Hi,
I have just wasted another hour trouble shooting a working circuit that I have moved from breadboard to strip board, yet again the problem was a very small join between the copper tracks.
How hard can it be to make strip board !
Morale of the story, it takes less than a minute to check continuity track to track, but more than 30 to find a short after building.
Duane B
That's why glass fibre backed stripboard is worth the extra money... I've seen some pretty shoddy paxolin stripboards - but you can usually tell with careful scrutiny if the make of board is suspect.
Hi,
Mine are labelled 'altronix, made in japan'
They are the only ones available here and are generally pretty bad.
Duane B
I learned the term Go For Smoke from some EE friends about 30 years ago. Hairline traces were both problem and opportunity for fun with them. They would apply a few amps of 12V to supposed to be different traces on the board to overload the hairlines. When the glue under the trace goes with it, you get smoke! So the routine was while one wielded the contacts, the rest chant "Go for smoke! Go for smoke!".
Did I mention we were young back then?
Hi,
Thats something I hadn't though of, I had a track appear to crumble away on a circuit recently, from what you say it was possibly another unseen short.
Here it is after bridging -
Duane B
We used to blow them out with a 200A 5V supply, using auto jumper cables.
Happy days. {{sigh}}
AWOL, I bet that was fun! A little overkill but if it works, WTH?
DuaneB, any time you get dissimilar metals in contact there is some potential between. Often some moisture will complete a circuit (a bit like a lemon battery) and one of the metals will corrode from oxygen in the air. It happens a lot when people nail aluminum gutters and siding up with steel nails. Maybe that is what happened?
Hi,
While there is certainly a lot of electolyte rich sweat in the Dubai heat, these strip boards are just plain bad quality. On some the copper strips visibly wander and on some the pin spacing changes, the worst do both ! I try to pick the best, but as there never seems to be any new stock my selection is getting worse and worse 
Duane B.
Any chance you can order some boards from a Velleman distributor for delivery there?
They make high quality boards, its the only kind I build on.
Hi,
I will get the wife to pick some up when she is in Europe next month, I am also desperate for heat shrink small enough for component wires. In Dubai you can buy the parts to start anything whatever your interests are, you just can't buy the parts you need to finish it.
There is a metaphore for The city as a whole in there somewhere.
Duane B
DuaneB:
Hi,I will get the wife to pick some up when she is in Europe next month, I am also desperate for heat shrink small enough for component wires. In Dubai you can buy the parts to start anything whatever your interests are, you just can't buy the parts you need to finish it.
There is a metaphore for The city as a whole in there somewhere.
Duane B
LOL That's quite a sad motto actually.