Older components? Necessary or swappable

[rocket88]

beaker, so am i. i can only do transistor based circuits, IC based ones i make a complete mess of. all of my breadboarding looks messy compared to a lot of others i've seen. my attitude is if you can breadboard it, do it, don't worry about being neat, that's important when you box the effect.

i haven't seen a larger version then the typical 4-5 hole in a row breadboards. you don't need a site like beavis to do breadboard, you just need a schematic. just have understand where you have components connected. if you look on smallbears main site steve has some different follow-alongs for breadboarding. start with small circuits and work your way to larger ones.

[motterpaul]

I know you can still get 2n5484, but Fairchild now makes the 2N5485 and it mentions the 2N2484 on the datasheet: http://www.taydaelectronics.com/datasheets/A-908.pdf

Should I buy these for a circuit that calls for 5484? or are they different?

I only ask because I have an order ready to go to Tayda, and if I went elsewhere for the 2484s I would have to also pay shipping.

[Silver Blues]

Nope, I've got a five and five. It gets a little cumbersome with some circuits but it doesn't bother me too much. A breadboard that you could build vero layouts verbatim onto would be awesome.

[rocket88]

true, but i've been thinking how you could do it and come to one big problem. you need something that could sever the track when inserted, and allow the track to reconnect when you remove it.....

[motterpaul]

Wow - this thread has gone off-topic, but oh well...

It's pretty easy really, you need bendable copper that will maintain its shape, two pieces that barely overlap. You insert a plastic piece that pushes down and goes over the lower one and goes under the upper one and  (the overlap is barely 1/16=inch) and then it anchors in a small slot. With a small plastic "breaker" (1/16") the displacement would not be too stressful on the copper.

Another way would be to have modular sizes of copper strips that you insert from either side, You just calculate the lengths you need from each side. You would also have a way to tap them into place and leave a gap (in case you need more than one cut in a row).

Or you could have a box on hinges that opens like a chessboard. Inside are tracks where you "lay the pipe" of the copper strips you need. Then you carefully shut & lock it. This is no stress on the copper, it is easy to lock down and easy to change if you decide to modify it. I like this one the best. You could sell extra strips for people who have cut their original strips too many times. Other than that, it is almost like a regular breadboard.

Have you ever looked at how a breadboard is made? You could almost use existing production molds to make this new feature. The biggest problem would be potential competition - but the money could also be made elsewhere.

There is always a solution.

When do we start production?

[motterpaul]

"Nope, I've got a five and five."

- the problem is that when you link them they actually become only four and four (open sockets)

[rocket88]

motterpaul wrote

"Nope, I've got a five and five."

- the problem is that when you link them they actually become only four and four (open sockets)

that's why you move down and across when you breadboard, and it prevents you from making a circuit that's just super long.

also, i read you're thoughts on how to make a "vero breadboard" and i think it would be more complicated then it would need to be. in the first idea, you would need to slide the "cut" sideways to break the joint rather then from the top, so you would need to have side access to each "strip." the second idea is a rather interesting solution, but you produce another issue. you would need each of these copper strips to have holes in them that you would be able to connect components into. what you would want is really a conductive moldable putty that you could put into tracks. you could easily separate it to make your cuts, and build any layout possible, any size. just my $0.02.