Breadboarding

surfboards?

In these kind of situations I create a small PCB to test the circuit.

Not terribly convenient for the UK sadly. That's the sort of thing but you could get individual IC package 'stick ons' and strips for interconnections etc.

Graham

Make a layout on Eagle or your fav' tool, and get it fabricated at a fast-turn PCB house. If you're charging a reasonable rate you'll spend less than two hours (and probably one) for a small hand full of 2-sided boards, and you'll save more time than that by not having to fiddle with a new technology or agonize over whether those stick down strips (or whatever) are really doing their job.

And you'll have a much closer model to the real thing.

If you were in the US I'd send you to PCB Express

If you're in a hurry, build it live-bug on a piece of copperclad.

Things like this can help:

But it's usually easier to do a quick-turn PCB.

John

I was right about wainwright but was getting too many hits to filter. Then I recalled (from 28 years ago !) that the product was called "mini mounts" and google this time got it.

I don't recall it being German and I can't find a site selling any. I'm sure there was a company in Bristol UK that sold them but maybe they've fallen out of favour ? They were very popular for RF work in particular.

Graham

Can't disagree there but this is so few components !

If the timescale allows, we might be able to tack it on to another couple of boards we'll be doing.

I did recall the product name in the end and google found it. Interesting but brief comments from Bob Pease at the bottom of this link from there.

Graham

Similar kind of thing. Except I only need a handful !

Graham

Next time someone tells me I'm wasting my time making my own boards, I'm going to point them at this thread :-)

Last time this came up, it got me thinking. I can etch on 8 mil FR4, and double-stick tape that to an unetched copper clad board, to get what I think you're asking for. But, not being an RF expert, I have no idea how well it would "work". I think it would be worth the effort to find out if this is a viable RF prototyping platform, just to satisfy my curiosity, if you can send me a PDF of a SS layout (no vias ;). Contact me off-list if you're interested.

DJ

How about pad-per-hole perfboard (preferably with ground plane on the other side) and either fine wire or copper tape?

Have Fun! Rich

I only wish I could send you a Wainwright 'Mini-Mount' catalogue. I bet I have one somewhere here in the archive.

It's just such a breeze to use. It could be a useful side income for anyone.

Graham

Never seen one with ground plane on one side.

Graham

Also look at

So, who is responsible for seing to it that the production version of this gizmo will actually work?

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Farnell used to stock a prototyping board with a "collander ground plane" on one side.

C.I.F. stills seems to make something like this

as the AL 201 at the bottom of the list.

Farenell stocks it under order code 1201481. I'm fairly sure that this isn't the part I used but it does seem to be the same kind of prototyping board.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

How do they compare to expresspcb, whom I have used ?

Graham

" I only wish I could send you a Wainwright 'Mini-Mount' catalogue. I bet I have one somewhere here in the archive."

Do these things still exist? I've heard about them from several different souces now,

You can get double sided pcb's cheap, and I've always wanted surface mount "jumpers" for prototyping. George

The ultimate client. They just want a circuit.

Graham

You can get down to about 100 ps, 3 GHz or so, with Xacto knives and copperclad. Kapton tape can be really helpful... stick down a small square, notch out some ground windows, and solder the parts on top.

ftp://66.117.156.8/BB_fast.JPG

John