Using a Breadboard

A great way to learn circuits is to use a breadboard. You can use a breadboard with FUZE BASIC, or Scratch and Python, to control LEDs and other simple circuits. Here we’ll show you how a breadboard works.

GPIO

The Raspberry Pi enables you to access electronic pins, known as GPIO (General Purpose Input and Output). These are used to interact with external electronics like LED lights and switches. To start with you’ll learn to build circuits using a tool known as a Breadboard.

STEP 1

The FUZE Workstation comes with a breadboard and some basic electronics components - you can follow along with this tutorial by getting a breadboard, 1 x blue and 1 x red breadboard wires, a 5mm LED, a 22Ohms 5% resistor, 9V battery, and a 9V snap battery clip. Your local electronics shop will help you out.

STEP 2

Get out the breadboard, hold it up vertically and take a good look at it. You should see four vertical columns. The two pairs, on the left and right, both have a red and blue line running vertically alongside them. In the middle are vertical columns with letters and numbers. There are typically two main columns, lettered A-E and F-J.

STEP 3

The red and blue lines are power rails: red is for positive and blue is for negative. The holes do not provide any power themselves; instead they just connect to each other. So if you plug an item into one hole, and another item into a connected hole (along the line), then the two are connected as if you’d physically joined the two things together.

STEP 4

The two columns of holes on the outside are connected all the way down the line from the top to the bottom. Take a 9V battery and attach a snap battery clip. Connect the positive wire (red) to the topmost red hole on the left, it will provide positive power to any wire or component connected in any red hole all the way down to the bottom. Add the blue (negative) wire to the topmost blue hole on the right.

STEP 5

The two columns on the inside of the breadboard work completely differently. They are not wired vertically, but horizontally along the row of each columns. So if you look at row 1, the holes marked A, B, C, D and E are connected; and the holes in rows F, G, H, I and J are connected. What do we mean by “connected”? Let’s do it physically first to find out.

STEP 6

Get the LED and look at it closely. Notice how one leg is longer than the other. That’s the positive wire; the shorter one is negative. Take a resistor and wrap one end of it around the shorter wire on the LED. Take the positive wire from the PP3 battery clip and touch the LED; touch the negative wire to the resistor and see the LED light up. We’ve numbered these 1, 2 and 3 so you can match them in the next steps.

RECREATING THIS IN A BREADBOARD

Wrapping wires and circuits around each other isn’t going to be much fun, especially when you’re trying to figure out how something works. That’s what a breadboard is for: the holes enable you to connect one item to another.

STEP 1

Let’s now recreate this simple LED circuit on a breadboard. With the positive and negative cables from the battery connected to the top of the power rails, take a red connector and slot one end into a hole on the red line, and the other end into hole A1.

STEP 2

Now take the LED, find the long end, and slot this into hole B1. This is the equivalent of number 1 in our physical connection. The red cable is connected vertically along the powerline, and then to row 1 on the breadboard where it is connected horizontally to the LED on row 1.

STEP 3

This is the part where most people mess up. Take the other leg of the LED and connect it to hole D2. This is the next row down. If you connected it to another hole on line 1, such as D1, it would be the equivalent of touching both LED legs  together.

STEP 4

Now take your resistor and place it next to the LED leg in slot E2 (also on the second line). If you look at the photo from Step 6, this is the equivalent of 2 (the part where the LED and resistor are connected. Insert the other end of the resistor in a hole on the negative power rail and your LED will light up.

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