Broken off wire pieces in breadboard holes query

Thread Starter

hunterage2000

Joined May 2, 2010
487
Can anyone suggest a way of getting small pieces of broken off wire in breadboard holes out? The pieces in my arduino female header are the main concern.

The wire I use seems to be a bit weak sometimes. What wire do you guys use and what is recommended for breadboards with normal hole sizes.
 

PackratKing

Joined Jul 13, 2008
847
Never had one, tho' it seems that they are " thru - holes " and your stubs could be pushed through/out by an adequate guage hand-sewing needle ?
I garnered a small shoebox full of used / dull / broken dental instruments over the years, and they prove priceless for a lot of things.
 

Metalmann

Joined Dec 8, 2012
703
Can anyone suggest a way of getting small pieces of broken off wire in breadboard holes out? The pieces in my arduino female header are the main concern.

The wire I use seems to be a bit weak sometimes. What wire do you guys use and what is recommended for breadboards with normal hole sizes.

You should use solid wire, but I use anything I can get my hands on. Make sure to tin the strands first.

Never had an Arduino, but the other cheap breadboards can be fixed through the bottom, after removing the sticky foam.
 

kubeek

Joined Sep 20, 2005
5,794
I used to use a thin tweezer. Also my breadboard is screwed to the backplane, so no trouble with removing it and cleaning from the other side.
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
How is the bread board mounted? I've pulled backs off of them, gently pulled the metal contact strips out, removed the broken wires, pushed the contacts back in place, and re-cover the back with a adhesive backed insulating material or thin Plexiglas.

Ken
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
Small dental picks have worked for me (actual dentist types, not the cheap ones "for electronics" that bend easy).

I'd suggest using actual jumper wires to a breadboard, stranded wire inside with 0.1" male molex crimp pins on each end in the future.

Items plugged into another board tend to get a lot of flex, causing solid core wire to break. If there will be relative movement, I use stranded wire jumpers. If the parts are fixed in relation to each other (on a breadboard, for example), I use solid core wire.

That removes the headache of clogged headers.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
I second the dental picks - it's amazing how easily you can leverage up a wire stub out of a breadboard hole with one. I picked up a whole bunch of them many years ago at an auction and they have come in handy in many ways. You can clip multimeter or scope probes to them and then use the tips to probe circuits.
 

PackratKing

Joined Jul 13, 2008
847
Obsolete hard-drives have a pair of neodymium or other rare-earth magnets on the disc-stylus control circuitry --- [ horrendously powerful - don't catch skin between them ]
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,706
This applies to breadboards only, not female headers.

If you can see the tip of the wire sticking out, the tip of a sharp X-ACTO blade will get it out - same idea as with the dental picks.
Failing that, you can remove the back cover or plastic and push out the contacts.
Or you can push the wire down and it will remain in the bottom channel of the contacts.
 
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