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C.

When building electronics project for permanent use - i.e. after testing on a solderless breadboard - you normally go to a perforated board of some type as a , 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 - sets of pads that run the whole length or width of the board - so much the better!

Some are : 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 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

A scan of the underside of a cheap perforated prototyping circuit board - "protoboard" or "perfboard" - showing its pattern of pads and holes, along with the brand/model name "Radio Shaek 2". :wink: This is a typical crappy generic Chinese board, made from laminated paper. The copper pads are very thin and the glue holding them to the board isn't great, so they lift off the board very easily when soldering, or especially desoldering. The holes aren't very well centered in the pads. There's no soldermask, so it's easy to get accidental solder bridges. The board is browish tan, and has an 18 x 24 grid of holes, so 432 holes total. There are 2 continuous busses running up the middle of the board. On either side are rows consisting of (from outside to in) a 2-hole pad, three single-hole pads, and a 3-hole pad.
#electronics#hobby#ProtoBoard
C.

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

Product photograph of the Busboard Prototype Systems SB4 snappable breadboard. This shows the top of the board, which includes silkscreened lines to indicate what the connected pad pattern on the underside is, to assist in placing components.
Close-up photograph of the order ID label on a package of manufactured printed circuit boards, dated 22 March 2025.
A photograph of 2 perforated prototyping printed circuit boards, one showing the front and the other the back. The boards are the typical green of fiberglass boards, with shiny exposed pads on the underside, and labels for rows and columns silkscreened in white on both sides. There are also silkscreened outlines on the front of the board to indicate the pattern of joined pads on the back.
#PCB#CustomPCB#silkscreen
Apr 01, 2025, 10:29 PM·Public·Web
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C.

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

Screenshot from a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout program showing the design of my perforated prototyping board.
#MakeDontBuy#design#custom
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