How do you solder when your perfboard has single holes that don't connect to other holes? I love the perfboards that have two or more holes connected, but a lot of them are just single holes. Presumably, most of the time you will need at least two things (i.e., wires, pins, etc) to go in each hole. Sometimes even more. I've tried twisting two wires together and pushing them through with limited success, but what to do when you have an IC pin coming through and you need to connect a wire to it?
LarryD, do you have any photos of this? I have tried that too, and it looked awful. And it took a long time too. I consider myself a pretty decent solder-ist, and it basically doubles the build time because of all of the extra soldering. Do you have any tips on how to 1) get it done efficiently; and 2) how to make it look even half way decent?
While mine looks a mess underneath, I run jumper wires to the hole next to where I want to connect (running on componant side) then after soldering it instead of snipping the excess I bend it to the item I want to join to and solder to that thus creating a bridge between the two holes. With resisters and such like I do the same with it's legs.
Even with the board that has 3 holes per track, I often have to resort to theis method. While it's ok for the stuff I make (one-offs for "inhouse" use by myself) it would definitly not be suitable for any sort of production run.
Yeah, I like wire wrap a lot! Back in the day, I wire-wrapped an entire S100 bus, Z80 based microcomputer (I still have pieces of it, but it's been cannibalized so often, it looks like the cow from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
There is no way I could have soldered that many connections, then torn them out and re-soldered them, as I did with wire-wrap. Unfortunately, I can't find anything except a few spools of wire from back then (1984ish). And the tools, wire and sockets are SO expensive now! I want to do it though - your example looks VERY orderly, CrossRoads.
Tools, sockets, wire here below. I bought 500 foot rolls of 4 colors, red for power, black for ground, and mix up colors for signals.
I prefer the gold wirewrap tool, been using the same one since early 80's. Thought I lost it for a while, so I got a new gold and new blue one, then found my original and I keep on using that one. Stripper right in the middle of the tool too.
I buy 30-pin and 40-pin socket strips so I can make any size socket and width I want. They hold Rs, Cs, and diodes well also. http://www.king-cart.com/phoenixent/product=SOCKETS+WIRE+WRAP+DIP+%2526+SIP/exact_match=exact
I personally hate the single-hole perfboard - it's a lot more work than the "solderable breadboard" prototyping board, and the result often looks horrifying (though it can be more dense). As it happens, I sell the "good kind" - if you happen to be looking.
I kind of like the single hole protoboard, but it's not always my first choice.
To make a single connection to a component leg, push it through, cut it, then bend it over until it just touches the pad on the adjacent hole. Solder a wire in that hole and include the previous leg in the solder blob.
For ICs, I usually bend the adjacent wire over to the pad as standard IC sockets have very short legs. For more than one connection, one of the wires/legs can run alongside many pads.
It still ends up kind of messy. That example Larry showed is insane!
tripad, stripboard or breadboard-alike are the things to use, forget isolated pads, that's just making things hard!
Just be sure to get a spot-face cutter (drill bit with a handle) if using stripboard to break up the strips.
The trick is to use Aluminum foil (Duct tape HERE) or Kapton HERE tape to mask adjacent pins when soldering a pin.
Of course a temperature controlled soldering iron with a small tip is a must.
I do like using the Vero/Roadrunner wire as you do not have to strip off the insulation.
MarkT:
tripad, stripboard or breadboard-alike are the things to use, forget isolated pads, that's just making things hard!
Just be sure to get a spot-face cutter (drill bit with a handle) if using stripboard to break up the strips.
I made a special chisel tool ground from a broken hacksaw blade to cut a neat slot between holes.
