Lab 1: Solderless Breadboards, Open Circuits and Short Circuits

Lab 1: Solderless Breadboards, Open Circuits and Short Circuits

Joel Cook

February 27, 2018

The purpose of this lab was to familiarize us with the use Breadboards and Digital Multi-meters (DMM) for the purpose of circuit analysis.

Data:

1. For the first step, we connected the DMM to two holes in the same row on the breadboard.

As shown above, we measured 0.1 ohms. This result is consistent with what we expect as holes in the same row act as a short circuit (are connected) and would have no resistance besides the resistance of the leads of the DMM.

2. For the second step, we connected our DMM to holes on opposite sides of the central channel of the breadboard. 

The measured resistance was infinite. This is as expected as the central channel of the breadboard creates an opening in the circuit and the resistance of an open circuit is infinite.

3. For the third step, we connected our DMM to two holes in different rows of the same side of the breadboard. 

Again, we read an infinite resistance as this is an open circuit. Different rows of the breadboard are not connected.

4. For the last step, we used a jumper wire to connect the different rows and complete the circuit.

This closes the circuit and the measure resistance was 0.1 ohms, as expected since there is no resistance in a short circuit.

Conclusion:

We were able to successfully create open and short circuits with the breadboard and use the DMM as an ohmmeter to measure the resistance of simple circuits.