Introducing Our Pro Series Solderless Breadboards
We hope you had a great holiday! Like the Elves, we have been busy over the holiday getting our new Pro Series of solderless breadboards evaluated and loaded into the store.
The Pro Series is our line of professional grade breadboards that are designed for the serious hobbyists and professionals that want the best performance from their breadboards. These breadboards are made by E-CALL which is a company based in Taiwan.
This series utilizes fully embossed phosphor bronze contacts. Phosphor bronze is a copper based alloy that provides for low electrical resistance connections and can provide excellent impedance control over thousands of insertions cycles. We have tested a set of contacts with 500 insertions and could find no difference in resistance between the first and last insertion and they are rated to 50,000 insertion cycles by the mfr. The springy contacts also allow for fairly easy insertion forces to help avoid bending of smaller leads and wires.
The Pro Series is initially available in standard half-size 400 and full-size 840 tie-point configurations as well as breadboard assemblies in 830, 1560, 2390 and 3220 tie-point configurations with powder coated metal bases and binding posts for power hookups. All have full length power rails and high quality plastic moldings.
As part of the Pro Series, we are also introducing our Snap-Lock line of breadboards.
These are unique in that the breadboard housing has an integrated plastic base screwed to the bottom which incorporate built-in rubber feet. The base allows the breadboard modules to be firmly snapped together side-to-side and end-to-end to form any size breadboarding area that is desired.
The locking mechanism is secure enough that the breadboard assembly and circuit can be picked up and moved without having it come apart.
These are great for forming large breadboards and for making breadboards that can be varied in size as project demands require. They also provide some flexibility for creating none rectangular breadboard arrays.
They are also well suited for the educational field due to their overall robust construction and flexibility.
The snap-lock line comes in both an 830 tie-point version with two power rails as well as a 730 tie-point version with a single power rail on one side.
The 730 tie-point version can be used as an add-on module when it is desired to have only 1 power rail between each of the breadboard areas when the are stacked side-to-side.
If dual power rails are desired, such as for running multiple voltages, the 830 tie-point versions can be snapped together.
Our standard product line is now called the Hobby Line to clearly differentiate it.
This product line features stainless steel contacts that provide a lower cost option, but with the trade-off of slightly higher resistance connections with more impedance variability on connections and lower insertion life as compared to the Pro Series.
The Hobby Line is good for cost sensitive applications while the Pro Series is targeted toward performance sensitive applications.
Since good solderless breadboard information is hard to find in order to make an informed buying decision, we wrote a Guide to Solderless Breadboards that should help answer most of the questions.
You can check out all of our breadboards here.
— Ken
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