Intermittent contacts have caused more debugging time than bad code ever has. Half the faults on a breadboard aren't from the circuit at all - they're poor connections, hiding beneath the surface.

BusBoard Prototype Systems have built their range around removing that issue. The internal contacts on their products are phosphor bronze with a plated nickel finish, rigorously engineered and shaped to grip both thin 26 AWG wire and full square-post headers, and machine-tested to 50,000 insertions.

The company started in Canada in 1996 for a reason any engineer will recognise: they couldn't find prototyping PCB patterns suited to their needs, so they made their own. The first board, the BusBoard-3U, was designed to connect EPROMs and SRAMs to microcontrollers quickly. And eventually, the most ubiquitous electronics prototyping tool, the Breadboard.

It's easy to spot the difference: power rails are always the standard red and black. Grid numbers every 5 columns, with all-caps reference lettering, so layouts are repeatable and shareable. Genuine boards mean a Genuine Difference, and it's easy to tell by the BusBoard text and part number silkscreened onto the plastic.

We stock two sizes, both with metal backing plates: the BB830 with power rails, and the BB400 for more compact builds. Both are modular and allow many of the same to be tiled together for more complex projects.

The next stage of your project is taken care of, once you're happy with the layout: copy across your circuit to an FR4 protoboard with the same layout (or a range of other options suited for all kinds of projects). Then keep it safe from dust and knocks in an enclosure, available in plastic and metal options - that look great, are durable and keep dust and debris away from your project.

They are also the creators of ZipWire, a league above standard jumper wire, in the same format all makers know and love.

We use them for all of our prototyping and are here to help if you can't find the right prototyping board for your next project.