Etching my own custom board and drilling all the holes seems daunting, so I'm considering this:
Could anyone point me to other (better/cheaper) protoboards? I'm in USA. Thanks in advance!
Etching my own custom board and drilling all the holes seems daunting, so I'm considering this:
Could anyone point me to other (better/cheaper) protoboards? I'm in USA. Thanks in advance!
Plain old stripboard (sometimes called Veroboard) is probably the cheapest option. Widely available and cheap.
Buy yourself a track cutter while you're at it (also cheap, usually consisting of a small drill bit in a plastic handle)
How big of a board do you need?
I use velleman ecs1/2 for many projects, is a good size. 80mm x 100mm.
Velleman makes larger sizes also. ECS1-H is 100mm x 160mm.
Both are "island of holes", one pad per hole.
I like velleman as the holes are very uniformly spaced - cheaper boards like Datek I have to be lower quality in that regard.
There are other options too, like boards with 2 & 3 pins connected together. Could be handy for solder adjacent parts together.
I usually have several chips that I am wirewrapping together and prefer the individual holes so I am not limited on placement.
Thanks for all the quick pointers. Although searching for veroboard at digikey and mouser did not return meaningful results, I've ordered these: http://futurlec.com/ProtoBoards.shtml
Quite inexpensive and available in many sizes and variations.
For future hunters, I've seen these boards called: protoboard, veroboard, euroboard, stripboard, busboard.
I use simple proto boards and use 30 gauge wire-wrap wire for all the interconnections, except I cut to length and solder the wire. That wire lays nice and flat and doesn't steal too much vertical space. I do use large gauge wire for the main ground and power runs.
Lefty
The futurelec experimenters board looks great, lots of sizes to choose from. I'll have to order a couple & try them out next project.
stripboard (sometimes called Veroboard) is probably the cheapest option. Widely available and cheap.
Strangely, this isn't true in the United States. Pad-per-hold is popular, and there are the proto-board-like PCBs that are sorta nice (RadioShack.com Official Site - America's Technology Store ), but cheap stripboard never seems to have caught on. Of course there are a bunch of mail-order dealers that fill the void...