Building experimental circuits

[drakke]

I am curious how students build circuits in school and professionals build them at work.

I tried using a breadboard but it was cumbersome and sometimes hard to make a positive connection.

Do they use trainers like this? http://cesindustries.com/ces651_y.htm

Thanks.

[bitslice]

The only bit of physical hardware we ever saw was an 8085 dev board, everything else was theory.
That was the "good old days" though, so maybe things have progressed.

[zapta]

I tried using a breadboard but it was cumbersome and sometimes hard to make a positive connection.

Are referring to those solderless breadboards? Some of them are of very low quality. Try to get one from a better brand (e.g. 3M).

You can see here examples of experimental circuits

https://www.google.com/search?q=breadboard&tbm=isch

[kripton2035]

I'm using some prototyping board like these :

and soldering things using small 24 AWG wires - I have a black a red and a white bobin

and I use ssop or sop or sot to dip adapters for small IC
it works fine for unique boards
when I have more of the same board I make a PCB

[f5r5e5d]

prototyping technique varies with circuit requirements

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sullivan/prototyping.pdf

the multipoint spring clip breadboards suck but sorta work when your circuit doesn't care about few pF between every pin, doesn't require low inductance power, gnd

perfboard with various hole and copper patterns is sometimes better

higher frequency can be done with "dead bug" on a solid Cu clad unetched PCB

surface mount is the new order of the day - some patterned: "surf" board

[dmills]

Manhattan or Dead bug for me over a bit of bare copperclad board as a ground plane (A dremmel can make useful isolation cutouts for power rails and such).
I mostly do RF, so the ground plane is not really optional, but the basic method works for smallish analogue and digital stuff as well. 

I always hated the plug boards, never could quite tell when I was debugging my design as opposed to debugging the connections.

Regards, Dan.

[vk3yedotcom]

Five methods are discussed after 3:35 at

[alsetalokin4017]

Sometimes I do them like this:

[KL27x]

I think many hobbyists will progress from breadboards and protoboards to PCB's, whether homebrew or outsourced. As you become familiar with PCB CAD software, it becomes increasingly easier to use SMD parts, in general. Easier to assemble the boards, easier to make homebrew boards (fewer drill holes needed), cheaper to buy boards (due to smaller area), and cheaper to buy assembled boards. This is aside from the fact that thru-hole is increasingly not even an option on many parts. Sometimes I will find myself wiring together many pcb sub-boards together, and simply hot snotting them onto a sheet of wood or whatnot would be the most expedient way to do that, so the interconnects do not need to deal with stress/tension and the boards to not short each other.

A good quality breadboard may be quite valuable for certain things, especially if you are just starting out with PCB design and/or not interested in that aspect of the hobby.

Before PCB design became second nature to me, I used to use a lot more protoboard. I found it much easier to use it copper side up, whether with SMD or thru-hole parts. I would clip the tips of the legs off of the thru hole IC's and solder them copper-side, and all my jumpers would be top side, where I could see everything, leaving the bottom completely bare (no standoffs needed, either). I found 30AWG kynar the most expedient way to wire things up, using a specific wire stripper tool found in the handle of the old Radio Shack wire wrap tool.

I still occasionally use protoboard or even bare fr-4 and an engraving tool, just to widge a couple of extra components onto a circuit. Glue that bit to the pcb, somewhere, to add the extra parts.

[T3sl4co1l]

Small, noncritical, impermanent circuits: solderless breadboard.
Durable, but one-off circuits: any soldered construction (point-to-point, perfboard, dead-bug, etc.).
Critical and high power circuits (still prototype scale, under 10 pieces): dead-bug.
Production (say, 10 or more pieces, any conditions), a proper layout and PCB.

Tim

[Cliff Matthews]

User W2AEW demonstrates various construction styles (lots of close-ups) on YouTube. This one is the island cutter technique: I use a ground 7/16" bit, but don't forget safety glasses if you decide to make your own..

[w2aew]

Here's a video I did that shows several of the many methods I've used for building prototype circuits (including the island cutter method shown in the previous post):

[hendorog]

Another method which I use is to use solar panel tabbing ribbon on veroboard/protoboard.
The ribbon has solder already impregnated so its quick and easy to apply. Just need to drill the holes through the ribbon which I do by hand.

It comes out similar to the board with the buses that w2aew showed.