Amplifier Updated 2025-07-16
Main implementations: the same as electronic switches: vacuum tubes in the past, and transistors in the second half of the 20th century.
Video 1.
How to make an LM386 audio amplifier circuit by Afrotechmods (2017)
Source. Builds the circuit on a breadboard from minimal components, including one discrete transistor. Then plays music from phone through headset cables into a speaker.
Breadboard Updated 2025-07-16
This is how electronic circuits are normally prototyped!
Once you validate them like this, the next step is usually to move on to printed circuit boards for more reliable production setups.
Breadboards are a thing of beauty and wonder.
Figure 1.
Point-to-point constructions on woden boards
. Source. Predecessors to breadboards from where the name came. A thing of beauty, so vintage. You could actually write stuff on those with a pencil!
Video 1.
Breadboards - Trash or Treasure? by Keysight (2020)
Source.
  • Elegoo Breadboard power supply module MB‐V2:
    • Input voltage: 6.5-9v (DC) via 5.5mm x 2.1mm plug
    • Output voltage: 3.3V/5v
    • Maximum output current: 700 mA
    TODO center positive or center negative?
    Does not come with AC adapter, getting this one: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZN476FW output: DC 9V 1A Power Supply Adapter, Plug 5.5mm x 2.1mm, Center Positive,B rand: Security-01, input: AC 100-240V 50/60 Hz, Cable length: 1.8m
    Parts list from the ZIP:
  • resistors:
    • 10x each:
    • 30x 220
  • 1n4007 General Purpose Rectifier
  • 22pf 104 Ceramic Capacitor
  • 4N35 optocoupler
  • 74HC595 8-bit serial-in, serial or parallel-out shift register with output latches; 3-state
  • Active buzzer
  • Buttons
  • CDS-55 Photoresistor
  • Electrolytic Capacitor
  • Focusens MF52D 103f 3950 thermistor. Beta value 25/50 Celcius: 3950. R_25: I measured 9.61 k Ohms. The number 103 they document as:
    These descriptions are weird, but ChatGPT has the theory that the first two digits are actual values, and the last is multiplier, so which makes 10k.
    but I have no idea how that maps to 10 k Ohms.
  • PN2222 General Purpose Transistor
  • Passive buzzer
  • 3386p Bourns Precision Potentiometer - 1 103T: from 0 to 10k Ohms, measured with multimeter. According to the manual the "103" mean 10 k oms, which is consistent with our measurement. "P 103" is etched into the part.
  • LEDs:
    • White LED 10x
    • Kingbright RGB LEDs 10x red, green, yellow, blue:
      • maximum Continuous Forward Current: 30 mA for read and blue, 25 mA for green
      • 303025
      • under 20 mA
      20 mA appears to be the typical operation. So with the 2.0 V drop on 5 V power we want a resistor such that:
      for the max 50 mA we would instead have 60 Ohms
Electronic oscillator Updated 2025-07-16
Something where DC voltage comes in, and a periodic voltage comes out.
Video 1.
Oscillators: RC, LC, Crystal by GreatScott! (2015)
Source. Good video. Contains actual breadboard experiments on oscilloscope and circuit diagrams
Jump wire Updated 2025-07-16
Notably used to connect:
You can buy large sets of them in combitation of male/male, male/female, female/female. Male/male is perhaps the most important
Video 1.
Making Jumper Wires by PCBurn! (2018)
Source.
LC circuit Updated 2025-07-16
When Ciro Santilli was studying electronics at the University of São Paulo, the courses, which were heavily inspired from the USA 50's were obsessed by this one! Thinking about it, it is kind of a cool thing though.
Video 1.
Tutorial on LC resonant circuits by w2aew (2012)
Source.
Video 2.
LC circuit dampened oscillations on an oscilloscope by Queuerious Guy (2014)
Source. Finally a video that shows the oscillations without a driving AC source. The dude just move wires around on his breadboard manually, first charging the capacitor and then closing the LC circuit, and is able to see damped oscillations on the oscilloscope.
Video 3.
Introduction to LC Oscillators by USAF (1974)
Source.
Video 4.
LC circuit by Eugene Khutoryansky (2016)
Source. Exactly what you would expect from an Eugene Khutoryansky video. The key insight is that the inductor resists to changes in current. So when current is zero, it slows down the current. And when current is high, it tries to keep it going, which recharges the other side of the capacitor.
Microphone Updated 2025-07-16
Video 1.
Testing and Circuit for a Condenser microphone by RSD Academy (2018)
Source.
Not very numerical, but shows a simple working breadboard circuit and an oscilloscope. He whistles with his mouth to get a pretty pure frequency.
That type of microphone requires a bias voltage. The circuit is in Ciro's ASCII art circuit diagram notation:
DC_9---R_10k--+--MICROPHONE--+--G
              |              |
              +-------V------+
Video 2.
Soundwaves on an oscilloscope by Animated Science (2015)
Source. Dude speaking to microphone. Some analysis of how different sounds look like. No circuit diagram.
Optical table Updated 2025-07-16
For example, that is how most modern microscopes are prototyped, see for example Video "Two Photon Microscopy by Nemonic NeuroNex (2019)".
This is kind of why they are also sometimes called "optical breadboarbds", since breadboards are what we use for early prototyping in electronics. Wikipedia however says "optical breadboard" is a simpler and cheaper type of optical table with less/no stabilization.
Video 1.
A simple refracting telescope built on an optical bench by plenum88 (2013)
Source.