rPi kit breadboard stiff, unusable, breaks things

[ceratophyllum]

I just got my new Pi kit and I think there's a problem with the breadboard.

The colorless, clear breadboard that comes with the Raspberry Pi Starter Kit is so hard to get things into that they require massive amounts of force to put in and break before coming out!

I bent a couple of jumper wires just trying to find a good hole. When I did find one that would work, I tried to pull the wire out and the black thingy came unglued and slid up the wire. I tried to loosen up the holes with a 3 pin header I had laying around and broke the header! (Trying to shove a 16-pin header into this thing went into me instead of the board!) The same headers and wires worked fine in my other breadboards before I broke them in this one.

Can I send this thing back for a replacement? I don't care whether it's clear or not.

[adafruit_support_bill]

We sell quite a few of these. I suspect something internal was not aligned quite right during assembly on yours. Contact support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread for a replacement.

[ceratophyllum]

Thanks for the free replacement. Unfortunately, it was just as stiff as the first one, except for the red and blue rails.

However, I'm extremely satisfied after discovering that these boards can be made usable by poking the holes with a safety pin to loosen them up.

[elkvis]

the two I have are also very stiff, except for the +/- rails on either side. the +/- rails should be a little tighter, and the rest of it should be significantly looser. inserting DIP ICs and other things requires excessive effort, and I've bent the pins on a number of parts because they simply wouldn't push in.

[ceratophyllum]

I ordered a breadboard from Seeedstudio and it was exactly the same.... Maybe the Chinese sweatshop where all this stuff is being made had some bad runs. There are also complaints about this problem over in the product comments at Sparkfun.

I wish I knew of a source of parts and gadgets that was guaranteed to be produced under humane conditions without damaging the environment. I know, I know. The fumes from the led-free solder must be getting to me.

Did the safety pin help?