At Ohmify, we like to do a lot of circuit building. The breadboard is center stage in that process of connecting all the various electronic components. Those components are typically connected together by multi colored, flexible jumper wires.
There are a couple of pre-made types: the DuPont style and the standard flexible kind and they both have their pluses and minuses. Of course, there is always the DIY jumper wire option too.
At some point, your circuit might need to move from the breadboard to a prototype board or even to a more permanent PCB home.
In the meantime, as your circuits become more complex, you might find that making this transition means navigating some serious jumper wire spaghetti:
In the following video, Cool Tools proposes a case for using solid core jumper wire as an alternative to the flexible jumper wire scenario. While there is no correct or proper way, the solid core wire method does help to prevent some potential frustrations along the way:
In my own personal experience, my mileage has varied with pre-cut solid core wire. The reason? Some of it is not very high quality or it does not insert well into the bread board holes easily. Thus, another frustration emerges in the process.
Do you have a preference for solid core wire over flexible jumper wires? Or, do you use both depending on the situation? What has your experience been with either one? We’d love to hear form you in the comments below.
Have fun everyone 😃!
I have yet to try the flexible jumper wires, in fact I just ordered some.
The problem I have with the solid core wires is that they are, especially the short ones, very tricky to insert when you don’t have much space. Using tweezers…grab them wrong and the wires (short ones) fling across the room and vanish without a trace.
Sometimes you have to bend them out of shape to reach a certain spot and as mentioned in the post above, they don’t insert very well and bend even more, which makes them even more tricky to insert.