I need to replace my personal solderless breadboards and buy a few more for school. The goal is to get good quality without wasting money. The two variables I see are plating material and the quality of the spring material used to make the contacts.
If anyone has good or bad experiance with specific brands or materials I would like to hear from you.
The ones I use are made in Taiwan and branded "Wish". They cost around US$8 for the normal 7"x3" board. I have to admit that they don't get a lot of reuse. I haven't had a bad connection on any of my boards but I don't use any thick wires.
This is a picture of two joined together with one power strip removed and below is an unopened one.
The best breadboards I have gotten were from Electronic Goldmine. One has lasted 10 years! The G8534 may be similar. Two things that distinguish it are the bus lines cannot be separated, and it is made in the USA. For small boards, the G16566 may be like the one I have. One end has Chinese writing on it; the other end is labeled SYB-46. It also has held up well.
An "Experimenter" board (Radio Shack) has been my worst board.
It looks like the G8534 sold by electronic goldmine are identical to the TWIN INDUSTRIES TW-E40-1020 sold by several places. I have an order going into Mouser today and will order 3 of them to try this summer. DigiKey and Mouser carry them so maybe they will be OK.
**broken link removed**
I found the The WBU-202 look similar to the one I am ordering.
The red and blue lines help the kids identify the pwer and gnd.
I'm very happy with my MPJA.com breadboards. The have one almost identical to the one davidbball mentioned for 10 bucks less. I prefer the smaller sticky backed boards that they also sell with seperate modular bus strips because it allows you to create the breadboard around whatever ideas work best with you.
The ones I use are made in Taiwan and branded "Wish". They cost around US$8 for the normal 7"x3" board. I have to admit that they don't get a lot of reuse. I haven't had a bad connection on any of my boards but I don't use any thick wires.
This is a picture of two joined together with one power strip removed and below is an unopened one.
This one is double the price of the one HVWTech sells, but quite nice. Is it worth the extra $$ for a Lab-Easy box with rubber feet and a lead former? I'll have to live with it for a while before I can say. I bought two. The lead former is nice. The breadboard itself is same or very similar to the HVW one.
If you're looking for some nice breadboard power supplies, **broken link removed** are great!