Veroboard cutting and veroboard-layouting

Greetings

As a newcomer to the wonderful world of electronics, I have recently setup a minor electronics lab in my home and started to build a few things. My tools and equipment exists of standard components (resistors, capacitors, ICs, etc), soldering iron, a bunch of veroboards and a multimeter. I do not, however, own an oscillator or any of those more expensive tools like PCB-etching equipment and such. Atleast not yet.

As stated above, I'm using veroboards (stripboard and breadboard is a synonyme for the same thing, i think) for building my circuits. I also own a licence of Electronic Workbench (Multisim and Ultiboard are the ones I use most frequently). However, since I do not own any etching equipment Ultiboard is of less use for me since it can only do PCB-layout/routing. I have contacted the developers to hear if there was any possibility to make Ultiboard output to veroboards, but regretfully enough UB is designed for PCB only, was the answer.

1. Is there any layout/routing-application that is able to output layouts for veroboards? I have only found two cheap shareware-programs on Google. Even if they work, they were terribly tedious to use (limited amount of components etc). Is there no commercial or fully developed program anywhere? A great plus would be if the program could read the format that Multisim saves to, thus allowing me to save time by not designing the whole circuit all over.

1. When constructing on veroboards, I often have the need in cutting the boards to smaller shapes and I've found that it's pretty cumbersome since I haven't found any good tips of how to do it the right way. For new boards, I could take a small saw and shape it up without much problems. But for new circuits that I haven't done before, cutting the boards could lead to a too small board in the end, requiring me to start it all over again.

Therefore I build new circuits on unmodified boards, so I get the whole space to begin with and cut it down later. But here's the problem. When I cut (not using a saw), the board usually tends to break up and it seems it doesn't want to be cut in straight line. I've tried a long and sharp knife, placing it between the lines of copper, and pushed hard. But the board still tends to break up in pieces near the end.

Has anyone got a tip / link for me where I can read about how to cut boards without any breaks?

Thanks in advance.

I am not familiar with that package, but have used commercial routing programs to do veroboard and thought it was a piece of cake. At least compared to pencil, eraser, and graph paper. Just snap to a 0.100" grid and remember that the traces on the bottom only run one direction. No it won't tell you where to make cuts, but is that really so hard to figure out?

A bandsaw with a fine-tooth blade is a beautiful thing, but a hacksaw can serve. With small boards, I sometimes find it easier to clamp the saw in a bench vise and drag the board across it.

Or with a little practice, you can score the board and break it over a sharp table edge like you would a piece of glass. It may help to cut through the foil at the desired break line, as it is tougher than the board. The key is to create an obvious path of least resistance.

Cut or score along the holes, as this is the weakest place, and any random breaks will tend to occur here anyway. If you need to trim down further to that 0.050" between holes, a belt sander or bench grinder works well. Or a fine-tooth file for inside corners.

Welcome to the wierd world of electronics

I think you have simply stated the limitaions of veroboard/strip board very well indeed.

I've a lot of it over the years, and found that it is good for prototyping, and for small simple projects, and that is about all.

Trying to cut the board once you have put lots of components on is typically, for me, a disaster.

Since you have Ultiboard (which I have never used). I would suggest that you output the gerber files and send them to Olimex or expressPCB, who are good and cheap.

The time you save sending your design to a prototype PCB house is quite significant. You just need to plan ahead.

I have quite a few little test PCB's in veroboard, quite often with just a 7805, microprocessor in a zif socket, a RS232 driver and 2 line LCD. Great for checking little programs out. But I wouldnt go much bigger than that these days. The last serious analog thing I did on veroboard was a little video multiburst generator. going up to 20MHz. It was unusable above 5MHz, just board capacitance problems.

Veroboard was very usefull, in the 70's and 80's, but with the cheap modern PCB houses, its use is limited

martin

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" Gandhi

Next new/used toy ! E-Bay for a used Oscilloscope ~ $25/50 +s/h Then breadboard a "555" timer for a signal generator, cost ~ $2.00 biggest expense ! $1.50 for a 9 Volt battery

Use a Jeweller's Saw ! Looks like a Coping Saw, only a little more refined

Find under Jewellery Making or Lapidary Supplies "Michael's". "Hobby Lobby", "Walmart ? " ~$10.00 + blades

I have'nt bought a new one in years so Price is only a guess. I've used a Dremel tool with 1" Abrasive cut-off wheels, but the Jeweller's is much more elegent,

Yukio YANO

None that I know of. If you think about it, Veroboard is intended for prototyping only in order to verify a circuit design. Of course it does have it's use as final board for a one-off design but essentially it is used only for prototyping. It would not be viable for any software designer to develop a layout package for Veroboard since the ultimate goal for any product manufacturer who uses an electronics module is to go to a standard pcb layout.

Yes, the cut-after-fitting-components does make it difficult and is only recommended for very small boards maybe up to 50 x 50mm. With this approach I always cut with a 32tpi hacksaw blade with the blade teeth flat across the copper strips or in between strips as the case may be. You have to ensure that the board is held rigidly and this may be difficult and also make sure that you use both hands to guide the hacksaw frame and use small forward motions to start. When you have scored the board to about half thickness it will then snap quite cleanly such that a file will tidy up any irregulariies. Of course you can cut to a greater depth to make it even neater.

The best way to construct larger boards is simply by proper planning on paper. I draw out the physical shape of the components about 2x scale on paper so that they occupy a logical arrangement according to the circuit schematic. This can take a good deal of experience based upon the characteristics of the individual components you are placing. This knowledge only comes with years of experience so I can't give you specific instruction in this regard. You can use lined paper so the lines simulate the copper traces or you can use linear graph paper on a 0.1" grid to draw it up full size. You need to work out where to cut traces and where to add wire links to suit your design. Use a soft black pencil and remember an eraser is your best friend The more time you spend on the paper layout the easier it will be to add the components to a piece of board which is pre-cut to its finished size.

Technically, a "breadboard" is any structure that you can mount components on. This came from using Mom's chopping block to make your crystal radios and stuff.

The plastic kind with all of the little sockets is more accurately called a "protoboard".

Cheers! Rich

Try VCad Perforated Board Layout Editor from Roger Lascelles

It's included in my notes and links to some 60 ECAD programs at

Terry Pinnell Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

When did you do v0.01?

LochMaster claims to be a developers tool for strip board (VERO) projects for designing, documenting and testing a board. This is a commercial program.

LochMaster 3.0

Thanks, Terry

I have just uploaded version 1.0.6.0 a few minutes ago ! So refresh your browser and download.

Roger

Yeah. Micro$~1 ships version 1 before it even tests its software. Their customers are the alpha testers.

Cheers! Rich

My attempts at brevity bites me again. I'm more curious how long the package has been in development.

I think you are commenting on the version system. It is the Microsoft versioning system which gets included into EXE files as a standard resource. Most software uses it - if you open Windows explorer and click on an EXE file, you will often see the x.x.x.x version displayed. The four fields are Major, Minor, Release, Build. Also Debug and Special can be switched on.

I started at 1.0.1.0 . Release gets incremented every time I put out a new EXE. I suppose I should bump Minor version now and then, but each release is just a nudge forward. As you can see, I have put up 6 EXE files.

Roger

About 18 months.

Roger