untitled

We bent the wires on the ceramic capacitors at a 45° angle so that the face of

the capacitor is visible. That way, you can easily read the value of the capaci-

tor on the board.

We cut the leads of the electrolytic capacitors to about^3 ⁄ 4 " to minimize how

far they stick up in the air.

When you use a breadboard, you can use and reuse components for different

projects. However, be aware that the little contact wires on components can

break off easily. If you remove ICs, use an IC extractor or the flat end of a

small screwdriver to pry the IC up at both ends, or you will damage it and

probably end up tossing it. The leads on ICs aren’t designed to be bent more

than once or twice, or they will break off.

Soldering Your Circuit Board ........................................................................

Electronics projects involve a lot of little bits called components(think tran-

sistors and capacitors, for example) and wire, and items like microphones

and light bulbs and such. In many instances, you have to solder some of

C 3 Battery and S1 TB

C 4 C 2 IC 1 R1

Headphone/speaker TB Potentiometer TB Microphone TB

C5R3 C 1

Figure 4-10:

A bread-

boarded

parabolic

microphone

circuit.

70 Part I: Project Prep