CHAPTER 23 ■ THE MOTHERBOARDHowever, with long leads or nearby components, sometimes you can bend a lead enough to reach the
lead to which it needs to be soldered. Of course, then you don’t gain the protection of the plastic insulation
that a wire would provide.
Creating Power Distribution Buses
Most solderless breadboards have long rows at the top and the bottom to distribute positive and negative
voltage to locations near all of the components. Although some solderable breadboards have these buses
built on the board surface with copper traces, many breadboards do not.
In any case, it’s not hard to make your own power distribution buses. What’s more, you’re free to design
the placement, length, and pattern of these buses yourself.
- Obtain some #22 AWG bare wire. You can always strip off the plastic insulation
from wire you already have. However, it’s faster and cleaner to obtain a spool of
the bare stuff. Figure 23-10 shows some uninsulated copper wire that has a thin
coating of tin to improve solderability.
Figure 23-9. Side view of a breadboard with a component’s leads bent slightly to hold it in place during
soldering
Figure 23-10. Spool of #22 AWG bare (no plastic insulation) tin-coated copper wire