Stripboard

Stripboard

Strip board (a.k.a Veroboard or Prototype board) is a resin-bonded-paper board (like other PCBs) with 0.1 inch holes. All the horizontal rows are connected whilst the vertical columns are left unconnected.

The copper traces are usually coated in a substance that promotes solder flow, helping to avoid accidentally connecting two parallel and nearby traces.

In some ways Stripboard can be viewed as a more permanent version of Solderless Breadboards.

One drawback of soldering Stripboard is the number of small wire connections one needs to make. It is possible to use stranded hook-up wire and tin the ends once stripped to aid in placement. Unfortunately this is time consuming. A better solution is to use solid core wire which places on the 0.1 inch board easily. If no convenient source of solid hook up wire can be found, it is possible to strip 24AWG solid core wire from Cat 6 ethernet cable. Often this is also the cheapest source of solid core wire.

Tools

The vast majority of stripboards are built without using a computer. But if you want to draw a stripboard on a computer, you might like one of these tools:

A few people "mis-use" general-purpose custom PCB design software (see software tool for a long list of them) to draw stripboard circuits on a computer, using techniques described in "Building Circuits for Stripboard using EAGLE" by Mike Perks.

VeeCAD : CAD for stripboard (Veroboard) layout -- can import netlists in Orcad or Protel format. Free version or full version 1 User licence : US $24.70 (approximately 18 Euros)]

Stripes: stripboard designer app by Julian Skidmore. open-source (GPL) and multi-platform (written in Java). As of 2010-10, early alpha version -- please help improve.

"DIY Layout Creator (DIYLC)" has a "diy-layout-creator" discussion group and a "diy-layout-creator" wiki. Free (GPL).