Breadboard Projects

Breadboards are a fun and easy way to construct simple to modest size circuits. Here I will list a series of breadboardable (if there is such a word) projects and related help articles. Over time I'll add additional info to projects to help you migrate them from breadboard to a more permanent home on either strip board or a dedicated PCB.

Breadboard initial setup

This simple and quick guide attempts to provide some basic information about breadboards and some things the uninitiated needs to be wary of.

Bat Detector

This is the first in a series of projects that can be constructed on either a breadboard, strip-board or printed circuit board.

Bats are fascinating creatures. Where I live, if you sit outside around dusk you can often see them flying around performing the most amazing aerial aerobatics. Whilst they may be blind, they have an incredible echo location system used for hunting, and with some basic electronics and a little patience you can detect the ultrasonic frequencies they use for hunting and object avoidance.

This is a basic design for a simple bat detector that I've had a fair amount of success with here in the UK. It uses fairly readily available components; no custom parts or CPUs etc, all sits on a single standard size breadboard and runs from a 9v battery.

I'll update this article to include strip-board and then printed circuit board layouts soon.

Playing with logic

This will be a collection of educational projects that will allow you to explore logic and related projects using breadboards.

Part 1 - The OR gate

In this first part, we will look at the concept of truth tables, logic IC's of the 74 series family, and then the humble OR gate.

Part 2 - Multiple gates

In this part we have a look at interconnecting multiple gates, designing custom logic elements and checking your designs with truth tables.

Part 3 - Oscillators

Next we look at oscillators and the NE555 precision timer IC.

Part 4 - Latches, Flip-Flops and Counters

Now we take a flying look at Latches, Flip-Flops and binary counters. The hand-holding stops at this point and you now have to start thinking for yourself a bit and to get you into the right frame of mind, there are a couple of exercises at the end that you should try and complete.

Part 5 - More logic

Here we look at more complex blocks of logic and set about designing a simple traffic light simulator.