Odd Question About Circuit Board

Plated through holes are fine for mounting parts including ICs and IC sockets. You can often play around with the parts arrangement before soldering to get common nodes in adjacent holes and groups of commoned parts in straight lines.

Then you use a fine wire to connect the soldered in parts. It is tempting to bend the part leads over to make these connections, but it makes any changes really destructive.

My favorite wire for the interconnections is the silver plated, Kynar insulated 30 ga. wire wrap wire (sold for a high price at Radio shack in 4 different colors). It strips very easily and solders well. For insulated runs, you can solder one stripped end, measure the length needed to reach the next node, clip and strip 1/16th inch of that end and tack it down, for a neat board. Some prefer right angle routing, but I like straight runs, since I usually can lay out the components so that few are needed.

Get a pair of fine pointed tweezers to hold small bits during soldering.

I recently bought some parts kits from a company called NIGHTFIRE. I don't have much experience playing around with circuits but I thought this might be a nice introduction and a good way to build up my junk box.

The kits come with a blank PCB with 162 plated through holes. All the holes are independent - I mean they don't connect to anything else. How do interconnect components on this board? Is it made for wire wrapping maybe? Or do I bridge adjacent holes with solder? I can't figure out how to make use of it. I remember the old perf boards but I can't figure out what the use of the plated through holes are?

Here is a link to the particular board...

Thank you, Kevin

You can stuff 2, 3 or perhaps more component leads in each hole on one side which will be your component side and install jumpers on the other side or both sides, its your choice. Most of us install the parts on one side and most of the wires on the other side. You'll end up with a prototype for a printed circuit board if you do a good job. Also good for one of a kind, quick and not so dirty.

--

Thanks for the quick responses!

Kevin KJ4QF