Arduino Breadboard Review (A000032)

Created on: 8 August 2012Updated on: 4 December 2021

This is a review of the A000032 Arduino breadboard with wire kit. It consists of a 840 tie point plastic breadboard and a wire kit containing 70 wire links. The part number for the breadboard with wire kit is A000032.

The video shows the breadboard being unpacked and a simple circuit being built. Read below for the full review.

Packaging

The breadboard and wire kit are packed together in plastic as shown in the two photos below.

Package Contents

The package consists of a breadboard with separate aluminium plate and a transparent plastic box containing wire links. They are each packaged in separate thick plastic bags.

The contents of the two bags is shown unpacked below.

First Impressions

The breadboard is very high quality. It is actually made of transparent plastic, so the internal conducting strips can be seen. The bottom of the breadboard has an adhesive pad that covers the transparent bottom.

If more than one breadboard is obtained, they can be joined together using the keyed sides of the board. One side of the breadboard has three protruding keys and the other side has the same key shape recessed into the plastic.

A paper layer on the bottom of the breadboard can be removed to expose an adhesive pad so that the breadboard can be stuck onto a surface. This is typically done to secure the breadboard to a work surface in a classroom or lab to prevent the breadboard from being removed. The board can also be stuck to some sort of electronic work station that would typically have a power supply and maybe other electronic learning and test equipment included.

Aluminium Plate

An aluminium plate is included with the breadboard. It is assumed that this is to be stuck on the bottom adhesive pad in the case where the breadboard is to be used "stand alone", i.e. portable. This would prevent the paper on the adhesive pad from being removed and the sticky pad causing problems during use.

Wire Links

The transparent box with wire links also appears to be of good quality. There are an assortment of different sized links, seventy in total.

Breadboard Comparison

The photo below shows that the Arduino breadboard is slightly smaller than a conventional breadboard. The name "conventional breadboard" will be used here when referring to the older original type of breadboard shown in the top of the photo.

The top and bottom horizontal rails of the conventional breadboard are split in the middle. The Arduino breadboard does not have this split, the top and bottom rails run the full length of the Arduino breadboard.

In the photo below, the top and bottom horizontal rails are shown in red. As can be seen, the conventional breadboard has a top pair of horizontal rails in which the conducting strips are split in the middle. The bottom horizontal rails are the same. The Arduino breadboard has a top and bottom pair of horizontal rails that are continuous along the length of the breadboard.

The vertical connecting strips are the same on both breadboards and are shown in green.

The Arduino top and bottom horizontal rails are closer to the middle tie points of the breadboard when compared to the conventional breadboard.

Another difference between the two breadboards is that the Arduino breadboard top and bottom rails are marked with a red strip and "+" sign and blue strip and "-" sign.

Likes

The Arduino breadboard is an excellent quality breadboard. The marking of the top and bottom horizontal rails that are normally used to supply power to the breadboard circuit is a nice feature.

Including a wire link kit in the package is also great and saves the user from having to find the necessary wire needed to build circuits.

Dislikes

One thing that may be a disadvantage is that the top and bottom rails are not split in the middle. Having split rails allows easy building of circuits that operate from more than one voltage. The left half of the board would typically contain a circuit operating from one voltage and use the left top and bottom rails for power. The right half of the board would be used for the part of the circuit operating from the other voltage and it's top and bottom power rails would be isolated from the left half.

A dual power supply circuit can still be built on this board if say the top pair of horizontal rails were to be used for one voltage and the bottom for the other. This would make the wiring a little more complex than if the rails were split in the middle.

Where to Buy

This breadboard with wire kit is supplied by the Arduino store (just search for A000032 in the search field).  There are also many other distributors of this product. Try searching for "Arduino A000032" on Google or another search engine.

Test Circuit

Here is a simple flashing LED circuit operating on the Arduino breadboard:

You can see from this photo that the Arduino Uno board is connected on the left side of the board and that the LED is connected on the right side of the board. This shows that the horizontal breadboard rails run the full length of the breadboard without a break in the middle.