When building electronics project for permanent use - i.e. after testing on a solderless breadboard - you normally go to a #soldered perforated board of some type as a #prototype, or even for very-low-volume production.
There are different types of boards. I dislike "matrix" boards, which are just isolated pads on a grid, i.e. there are no connections between any of them. Some people swear by these; I swear at them.
I prefer protoboards that have multiple holes per pad (so you can connect multiple component leads without having to add an explicit wire jumper). If they've also got #busses - sets of pads that run the whole length or width of the board - so much the better!
Some are #crap: laminated paper PCBs where the pads lift off the board if you even try to desolder something you added. Row/column labels missing, or (like I found with some recently) that don't line up between the front and back of the board , or most egregiously, they don't actually show the pad pattern on the front of the board, so you have to keep flipping it to check your parts are correctly placed. One example below.
I have some from "BusBoard Prototype Systems" that I like. The SB4 is a 38 x 24 (912 hole) board that is #snappable into quarters. Two of the quarters have rows that are 4-hole, 2-hole, 4-hole. The other two are 5 2-hole pads. Both types have a single bus running along each of the 2 long sides.
But ...
1/x
About that BusBoard Prototype Systems SB4 board -- they're expensive. They're more than $6 each (Canadian) plus shipping from DigiKey. They're $10 each plus shipping from Mouser.
That's a lot for a hobbyist when you're experimenting, especially if you're making mistakes.
I looked around again recently, and couldn't find anything I liked at a reasonable price point.
So what does one do in this situation? Well, if you go Overkill 9000, you design your own prototyping perfboard and have a bunch manufactured for you! When you design your own, you can give it any features you like. So this one has:
18 x 36 (648 holes total)
It's two 18 x 18 sections, though I didn't have them scored for snapping.
A total of 6 horizontal busses in groups of 2, at the top and bottom plus one in the middle.
3 sets of 2 vertical busses within that space between horizontal bus sets, similarly edge - center - edge.
Then each row has a 6-hole pad on each side of the center 2 busses, which are spaced for IC or other standard 0.4" component layout.
Made of proper FR4 fiberglass. Good copper, good soldermask.
Silkscreened row and column IDs on both the front and back, at both the start and end of each row/column (and they match up with the back...).
And silkscreened boxes on the front showing the pad/buss pattern - no more flipping!
They arrived today and ... they're beautiful.
2/x
The best part? My cost for manufacturing the boards and shipping them to me in Canada (from China), with all applicable duty and taxes included, brings them out to about $1 per board.
I may try other designs at some point. But I can't see myself going back to the uber-expensive ones that are commercially available.
I can't wait to try one of them!
3/3
@cazabon I stopped buying most electronics stuff from around here (Portugal/most EU), and ship most of it from the manufacturers (China).
It's like an hobbyist tax: for the price they charge for a simple Arduino Uno R3 or some ARM M0 test boards I could basically order a few PCBs of a custom circuit.
For my hobby / fiddling stuff, I buy components from "the usual scumbags" - direct from China. Occasionally you get duff components or an outright scam. Most of the time it's fine.
But I wouldn't trust those parts for anything serious. When I needed to repair the board in my furnace, for example, I ordered real name-brand components from Newark (Element14 and other names elsewhere).
The good stuff does cost 10x or 20x as much, of course, so it's not great for hobbyists.
@cazabon yeah, my issue is with overpriced stuff that is not going to ever be used for anything serious costing like 10x (sometimes more). When working with sensors a few years back our hw person either ordered most hw from the manufacturer or from element/mauser.
Direct from China you can get higher grade stuff, but usually needs a bit more care, since plenty of stuff is just made there anyway (e.g. omnivision sensors).
Wonderful idea.
I have another idea that I haven't tried out yet.
Copper tape can be cut with a Stanley knife. Going to try copper tape instead of wires on a perfboard. If it works, it is a cut by knife two layer pcb. Vias must of course be soldered.
I'd be interested to hear your results!