[sdiy] Protoboard / Stripboard

[Tim Daugard]

>I'm putting together a life-time buy list of parts (I love Pb and
>through-hole)

I just put the last of my life time buy away a couple of weeks ago
(before the last hurricane) and a new Mouser catalog came yesterday. .
. even thicker . . . it shows Intersil parts (3280 @>$5) and many
other interesting parts. I wonder if I could convince my wife that
when I said lifetime buy I meant the lifespan of a hurricane (ca. 2
weeks.)

>and I'm looking for sources of inexpensive prototyping
>stripboard.  The kind I use is etched on one side with 4 or 5 hole
>connected strips per IC pin and rail buses that are laid out in a way
>similar to solderless breadboards.  I'd like to buy this stuff now
before

I used to use those, but I got ttired of solder bridges, holes too big
for the leads to make a good mechanical connection (important for good
soldering), corriosion, etc. I switched to straight perfboard and
telephone wire (28 gauge?). The straight perfboard means I can have
more than 4 connections and the IC pin if I want. I can also pack the
circuits more densily. I figured I was going to have to use wire any
way for jumpers and things, so I went to color coded telphone wire to
make all the non-component connections.

This has worked well and reduced the cost of circuits. I have been
thinking of laying out a generic circuit board and having them
produced. Most of my modules have at the heart a quad opamp. If I do a
generic, I will have some for through hole and some for SMD (I've got
to do something with all those samples). The information that you can
get the board houses to score the boards may get me working that
project.

>Suggestions?  USA firms are best for me.

The large blank perfboards from Rat Shak, 6 conductor telephone cable
from Rat Shak. Maybe pad per hole from some where else. I bought
telephone cable from home depot and discovered they use a heavier
gauge of wire the the RS. The heavyier gauge is better for power but
harder to bend around IC socket pins.

BTW one of the advantages of the point to point wiring scheme is that
I can use a star power distribution scheme on the circuit board. Every
IC gets its own power line (and generally its ground) from the on
board filter cap.  This reduces interaction between circuits -
espicially the circuits where I had to go to dual or single opamps to
eliminate cross talk. Take a look at a power bus on those printed
perfboards. Where the holes are drilled, the power and ground traces
get awfully thin.

I also occasionaly add local bypass caps at the ICs.

Tim Daugard
AG4GZ 30.4078N 86.6227W Alt: 12 feet above MSL
http://home.sprintmail.com/~daugard/synth.htm

Who didn't have to plot storms for the second day in a row. Seven days
total with no named storms since hurricane season started 1 Jun. All
sorts of records set - we've had 8 inches of rain so far for August.