Raspberry Pi Deluxe Breakout Kit for A+, B+ and Models 2 & 3 B — Includes Breadboard, GPIO Breakout, Projects Guide, 100+ Components and Heat Sinks

For being a learning aid there are a lot of mistakes. Knowing pretty much nothing about programing I was hoping to learn from this. I don't know that trying to figure out were the authors made the mistakes is an ideal why to learn something. When I have a basic understanding and am ready to go it alone, then is the time to learn from MY mistakes.I am now stuck on the third project that requires programing because when I type the program and commands as written in the book I get an error message. I figured out the authors first programing error...this one's is going to take a lot of digging on line.Also the bread board seems to be of poor quality. This is my first bread board...but the metal sockets inside the plastic board are visablely misaligned making it difficult to plug the breakout board and other components in. This has also caused a circuit not to work and need troubleshooting.To many problems to be a learning aid for those just starting out.

Nice instruction booklet and parts to get started. The breadboard is the worst I've used (out of a dozen or so, but then I ordered them specifically for ratings). Getting the breakout plugged into it was difficult, having to rock it back and forth with pressure to get it in. Realized later as I put other parts in that each hole needed to be poked with a pin first to facilitate using. Even then some of the holes range from stingy to nice-n-snug to very loose - but they do seem to work. Biggest concern was that when I first plugged the breakout breadboard into the Pi and turned it on, I was reading the manual and realized the Pi was rebooting unexpectedly. As I looked closer, I noticed that some of the pins on the breakout board were blackened, so I turned it off. Thinking how difficult that breakout was to get into the breadboard, I wiggled/nudged it loose a tiny bit, double checked that I had the cable and everything in right, and restarted, watching it all. No problems 2nd time around, so I checked all the power/ground points with multi-meter. I sent an email inquiry via Amazon to merchant to see if I should return the kit, or they might prefer to send a new breakout and/or breadboard. After a delay from a problem with their email, they courteously responded that they will send a replacement. In the mean time, I was able to proceed through the rest of the experiments, and some of my own - a great little package once I get the good part.

I found the included booklet to have just some information worthwhile. Most of it is worthless. They did a BAD job of telling people how to put the components on the breadboard. I would not recommend this Kit to anyone, unless you wish to lookup different ways of performing tasks from the internet. Because this booklet is not going to help you. Would not recommend. These companies need to spend a lot more time on instructions, instead of marketing how great their product is.

Received the package today. The resistors are all labelled. The other parts are just in tiny zip-locks. I will probably have to look up what each are. Being a total beginner, I wish there was a parts list that identified everything. I am realizing this is not "THAT" type of set. Some familiarity with components was assumed by the manufacturer.I had a bit of a time 1) inserting the cobbler into the breadboard and 2) inserting the ribbon cable into the cobber. You can see that the rails are slightly misaligned when you look in the BB holes. I had a similar time getting the ribbon to go down on the cobbler. You don't really know how much pressure to apply and you don't want to break or bend anything. I used one of wires probe and by poking the holes, straightened them up. As another stated, if you press the cobber flush with the bread board, it will push rails down through the bottom. I could see their imprint through the foam tape. I pressed them back in, but I haven't started projects yet, so I will update if connections are spotty. I can see what looks like oxidation on the metal led, resistors, etc., but this is a cheap beginner set.I purchased this set, because it was one of the few that came with a booklet, but I may have to go online for additional lessons.** A note about the booklet. It has a very strong chemical smell. i assume cheap paper or ink. I needed to let it air out a bit.I will update this review once I have actually used it.

This is my first experience with a breadboard such as this one, and I'm finding it quite frustrating as it is extremely difficult to get anything to go into the board, even the supplied jumpers. Most of the holes will not admit a jumper without being opened with a dental pick. It's worse with components that have multiple pins. It took me a good 10 minutes to get the supplied RPi header to go onto the board. The only workaround I've found is to use a dental pick to go into every hole I want to use, but I think this sometimes makes for a loose connection. The switches included have pins that need to be straightened to go into the holes, even after loosening up with the dental tool.

Overall I think that this is a great kit. If you get everything in the picture then you're in great shape to start testing things out with your RPi.I'm docking two stars at the moment though for two issues1) Kit didn't come with pressure switches. - Viaboot did do a great job replacing these, hence it's now at 4 stars2) Kit came with half size breadboard - The one that I recieved only goes to row 30. In the picture it goes to 60. This means that I'm limited to what I can do at the moment.The manual is nice but not great. Then again the kit is fairly inexpensive so it's really quite nice all things considered.The GPIO breakout is labeled so that you can easily see what pins you're working with.Ribbon cable is a standard ribbon cable. I can't believe that I'm not seeing a company making one of these with one of the "fancy" rounded ribbon cables from back in the IDE days.Overall, if you're looking to start tinkering with the GPIO of your RPi I think that this is worth the money, just make sure to talk with Viaboot if something isn't quite right.