I prototyped my first circuits today

[audioguru]

RadioShack is gone from Canada because they sold poor quality parts (seconds?) at extremely high prices.

I use Hammond plastic enclosures that are made here in Canada. Sometimes I buy American ones. But never from RadioShack. Two local stores stock hundreds of enclosures at very good prices.

Veroboard has strips of printed copper all in one direction (not just round or square pads). The strips make half of a pcb's wiring. Parts and a few jumpers make the other half of the pcb. Only one wire is soldered in a hole. The strips are cut with a drill-bit.

 

[killivolt]

Veroboard has strips of printed copper all in one direction (not just round or square pads).

That is the type I have on order. The circuit board designed by someone else took that time and developed it to work with the strip boards. It should save me time and mess the end run.

kv

 

[DirtyLude]

I use Hammond plastic enclosures that are made here in Canada. Sometimes I buy American ones. But never from RadioShack. Two local stores stock hundreds of enclosures at very good prices.

Looks like the same Hammond enclosure I used.

Nothing to add, just cool to see. No veroboard for me, though.

 

[walkura]

Personaly i never liked breadboards ,i make pcb's for prototyping ,use experimental plate with islands or for quick and dirty tests is make *porkypines* soldering all parts hanging in openair to stiff wires .
Its just , soldered contacts are more reliable (maybe i'm spoiled)
If the concept turns out to be as i intended i make a more final pcb ,for further testing or to add idea's that came allong the road .
Also for the more complex projects i sometimes break the idea or schema up into functional blocks so i can easily exchange *blocks* when i want to improve without having to make everything again .
(ofcourse this is only during prototyping and evaluation phase)
Sometimes i make several versions or improvements in the proces ,from idea to production sometimes takes a few rounds get a concept to ready for serial production .
You learn by doing ,theory is very usefull in bringing you to idea's but practicing add's extra knowledge to it .
Housings i must honestly confess that i use what's at hand at my work .
Till it's working as i want i don't even bother about it .
(till that time its loose on my desk so i can measure easy)(sometimes covered with plastics so i'm not in the direct line of fire) l
Last thing i select is housing ,when the idea's turned into definitive setup .
To me it seems you done a nice series of trials ,just keep going .

P.s. i could use some suicidal monkeys for the high power testing .

 

[Hero999]

The one thing I don't like about breadboard is the connections can be unreliable but it's still fairly easy to pinpoint a bad connection.

I agree, building circuits as separate modules is a good idea. I sometimes use separate boards because it makes design much easier as I can easilly re-use boards from other projects.

 

[BrownOut]

I agree with everyone! There isn't a "best" way to prototype. Breadboards and verboard are fine as long as the frequencies aren't too high. If they are, then the "air over copper" method will work. The best thing about breadboarding is that it allows you to quickly try out different methods, configurations, etc.

I'm on the 2nd re-design of my quad function generator. Design #2 wasn't giving me good enough results last night, so I ripped everything up from the breadboard, and started again from scratch. Try that with other prototype methods

 

[killivolt]

The one thing I don't like about breadboard is the connections can be unreliable but it's still fairly easy to pinpoint a bad connection.

I agree, building circuits as separate modules is a good idea. I sometimes use separate boards because it makes design much easier as I can easilly re-use boards from other projects.

Don't they make a breadboard with an open and close latching mechanism.

When I used to load programs onto chips EPROM's and Pics the holder would lock down ?

kv

 

[BrownOut]

You might be thinking about a ZIF socket. Not the same thing.

 

[schmitt trigger]

Spent a fair amount of time figuring out what voltages my power supply runs at, how to use a multimeter, and how the prototype boards work. Pretty basic, lol.

Then I made an LED light up. Oooo!

Then I made a 555 light said LED once a second (or so.)

Then I connected the 555 to a 4040 counter and more LEDs.

Congratulations! the 555 is such an easy and attractive circuit to play with...it will get almost any student hooked up to electronics.

I like protoboards very much at your stage of learning because you can simply and quickly test "what if" scenarios.... what if I replace a resistor with a potentiomenter? What if I now replace that resistor with a CdS cell? Now what if I change to a lower capacitor value? What if instead a LED, I install a small piezo buzzzer?

The possibilities are endless.

 

[killivolt]

You might be thinking about a ZIF socket. Not the same thing.

Right not the same thing. However, if there were a Mechanical way to make the same thing happen. It cut's down on the issue of poor connections.

But, I guess that is still within the realm of learning in the........ "What the hell is wrong scenario." Then to find out it's power connection or something.

But for an experienced person it's an annoyance cause you've already been in that rodeo and expect it.


kv