As you unwrapped that package I was looking at the one I bought recently which came in the same box. The tension here in the room was palpable...

".. my anxiety levels are going through the roof". 😊 You are a funny guy Julian. Good to see you posting new videos.

I’m surprised after all these years no one has come up with a quick fix for naughty breadboards.

One evening I noticed that sometimes, breadboard work was impossible, sometimes it was just easy. Then I saw your previous video, after which I just ordered a batch from Pololu and threw out a bunch of my randos. My recent breadboard-mind-blown was realizing that the half-length ones have offset power holes, rather than lining up with the main holes. So you can't just drop a Digispark type board into them and have vcc and ground connected.

If you mount the breadboard on thin metal you can dispense with the countersinking simply by screwing up through the metal into the bottom of the breadboard with short coarse-thread screws.

The breadboard screwed onto decking timber is a brilliant idea!

I have 3 of those bad boards haha! Literally going in the can after I type this! Felt your pain they drove me MAD!!!

Just to reiterate what has been said here before. The first thing to check is to see if the column numbers match up numerically. If they don't match up, but run in opposite number numerically, the board is likely junk with hard to connect points. So the board marking should be consistent so point 'B26" should not be debatable. More important is overall quality, and this is one item worth paying extra for. Not only ease of assembly, but the quality of their connectors. Nothing is more frustrating than spending time tracing down an intermittent problem than finding out that it was a tie point that lost its springiness after a couple of uses, and no longer holds the wire tightly.

I abandoned the breadboard I got in my Arduino starter kit and ordered some much better ones from Jameco. Difference is night and day. Jameco's were like $8 each but well worth it compared to the crappy ones that came with the starter kit.

Julian, cut the wire at a diagonal instead of straight across.

If you have one...you can use a Dremel-style rotary tool with a sanding or sharpening (coarse) bit to fix those counter sunk holes.

Some of my MB-102's are like that too.

real dovetails for breadboards!

If you take the large drill bit that you're using to hand deburr, chuck it up into a drill and spin it backwards, it will deburr quickly without drilling into the board (much).

You can get much easier wire insertion if you cut the wires with sharp 'scissor' type of cutters that cut by slicing - such as on high quality stripping tools.. and especially if you cut the wire on a slight diagonal. When people cut the wires using diagonal cutters, the wire is basically crushed in half - forming an end that's flared much like the shape of a hatchet blade

Oh I had a bad bread board like that when I was a kid. I for the life of me couldn't build anything on it... oh the infuriating memories you have brought back Julian.

Have you tried the 'wrong one' with dupont wires (with the hard tips on them)? I got some breadboard that works fine with these but not with lose wires.

My limited, anecdotal experience suggests the ones that come in boxes are the good ones and the ones that just come loose are the bad ones, YMMV.

Awesome put some standoffs and go up another level👍

WoW!, looks fantastic cant wait to follow you on this one !

I find the large funnel BBs don't hold wires as tightly., and if you use pre-made wires with the pin end that don't have a burr they go into the small funnel BBs just fine. If you spun those wire ends on a grinding wheel they will go into the SF BBs fine.

I just got a couple of these from ali express for I think around $1.50 or so. I only got 2 cuz I wasn't sure how the quality would be, but it's actually not bad at all. I just don't like the power rails that only go half way up but that's a minor problem.

Thank you for another nice video! I thought I was the only breadboard fanatic, but you have me beat. Important, Check the resistance of several of the metal strips! I've found some from ebay that the resistance was so high they were useless. I found that out the hard way after my project kept failing even though I knew there wasn't anything wrong with the design. I also had the same problems that you've had. Thanks again.

On the subject of breadboards you used to be able to get ones with wider spacing for 0.6" spacing components like processors and whatnot. I would really really really like to know where you can get those these days as I have checked every supplier I know of and none of them do them any more.

I reckon you could quickly tidy up the drilled holes in the breadboards by giving them a brief touch with a flame instead of faffing with pliers and whatnot.

Nice new breadbords, are you planning after you have finish this project and it's working ok, to covert this all to real pcb's so you need less space and put it in a nice case?

So, that gives you maximum electronic circuit layout territory. Do you intend to jumper all of the power supply leads from one board to the other? Also, do you think it would be wise to place, say a 4.7µF electrolytic capacitor across each breadboard power rail? Also, if you get the Lindstrom 8141 wire snips, they cut very cleanly. These are very expensive (IMO) at $28 a pair, but worth it in my estimation because they stay sharp a very long time as long as you only use them for copper wire or softer materials. They are also re-sharpenable, either by you or Lindstrom. Use your other cheap side cutters for everything else.

How many parts will be stuffed?

3M make the best breadboards in my opinion. Bloody expensive though. But will last several lifetimes.

Try using cat 5 wire. It's thinner. I have some of those tight boards.I use them for circuits I'll keep a looooong time!

All of the breadboard factories in the world(can't be more than 3 or 4) need to come together and retool their machinery so all breadboards are at least functional.

Yes, I share your frustration with bad breadboards. I wonder how many factories actually produce these breadboards. I have what appears to be the exact breadboard. Same MB-102 model#. Same exact packaging, but with a different logo and company name: "Ever-Muse Electronic" instead of "StellarSource".

it's a short drive to madness 😋

If it helps someone, I bought a pack of 10 breadboards from aliexpress that are good (nice connectors, but the paint is bad and there is the break in the middle of power rails). I bought them on 02/01 and recieved them on 11/01 Seller : "Electr Stars Store" Product title : "Free Shipping 10PCS MB-102 MB102 Breadboard 830 Point Solderless PCB Bread Board Test Develop DIY" Color : "White"

Bonkers. But what fun! :)

idol...i like that vocoder brouhaha...what is that... ..finish that

Thanks , I never looked inside a bread board

Julian, don't you mean puckered rather than pouting. I'd say the rogues are more pouting

Julian, what is the opposite of _left?_ - 13:46 ;-P

one of the few times you want to see duckface online. Those new ones look well made indeed

Since one of these breadboards has 63 rows, drilling holes in the same places as you do with the half-sized boards will put holes at rows 16 and 48. That would be my preference. If instead you want the holes evenly spaced, you could drill holes at rows 21 and 42. The latter might hold the edges less firmly, though. Yes, you intentionally avoided obsessive spacing calculations, but actually the row count makes this much easier than trying to use the power rail groupings.

What is the size of the breadboards??

Woot! More Vocoder coming up! Maybe you read my comments 👍 (Unlike most of the youtubers just doing this for money and don't have a passion for the social media side of things).

you must've destroyed a lot of boats for all this decking timber to have :) Don't you hate the lands between the ridges in the wood ?

I'd be interested in comparing the "springyness" (clinical term) of the metal used. Guessing that the cheaper ones are more prone to stretching to the point where they lose contact with any wires that you do manage to insert.

You love your decking timber, don't you Julian?

And you have been making your Vocoder for how many years?...I would have thought you would have done it by now and Bell labs would have hunted you down...

Anybody remember the brand name of the original British made breadboards from the 60s/70s? Wracking my brains trying to think of it. Had a slot-in panel with holes to hold pots/switches.

I've heard Jameco and Busboard manufacturers make some of the better quality boards but they are US-based and have no international supplier network. In general it seems the UK is pretty crap when it comes to finding local suppliers of decent quality boards and the market, especially Amazon UK, is flooded with rubbish :)

Most men have wet dreams about woman... Julian has wet dreams about a stack of high quality breadboards... :P

Found same boards from UK supplier £7.34 for 3

Portrait ahhhh my eyes

I've found the major sign of a poor breadboard is when the column numbers don't match up on either side. the poor ones seem to get run through the printing machine one way, flipped around and run through again which makes the number 1 on the opposite ends of the board. the good ones I've had have both 1's on one side and 60's on the other.

I've heard that those MB-102s suffer from bad connections, especially to parts with thin legs.

Breadboards with pouting lips??? Methinks Mr Ilett needs to get out more...

The funniest boards have labels 1..60 reversed if you hold the board upside down. Same with the letters!

Look for the A,B,C,D at both ends. The good ones will have A across from A. Bad ones will not and they will be opposite.

the good breadboards are numbered and lettered correctly, bad breadboards are mis-alligned numbers and letters are reversed on the ends

I've ran into the same issues with some of those breadboards. I've had better luck using the pre-made breadboard jumpers that have the pins on the ends.

had a similar problem and used a brad to open them up.

Can I ask why aren't you making PCBs for it?

Wow Breadboard Self Help Group for that.....lol.....I can't stand bad Breadbaords either...

Did you get the idea of putting tiny people on your circuits from Tim Hunkin?

Excellent update, Julian. Just remember, don't say RIGHT! ;-)

check the bus bars if they are continuous. on some breadboards they are interrupted somewhere in the middle. it took me ages to figure that out. since that day i have a staple connecting the bus bar's halves

I have experienced a lot of issues with the new fangled bread board wires that have the finger holder and finished ends on them. I have 22 gauge (solid) wires I made for breadboard use way back in the late 80's and have no issues with those going into the same breadboard holes.

Quickest way to identify good breadboard from crappy one, is by markings.. Good breadboard have booth "1" in one side and booth "60" in end side, mirrored by centre line (column don't change number in opposite side of centre line), but crappy breadboards have "0"/ "60" in one side and "60"/"0" in other side.. Markings lost logic.. Same with alphabetical characters - in same row they change letter at the end of row.. I never buy breadboard if they have that unlogical column / row markings.. ;)

What size was the wire with the green insulation ?

the cheap one's prints pretty bad too

Did you pay one set price for all of those breadboards? Or it's over $2.00 for each one shipped? If not for that was gonna order some.

"No idea if these are any good... You know what? I'll order 7!" Why?

you know that breadboards are need to be used with peroper pins not any size shity way cutted wire

Julian will you take a Hi-Res photo of the Vocoder when your done? Post it on twitter so I can get a poster done of it. Since I have been talking with you about it for awhile I would like a memorial photo. I hope that don't sound to creepy ~ *Cheers*

"A very wide pout."

well its not nearly as bad as if the wires go in flawlessly and then the contacts are a bit loose and therefor make no contact. if your circuit then not works (or even worse works partially) --> good luck finding this. gets even harder if cables with bad contacts or internal microscopic breaks are involved. this will drive you crazy. so not complain on this.

I have the same problem and it is so frustrating. It seems to be hit and miss but even worse than tight holes are holes that provide flaky connections. I have thrown so many in the trash

Good evening all!

An electronics expert with a breadboard fetish - nothing wrong there, just perfectly normal! :)

diy-electronic breadboard sells just skyrocket.

Good afternoon sir

Haha, I'm not surprised. Poor British tools meet poor Chinese hardware.. You get what you pay for..

Holly Vocoder Batman

Yikes. That's one big array of breadboards.

cheap is cheap

Hello Julian, I need a bit of help regarding NRF24L01’s and wondered what is the best method to contact you. Many Thanks.

You got some fake fakes!

Problem with China products is the inconsistency in quality. It is a shame companies from other Countries do not produce electronic components. Pouting lips 👄 huh, 😂 lovely 😊