anymore. You need to throw out weaker etchants after you use them to make just one 2 x 3-inch board; you can use stronger etchants to make several large boards. Using weak etchant, you may have to wait ages for the etching to finish, and this weak etchant can lead to voids in the copper pattern. Here are some tips to keep in mind when mixing and using etchants for making printed circuit boards: You must dilute concentrated liquid etchant before you use it. For best results, dilute the etchant with hot water; this addition increases the etching action. Typical dilution ratios are 2:1, 3:1, and 4:1. The higher the ratio, the longer the concentrate lasts. For best results, though, balance the thrifty use of the concentrate with your tolerance for longer etching times. The weaker the etchant, the longer it takes to remove the excess copper. You have to mix powder (or paste) etchant before you use it. One packet of powder etchant generally makes one or two quarts of unconcentrated etchant. You can mix the powder to make a smaller amount of liquid and then dilute the mixture when you're ready to use it.

Now that you're itching to etch . . .

After you go through all the preliminaries in the preceding sections, you get to actually etch your printed circuit board. Follow these steps to etch the board: 1. Pour the etchant into the plastic tray carefully, avoiding spills and splashes. Pour enough etchant to create a pool at least 1/8-inch thick, preferably 1/4-inch thick. 2. Dunk the board into the tray and continually rock it back and forth. 3. Keep the board in the soup for 10 to 30 minutes (depending on the type and strength of the etchant) or until the etchant has removed all the excess copper. Keep that tray a-rockin

 but gently! 4. Use the plastic or wooden tongs to lift the board out of the tray from time to time to check progress. The etchant removes the copper, starting from the edges and areas close to the resist. Large, open areas of copper can be stubborn and take 2 to 3 times as long to etch completely. You may want to agitate those areas of the copper that don't respond as quickly to the etchant. However, be sure that you don't over-agitate because you can undercutthe copper under the resist. Undercutting happens when etchant oozes under the resist and attacks the copper that you don't want to remove.

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Circuitbuilding Do-It-Yourself For Dummies

From Circuitbuilding Do-It-Yourself For Dummies by H. Ward Silver If you want to try your hand at building circuits or other electronics, make sure you keep the right tools on hand, know how to read resistor color codes and the value markings for capacitors, and understand the metric system of units and voltage conversions.

Circuitbuilding and Resistor Color Codes

Resistors are common passive electronic parts (meaning they don't need power to run) for circuitbuilding. Resistors control currents and voltages and they're manufactured in a variety of ways. Use this table to read resistor color codes for circuitbuilding: Color Value Stripe Multiplier Stripe Tolerance Stripe 0 Black 0 times; 1 (10 ) Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Gray White Gold Silver No color 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 times; 10 (101) times; 100 (102) times; 1000 (103) times; 10,000 (104) times; 100,000 (105) times; 1,000,000 (106) times; 10,000,000 (107) times; 100,000,000 (10 ) times; 1,000,000,000 (109) times; 0.1 times; 0.01
8

1% 2%

0.5% 0.25% 0.1% 0.05% 5% 10% 20%

How to Read Capacitor Value Markings

When youre building circuits with capacitors, youll need to learn to read the value markings, which not only designate values but other parameters as well. ###L (Three numbers Numbers 1 and 2 are value digits. and a letter) Number 3 is a multiplier: 0 = 1, 1 = 10, 2 = 100, 3 = 1000, 4 = 10,000. Letter denotes tolerance: J = 5%, K = 10%, L = 20% ##p or ##n Numbers 1 and 2 are value digits. p denotes pF, n denotes nF.

Drill Sizes Commonly Used in Electronics

Building circuits and other electronics requires a small electric drill, cordless or not. Invest in a small bench-mount drill press if you're installing circuits in project boxes and cabinets so it looks good. This guide shows you drill sizes you'll need: Size Dia Next Largest Fractional Clears Screw For Self-Tapping Numbe mete Size Size Screw Size r r 0.19 11 13/64 10 1 0.16 19 11/64 8 6 21 25 28 29 33 36 43 44 50 0.15 9 0.14 9 0.14 0 0.13 6 0.11 3 0.10 6 0.08 9 0.08 6 0.07 0 11/64 5/32 9/64 9/64 1/8 7/64 3/32 3/32 5/64 2 2-56 4 6-32 4-40 6 8-32 10-32 10-24

Metric System Unit Prefixes

For building circuits or other electronics, a system of prefixes is used to make managing and reading metric easier. Use this chart to learn the metric prefix, its symbol, and the decimal value. Prefix Symbol Multiplication Factor 12 teraT 10 gigamegakilocentimillimicronanopicoG M k c m m n p 109 106 103 102 103 106 109 1012

Voltage Conversions
Here are some handy mathematical formulas to help you figure out what those waveforms mean, and how to convert them to other measurements, when you're measuring voltage in your batteries or other electronic devices. Sine or square wave VPEAK-TO-PEAK = 2 VPEAK Sine wave Square wave Power to decibels Voltage to decibels Decibels to power Decibels to voltage VRMS = 0.707 VPEAK, VPEAK = 1.414 VRMS VRMS = VPEAK dB = 10 log10 (Power 1 / Power 2) dB = 20 log10 (Voltage 1 / Voltage 2) Power 1 = Power 2 antilog10 (dB / 10) Voltage 1 = Voltage 2 antilog10 (dB / 20)

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Electronics For Dummies

Having basic electronics info with you at your electronics workbench in the UK can be invaluable. Tear out and pin up these calculations, values, symbols, abbreviations, measurements and markings, and youll always have the essentials at hand.

Electronics Calculations Using Ohms Law and Joules Law

These equations, using Ohms Law and Joules Law, are the most useful youll find in electronics. They come in handy all the time for checking what's going on in your circuits. Unknown Value Formula

Voltage

V=IxR

Current I = V/R Resistance R = V/I Power P = V x I or P = V2/R or P = I2R where: V = voltage (in volts) I = current (in amps) R = resistance (in ohms) P = power (in watts)

Resistor and Capacitor Colour Code

Use this table to decipher the colour code on your resistors and capacitors. Distinguishing some colours from others can be tricky, so examine small parts really closely perhaps with a magnifying glass and always under good light. Colour 1st Digit 2nd Digit Multiplier Tolerance Black 0 0 x1 20% Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Grey White Gold Silver
i m

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
a g

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
e 0 .

x 10 x 100 x 1,000 x 10,000 x 100,000 x 1,000,000 x 10,000,000 x 100,000,000 x 0.1 x 0.01

j p g

1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 10%

Capacitor Tolerance Code

Capacitor ratings aren't all that precise, but you can at least work out how imprecise the ratings are by deciphering the following letter tolerance codes. Co Tolerance de B 0.1 pF C D F G J K M Z 0.25 pF 0.5 pF 1% 2% 5% 10% 20% +80%, 20%

Capacitor Value Reference

The first two digits of a capacitor value reference give you a number that you then divide or multiply by factors of ten according to the value of the third digit. Marki Value (in microfarads F unless otherwise stated) ng Nn Picofarads (nn is a number from 01 to 99) 101 100 pF 102 103 104 221 222 223 224 331 332 333 334 471 472 473 474 0.001 0.01 0.1 220 pF 0.0022 0.022 0.22 330 pF 0.0033 0.033 0.33 470 pF 0.0047 0.047 0.47

Common Electronic Component Symbols in the UK

This table shows you the electrical and electronic component symbols used in the UK. The US and other countries use their own symbols for some components, such as resistors and capacitors.

Electronic Component Abbreviations

This table lists the abbreviations for some standard international units named after famous scientists and engineers. The symbol for the ohm is the upper case omega, which is the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
i m a g e 0 . j p g

Units of Measure for Electronics and More

These units of measure are used in many different areas, not just electronics. Note that in science and engineering, though, an upper case 'M' represents a million and a lower case 'm' represents a millionth. Prefi Number Name Scientific Notation Abbreviation x

1,000,000,000 1,000,000 1,000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 0.001 0.000001 0.000000001 0.000000000001

1 billion 1 million 1 thousand 1 hundred ten 1 tenth hundredth thousandth millionth billionth trillionth

109 10 103 102 101 100 101 102 10 106 109 1012
3 6

giga mega kilo milli micro nano pico

G M k m n p

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