I truly do not understand the appeal of proto board. Certainly tastes are individual and like any skill worth practicing, you do get better at it... but it's just such a miserable way to work. IMO, again.
Not only can you now order a real PCB for under $10, but somewhere along the way I realized that I could just buy extremely large pre-cut wire kits and treat them as the consumables that they truly are.
I'd rather go back to wire-wrapping. Every time I think "this is a great opportunity to use up a proto board!" I end up covered in flux goo and wondering what on earth I was thinking.
The real problem with proto board is what happens when you inevitably need to change your circuit. Again, it's miserable and suddenly your perceived speed gains are simply gone.
I think that the most exciting thing in prototyping right now is Stephen Hawes experiments with a) creating a PCB with premade vias that can be used to prototype anything and b) using a fiber laser to make your own PCBs.
Yes, wire-wrapping is/was so great. Really good quality connections, no accidental connections due to solder ending up at the wrong places, easy to remove or change.
And no solder-iron that risks burning stuff. And no smoke either.
The only draw-back is that it seems to be so expensive and almost non-existant today.
While I agree with you about protoboards (especially the non-strip kind, which seem to be the predominant ones nowadays), I feel like, for anything but the most trivial circuit, drawing the schematic in CAD, picking footprints, laying out a board, doing paper printouts for verification and sending it off to a manufacturer is easily a full working day or more. It also runs the risk of scope creep -- your quick and dirty prototype suddenly turns into "a product" and you start thinking about form factor and enclosures and extra features.
And over a week later when your minimum order quantity arrives, you discover your mistake and can add five more boards to the junk pile...
UV laser exposure feels like the correct way to go about doing small scale prototyping imho.
If you want to play around now and with little preparation, there's no beating proto-boards. No toying around with designing the PCB, no waiting for the order. They're also great to practice your soldering skills.
Sometimes you just want a sandwich, not to bake bread
One thing I like for prototyping with through hole parts is Verowire pen which kind of combines wire wrap with soldering. It uses thin wire in self-fluxing insulation. You can use the pen to wrap a bunch of components that go in series without wasting time for trimming the wire to length. Then you solder over the wraps and bite off the runs that shouldn't be there (e.g. when you wired a diode you remove the wire between its contacts).
This is orders of magnitude more complicated and risk prone than wire wrapping due to the possibility of cold joints, but as I understand it, this look is what people dig these days (just watch any EE youtuber). I too used to think that soldering on porto board was a great way to go about prototyping sans SBB, but you can't ignore the bomber connections that wire wrapping gives you.
Might be a dumb question, but isn’t the risk of cold joints proportional to your skill in soldering in general? Important context: I am definitely a noob to soldering
It is, yes. After some practice, you will not get cold joints. Or when there is a danger of a cold joint due to massive heat sinking around, you will know and be extra careful
I used to work for Schenectady Chemicals in 1968 we developed solderable self fluxing polyurethane coated enamelled wire, it was an immediate hit and soldered well. Times have changed and I left them in 1978, but it might be an item to look for as I found it very handy.
Go carefully there. Kynar tends to wilt at soldering heat. Press insulated wires together when they're still hot and suddenly they can be kissing; a 1-diameter short is easy to overlook when you're inspecting your work.
I find it worthwhile to use teflon-insulated wire here. When I'm building a prototype, the last thing I want to have to distrust is my construction.
Indeed, by rights that shouldn't work. But it does and he threw in an ISA bus just for the heck of it and that works too. And all of this at a very respectable clock speed. Mad props.
Not only can you now order a real PCB for under $10, but somewhere along the way I realized that I could just buy extremely large pre-cut wire kits and treat them as the consumables that they truly are.
I'd rather go back to wire-wrapping. Every time I think "this is a great opportunity to use up a proto board!" I end up covered in flux goo and wondering what on earth I was thinking.
The real problem with proto board is what happens when you inevitably need to change your circuit. Again, it's miserable and suddenly your perceived speed gains are simply gone.
I think that the most exciting thing in prototyping right now is Stephen Hawes experiments with a) creating a PCB with premade vias that can be used to prototype anything and b) using a fiber laser to make your own PCBs.
Truly one of the most inspiring creators today.
And no solder-iron that risks burning stuff. And no smoke either.
The only draw-back is that it seems to be so expensive and almost non-existant today.
And over a week later when your minimum order quantity arrives, you discover your mistake and can add five more boards to the junk pile...
UV laser exposure feels like the correct way to go about doing small scale prototyping imho.
Sometimes you just want a sandwich, not to bake bread
[*] like these https://www.jbctools.com/cartridges-category-4-design-Spoon-...
I find it worthwhile to use teflon-insulated wire here. When I'm building a prototype, the last thing I want to have to distrust is my construction.
I found my wire-wrapping gun recently. If I put in new C batteries it might work.
https://imgur.com/gallery/486-homebrew-computer-lsUiWdw#dIBt...
Looks like something that shouldnt work at all :)