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[on:]

Well yes, I feel daft asking this, but you know when you google and google ... and find nothing !

All it is, all that I'm trying to do is deliver power from my batteries to multiple devices.
What's the 'normal' way of doing that ?
At the moment I hacked a small strip of veraboard, soldered on a 8x2 header socket, and soldered across all the pins on each row.
Battery in on the first pair, giving power/grnd out on all the others.

Unfortunately I've and now I've filled up all spaces ... I'm really not looking forward to making another - veraboard is not easy to hack small pieces off without a lot of waste !

Surely there must just be a standard socket for this purpose ?
Just like a header socket but with each row being continuously connected ?

DOn't really want to add a whole breadboard to the bot, and as I say, veraboard is impossible to cut a 12x2 section off without trashing more than I use.


Hope someone knows of the 'name' for waht I am looking for !?

Thanks if you can help !

[Reply #1 on:]

I don't quite understand what you are trying to accomplish, but most perforated prototyping materials are very easy to cut into strips by scoring along a straightedge with a scribe and snapping the piece off.

[Reply #2 on:]

Why not use a terminal strip? Not sure what your equivalent is there  in the UK, but here in the US, you can buy an 8 or 10 section terminal strip for just a couple of bucks at a Radio Shack. Most of them come with jumpers if you want all the terminals to have a common connection.

Google search for "terminal strip".

[Reply #3 on:]

You used to be able to get bus strips with a pin every 0.1 inch, they could be soldering into a board to provide power
rails with more current carrying capacity than PCB traces.  Not seen such rails recently but googling "pcb bus bar" gives
some likely hits.

[Reply #4 on:]

I recall that Radio Shack in the USA had a schmartboard power/ground strip board that would seem to do what you want (it has 2 rows of 15 holes, and 2 rows of 13 holes, and all of the pins in a row are connected).  Since you are in the UK, Radio Shack is not an option, but presumably you can order directly from schmartboard or find a local distributor: http://www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?page=products_th&id=12.

[Reply #5 on:]

Depending on what I am shooting for, one method I tend to use is to solder a paper clip (or resistor lead) across a board and simply wrap my distribution wires around it and solder them in place. I prefer that over trying to jumper across protoboard with solder (for some reason it never wants to do it when YOU want it to, but when you don't want it to... whole 'nother story!)

I also employ this method when jumpering pins on ICs, connectors, etc.. I use kapton tape also to isolate parts to prevent touching such as when I am jumpering pin 1 to pin 9 on an 18-pin part. I apply a thin strip of kapton tape to pins 2-8 right along the edge of the leads where they meet the IC body and then run my jumper along the top of the IC leads for a nice clean look. For bigger applications, I use liquid electric tape or laquer.

[Reply #6 on:]

You might look into Anderson Power Pole connectors. They are fairly inexpensive and work very well. You can purchase them in specail power strips, or make your own. They are easy to assemble and they are easy to assemble so they are polarized so you don't hook them up wrong. You can generally get 25 pairs (black and red shells) for about $25 US. Other color shells are alos available so you can color code 5V 12V and other possible combinations. Used to use Red/Black on RC car batteries and Green/Orange on the motors. They also take up little space so you can have a lot of access points in a small area.

Check them out here - http://www.powerwerx.com/anderson-powerpoles/powerpole-sets/15-amp-red-black-anderson-powerpole-sets.html

I have used them for RC Cars, Ham Radio, DC power distribution in a house with only solar power.

[Reply #7 on:]

This is sort of a hack, but I use these:

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/connectors-sockets/terminal-blocks/pluggable/2-pin-male-plug-in-type-terminal-block-5mm-5ehdrc.html
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/connectors-sockets/terminal-blocks/pluggable/2-pin-female-plug-in-type-vertical-terminal-block-5mm-5esdv.html

I put the males on each board I make and use the females for 5 lines coming from my bench power supply.  Just plug it in when you need some juice.  It's polarized and eliminated screwups once you have the board wired right.

[Reply #8 on:]

DOn't really want to add a whole breadboard to the bot, and as I say, veraboard is impossible to cut a 12x2 section off without trashing more than I use.

Why? I use either a junior hacksaw or a Dremel type drill with a cutting blade in it, depending on the thickness of the board. Both methods work fairly well, without trashing the veroboard.

I'll make you a few 12(holes) by 2(strips) and post them to you, if you want.