EXPERIMENT NO 01

1. Understanding a breadboard

A basic circuit board is simply a rectangle of plastic with copper connecting tracks on one side
and lots of holes drilled through it.

A breadboard
1.1. Connections on breadboard

Breadboards have many tiny sockets (called 'holes') arranged on a 0.1" (2.54mm) grid. The
leads of most components can be pushed straight into the holes.

A mini breadboard from the top (left) and the same breadboard flipped over with
the adhesive back removed (right).

The tops of the metal rows have little clips that hide under the plastic holes. Each metal strip
and socket is spaced with a standard pitch of 0.1". These clips allow you to stick a wire or the
leg of a component into the exposed holes on a breadboard, which then hold it in place.

A single strip of conductive metal removed from the above breadboard

Once inserted that component will be electrically connected to anything else placed in that
row. This is because the metal rows are conductive and allow current to flow from any point
in that strip.

Notice that there are only five clips on this strip. This is typical on almost all breadboards.
Thus, you can only have up to five components connected in one particular section of the
breadboard. The row has ten holes, so why can you only connect five components? You’ll also
notice that each horizontal row is separated by a ravine, or crevasse, in the middle of the
breadboard. This ravine isolates both sides of a given row from one another, and they are not
electrically connected. This ravine serves a very important purpose. Many integrated circuits,
often referred to as ICs or, simply, chips, are manufactured specifically to fit onto breadboards.
In order to minimize the amount of space they take up on the breadboard, they come in what

Two DIP ICs, the LM358 (top), a very common op-amp, and the ever-popular ATmega328
microcontroller (bottom).
is known as a Dual in-line Package, or DIP.

You may have noticed that many breadboards have numbers and letters marked on various
rows and columns. These don't serve any purpose other than to help guide you when building
your circuit. Circuits can get complicated quickly, and all it takes is one misplaced leg of a
component to make the entire circuit malfunction or not work at all. If you know the row
number of the connection you are trying to make, it makes it much simpler to plug a wire into
that number rather than eyeballing it.

Rows and columns on a breadboard

The top and bottom rows are linked horizontally all the way across as shown by the red and
black lines on the diagram. The power supply is connected to these rows, + at the top and 0V
(zero volts) at the bottom. The other holes are linked vertically in blocks of 5 with no link
across the centre as shown by the blue lines on the diagram.

2. Resistor colour code

The standard resistor colour code chart

The use of colored bands or stripes is the most common system for color-coding resistors, as
shown below

Illustration of resistance color stripes

2.1. Determination of resistance using color codes

In diagram shown above, the first stripe is red for 2 and the next stripe is green for 5. The red
multiplier in the third stripe means add two zeros to 25, or “this multiplier is 10 2 ”. The result
can be illustrated as follows:
Therefore, the resistance value is 2500 Ohm

2.2. Resistor tolerance

The amount by which the actual resistance can differ from the color-coded value is the
tolerance, usually given in percent. For instance, a 2500 ! resistor with 5% tolerance can have
resistance 5% above or below the coded value. This resistance , therefore, is between 2375 W
and 2625 W. The calculations are as follows:

For +5%, the value is 2500 + 125 = 2625 ! .

For -5%,thevalueis 2500 – 125 = 2375 ! .

2.3. Five-band color code

Precision resistors (typically metal-film resistors) often use a five-band color code rather than
the four-band code. The purpose is to obtain more precise R values. With the five- band code,
the first three color stripes indicate the first three digits, followed by the decimal multiplier in
the fourth stripe and the tolerance in the fifth stripe. In the fifth stripe, the colors brown, red,
green, blue, and violet represent the following tolerances:

3. Resistors connections
3.1. Aim: The purpose of this experiment is to verify the resistor connections in series and
parallel.
3.2. Materials: breadboard, 3 different resistors, LED, 9V battery, jumper wires, digital
multimeter.
3.3. Procedures
(i) Use resistor color codes to determine the resistance of each of the given resistors.
(ii) Use a digital multimeter to measure the resistance of each resistor.
(iii) Design the following circuit on the breadboard.
 (iv) Use a multimeter to measure the equivalent resistor, then measure the voltage drop
on each resistor.
(v) Design the following circuit on the breadboard.

(vi) Repeat the procedure number (iv) for this circuit.

(vii) Now design the following circuits to study the effects of resis tor connections on LED

3.4. Questions
(i) Indicate the resistances for each resistor and their tolerances as given by their color
codes
(ii) What are the measured values of the resistors?
(iii) What is the error for each resistor as compared to the read value from the color codes?
Error = Read value – Measured value
(iv) What is the equivalent resistor when they were connected in series?
(v) What is the value of voltage drop on each resistor when the connection was in series?
 (vi) What is the equivalent resistor when they were connected in parallel?
(vii) What is the value of voltage drop on each resistor when the connection was in
parallel?
(viii) What happen to the brightness of the LED on each of the LED circuit?
4. Charging and discharging of a capacitor
4.1. Aim: The purpose of this experiment is to study the charge and discharge of a capacitor.
4.2. Materials: breadboard, resistor, LED, capacitor, 9V battery, jumper wires.
4.3. Procedures
(i) Design the circuit below

(ii) Keep the battery from the circuit for about a minute and the replace it with LED
with a cathode connected to the negative side of the battery.
4.4. Questions
(i) What does a given circuit indicate?
(ii) What happened when the battery was replaced by LED?
(iii) What did the new circuit indicate?