On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Peter L. Peres wrote:

> My comments: I have used and am using $SUBJ for prototyping. But never was
> a longer coil of rope offered to a newbie than the average breadboard. In
> transistor (bipolar) times, this was a good solution. Now you have CMOS
> inputs everywhere. You mentioned running oscillators without caps (works
> here too). There are also things 'running' on a breadboard that
> shouldn't/won't under normal conditions (at least not without adding 30-40
> 22pF capacitors into the circuit).

Have you reached this conclusion by actual real-world experience *with PIC
processors on a solderless breadboard*, or by extrapolation from earleir
experience?  Any floating input is going to be a problem whether on a
solderless breadboard or not.

> Imho, putting CMOS parts into a
> breadboard is an art. I use it with CD4xxx series chips, PICs and Atmel
> and other micros and I invariably have trouble with open inputs picking up
> adjacent signals or mains hum from the desk (wooden), opamp circuits doing
> whatever they please and so on. It usually takes a while to find the
> problem and I cannot say that it helps me very much to work out
> prototypes.

Odd.  Our experiences seem to be polar opposites.  As long as I don't make
other massive mistakes, like long wires hanging off open floating inputs
or something, I haven't had those problems at all.  Yes, for high-gain
audio amps or something it's a real pain trying to use them, but we're
talking about digital circuits here, LEDs, LCD, buttons, keypads, that
sort of thing.  Like the newbie post from an hour or so ago - a few
relays, some temp sensors (thermistors or DS18S20, whatever), LCD,
buttons, etc.  No much chance of screwing that up.

Dale

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