Circuits boards are insulated base with conductive parts in which electronic components are either soldered permanently on them or fixed into their holes temporarily.
All electronic devices like computers, MP3 players, decoders and cellphones all contains circuit boards.
Before the use of circuit boards, wires are use for connecting many components together, but the ends up meshy, untidy and hard to trace each circuit when troubleshooting faults.
Circuit boards have reduce large space occupied by wire connection as used in early electronics into a tidy, easy to troubleshoot and less space occupying circuits.
There are many types of circuit boards but they are grouped into temporary and permanent boards.
Permanent circuit boards are those you find in electric appliances while temporary boards are use for prototypes and electronics projects.
Types of circuit boards.
1. Bread boards.
They are also known as solderless boards.
Bread boards are use for making temporary circuits or testing circuits before transferring it to a permanent board.
It is a very useful tool for hobbyists and professional engineers.
They have different sizes which are medium, large and mini breadboards.
How to use a bread boards.
All bread boards are similar in design, the only difference they gat is their size.
As shown below bread boards are marked with red (+) and blue lines(-).
All blue lines are all interconnected together at one edge of the board and the red line are connected all together at one edge of the board. These interconnected lines are use to connect batteries or AC to the board.
Row 1- 30 are connected together as shown below for better understanding get a bread board and match it holes and numberings to the diagram below to inderstand how the holes are interconnected.
2. Printed circuit boards (PCB).
PCBs are already manufactured boards with holes where components can be placed and soldered. As shown in the image below lines are usually drawn on the board to specify were a certain components are to be placed.
PCBs are used in a smartphones, radios, TVs, DVD players etc.
They are made from copper shits cut out into circuits by a CNC machine.
There are many types of PCBs some are double sided and others single sided. Single sided PCBs only have a single circuit on one of their side while double sided PCBs have two surface for two different circuits.
PCBs are use in industries because thousands of them can be produced at one and this makes it very economical.
3. Vero boards.
Vero boards are made of copper trace on the surface of an insulating fibre board with holes already driled on their surface.
Holes on the vero board are connected together in coloums.
Vero boards are use for making circuits, they are very cheap to buy than PCBs.
Tags:
Basic Electronics