Idea for a protoyping board

I have just had an idea.....

Take these things, cut them in half and solder the pieces in strategic positions on the prototype solder boards to form non-solder junctions specific to a particular type of circuit e.g. MC34063A step up converter.

You could easily change components around without messing up the copper eyelets by continually re-soldering them.

You could fit a slightly wider range of wire gauges in these spring loaded contacts and they would held fairly firmly compared the machined type IC sockets and bread boards.

You could easily just mount the boards in the enclosures and not bother permanetly soldering the components, thus allowing you to vary the components at any time in the future.

I wouldn't be particularly practical to try and do this with breadboards.

Unless you can get these types of IC sockets as strips. But so far I have only found the machined type ones with the circular holes in strips

Possibly you might only be able to stuff one wire in each "slot", so if you wanted a junction with (say) three wires, then
you'd need three slots, so it might end up being much the same as normal block proto boards.
For simple circuits, I still think Radio Shack had the best idea all those years ago, using those extension-type springs, that
you had to bend sideways to insert a wire. It could take many wires into a single junction, and handled stranded or single-core
wire. It was excellent.

Why not use normal prototyping board, for example from about half way down the page.

Here it is in use on my bench at the moment.


Not the neatest of my work but for pre-PCB layout testing they are ideal.

Brian.

sky_123 said:

Possibly you might only be able to stuff one wire in each "slot", so if you wanted a junction with (say) three wires, then
you'd need three slots, so it might end up being much the same as normal block proto boards.
For simple circuits, I still think Radio Shack had the best idea all those years ago, using those extension-type springs, that
you had to bend sideways to insert a wire. It could take many wires into a single junction, and handled stranded or single-core
wire. It was excellent.

Click to expand...

That was the idea to solder one slot or more than one slot side by side so that you could join multiple components at the one place.

If the Radio Shack things are anything like the Shortcircuits beginners kit, also with little springs, they would have been a bit bulky as far as using them as a semi-permanent circuit though.

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betwixt said:

Why not use normal prototyping board, for example from about half way down the page.

Here it is in use on my bench at the moment.

Click to expand...

I have one of these and use it but they are not really suitable for making a semi permanent circuit.

The wires and components often fit quite loosely in the holes and can be dislodged easily, for example, if you tried to mount it in an enclosure.

They don't come in a wide range of sizes and shapes and it would be rather expensive to buy a new one every time you wanted to make another semi-permanent circuit.

Also you are quite limited as to the size of the connecting wires you can fit in the holes and you can't easily fit some of the components with thicker guage leads.

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sky_123 said:

I still think Radio Shack had the best idea all those years ago, using those extension-type springs, that
you had to bend sideways to insert a wire. It could take many wires into a single junction, and handled stranded or single-core
wire. It was excellent.

Click to expand...

Actually you have potentially given me another idea here.

The problem with the Short Circuits version of the solderless kit is that you have to push the springs down and insert the leads and wires through a little loop of wire protruding from the top of the spring. But if they spring slips out from under your finger nail they have a tendancy to launch themselves into oblivion to be later sucked up in the vacuum cleaner.

But if you were to get a whole lot of ordinary small springs from Bunnings for example and some how mount these on the Short circuits board in place of the other springs......

Perhaps fasten a whole lot of small bolts through the holes on the board and then simply slip the ordinary springs over the top of these. You would have to stretech the springs to insert the leads rather than compress them and hence you wouldn't have the problem of them launching themselves.