My experience tells me;

- Making simple single projects, stripboard is usefull. It is of no use as
first step in the production of a PCB.

- More complex single projects are best made by a system like ROADRUNNER,
sold by Farnell. Connections are made direct from pin-to-pin with solderable
wire through 'castellated' distribution strips.

Mind that these methods are very time expensive. It is very difficult to
avoid mistakes and to find the mistakes.

- Make prototypes for PCB production direct as PCB. A cheap EDA program as
EDWin made by Visionics: http://www.bahnhof.se/~visionics/tindex.htm  let
you make the PCB as you produce the schematic. It annotates and
back-annotates schematic in PCB artwork and back from PCB to schematic.
Simple printing and photoresist etching makes a PCB in half an hour. It
takes a lot of time to get the experience, but this experience pays back.

Leo van Loon
http://www.tip.nl/users/sbb.simpeltronics



-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Rob Santello <rmsante@NS.NET>
Aan: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Datum: vrijdag 6 februari 1998 9:05
Onderwerp: Re: PIC Prototyping board sources


>> Leon wrote:
>>Why not just use a piece of Veroboard? It's ideal for prototyping with
>>PICs and similar devices.
>
>My question - is "Veroboard" the same as "Stripboard"?  I've been seeing
>several magazine projects  built on Stripboard lately.  It looks like it
>would be a fast way to transfer a design to a PCB with relatively little
>effort.  Seems the most difficult part is laying out the parts so it works
>with the parallel track design.  I've even seen the ad for a CAD program to
>aid with this called "Stripboard Magic" (www.ambyr.com).
>- Has anyone used stripboard?
>- Is it really a quick and easy way to put a project onto a PCB?
>- How easy is it to 'cut' the tracks (is the special cutting tool more
>helpful or even needed)?
>- Is it relatively cheap? (compare to "perforated board ("available at
>Radio Shack at astronomical markup"))".
>- And lastly.  If it is practical, is it available in the US.  I couldn't
>find any suppliers on the web.
>
>Thanks,
>--rob--
>
>