Practical technique

Cut component leads short. Long leads buckle, or touch accidentally (“short”).

Left, a wire stripped to a length of .3 inches so that its insulation will meet the plastic breadboard. And, a resistor trimmed to have short straight leads.

On the right, a resistor with too-long leads, and they are also kinked which will make them hard to insert

Strip wire ~8mm. Find an AWG notch that works for you, to strip insulations smoothly. Get straight ends; cut off kinked ends.

LEDs: cut diagonally, to preserve the “positive = longer lead” code

Keep it neat; use wire colors to help. Don’t be afraid to rewire if it gets messy.

Whenever possible get components close to the protoboard surface

so-so

bad!

Wrap wire extensions on your DVM probes, so you can plug them into protoboard holes