4 Oct
2001
4 Oct
'01
3:04 p.m.
I wanted to bang out a quick thing involving bussed lines (an LED display
for a Dragon's Lair game, if you're curious). I thought it might be
quick to do with veroboard as opposed to point-to-point wiring. I want
to make a prototype before considering burning a board (since that's a
weakness I have at the moment anyway - lack of knowledge about layout
tools). The problem is that I haven't seen veroboard for sale in the
States, only the U.K. and perhaps Western Europe. Here, we have
lots of modular prototyping board, but it's not easy to use when you
have a lot of parallel connections (like a data bus).
Are there any sources on this side of the pond? If not, how much does
a sheet of about 6"x9" cost? If it's too expensive to buy and ship, I
have several square feet of plain blue perfboard I got from the Micro
Center when they put all their hobbyist stuff on remainder, and I'll
build it from scratch.
I went to school in England in 1985 - New College, specifically, down the
street from Blackwell's Books. I spent many hours there absorbing
everything I could about hardware hacking (not having the budget to _buy_
the books - the Turf Tavern was closer to the gate ;-) I remember a
couple books with do-it-yourself projects using veroboard. Now I wish I'd
gotten more books and less beer (but it was _great_ beer) :-)
Any veroboard pointers?
Thanks,
-ethan
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5 Oct
5 Oct
11:58 a.m.
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1:48 p.m.
On Sat, 6 Oct 2001 00:58:09 +0100 (BST), Tony Duell wrote:
#
#Veroboard is (used to be?) a trade name used by BICC-Vero. The generic
#name for what you are looking for is 'Stripboard'
#
#It must be available in the States. I thought the common brand for
#prototyping boards over there was 'Vector'. Surely they must do something
#similar.
Indeed, Vector still makes "Vectorbords". They also make boards with various
bus edge connectors called
"Plugbords". The problem with these things is that they are very expensive,
imho. For example, a
prototyping board for the XT bus with edge connectors and nothing more is about $25.
This raises a question I have had for some time. What DO people use to make prototype
boards with edge
connectors as an alternative to Plugbords? I ran into this very problem recently in
trying to create a
prototype ROM Pac for the Exidy Sorcerer. Other than buying Plugbords or etching a PCB,
the only solution
I saw was cutting up an old card and gluing the edge connectors to a prototype board.
Other suggestions?
Louis
1:42 p.m.
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6 Oct
6 Oct
5:33 a.m.
The cyanide in the solutions is the least of one's worries here in the U.S.
where the local authorities all seem to have the means to track down PCB-related
chemistry, yet can't seem to find the methamphetimine lab's that make street
drugs. It's illegal to flush them down the toilet, or otherwise introduce them
in to the sanitary sewer or, for that matter, the storm sewer system. Here in
Denver, the will absolutely find you if you are dumping those chemicals in the
sewer system. Some fellows have taken to dumping their excess chemicals (1)
directly into the river, or (2) into a public facility where they can't be found
out. A really common site is the public restroom at the picnic area in the
park. It allows one to carry the chemical waste into the toilet in a cooler,
dump it, and then proceed without attracting attention.
That's why I have my boards built overseas. One can get a manufacturer's
quantity of boards from Taiwan for what a dozen prototypes cost here in the
States and in 1 day plus the transit time via whatever mode of transport you're
willing to pay for.
In central Europe, one can apparently get boards up to 10x14", 16 layers, made
for $26 in a week, plus the associated $100 or so for FedEx, with no limit on
the number of via and hole sizes down under 10 mils. More boards,
unfortunately, cost more per board, though I find that odd.
I've considered getting a run of various prototype boards and various adapter
sockets made in a single panel, and cutting them up myself once I've got the
panel in hand. ... one of these days ...
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: Is there a source for veroboard in the U.S.?
> Indeed, Vector still makes
"Vectorbords". They also make boards with
various bus edge connectors
called
> "Plugbords". The problem with these
things is that they are very expensive,
imho. For example, a
> prototyping board for the XT bus with edge
connectors and nothing more is
about $25.
Yes, the bare prototyping boards for PCs (etc) are expensive over here as
well.... A lot more expensive than ready-built (standard) cards, like
serial cards...
>
> This raises a question I have had for some time. What DO people use to make
prototype boards with edge
> connectors as an alternative to Plugbords? I ran
into this very problem
recently in trying to create a
> prototype ROM Pac for the Exidy Sorcerer. Other
than buying Plugbords or
etching a PCB, the only solution
> I saw was cutting up an old card and gluing the
edge connectors to a
prototype board. Other suggestions?
You;'ve basically covereed it. If you're designing the complete machine
-- you want a cardcage of boards, but they don't have to be compatible
with anything else) then you can avoid the problem by using DIN41612
connectors, of coruse.
I'd not advise etching edge connector fingers yourself. You want them
gold plated, and I've never heard of that being done at home. I think the
gold plating solutions are cyanide based, which is a good reason not to
have them unless you _know_ what you are doing...
-tony
5 Oct
5 Oct
5:10 p.m.
Louis Schulman skrev:
On Sat, 6 Oct 2001 00:58:09 +0100 (BST), Tony Duell
wrote:
#
#Veroboard is (used to be?) a trade name used by BICC-Vero. The generic
#name for what you are looking for is 'Stripboard'
#
#It must be available in the States. I thought the common brand for
#prototyping boards over there was 'Vector'. Surely they must do something
#similar.
Indeed, Vector still makes "Vectorbords".
They also make boards with various
bus edge connectors called "Plugbords". The problem with these things is
that they are very expensive, imho. For example, a prototyping board for
the XT bus with edge connectors and nothing more is about $25.
This raises a question I have had for some time. What
DO people use to make
prototype boards with edge connectors as an alternative to Plugbords? I ran
into this very problem recently in trying to create a prototype ROM Pac for
the Exidy Sorcerer. Other than buying Plugbords or etching a PCB, the only
solution I saw was cutting up an old card and gluing the edge connectors to
a prototype board. Other suggestions?
If the traces are of the right pitch, you may just cut away any superfluous
traces from a veroboard. The common pitch is 2,5 mm, I think, but in some
cases, that won't work, like in the Atari ST cartridge port, which has a 2,0
mm pitch. In that case, etching seems to be the only alternative.
In the case of home-brew cartridges for game consoles, going at an existing
cartridge with an iron is the prevailing method.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
A Spanish MSX Group "Matra" visited to this Fair. I lent Spanish stand to
them. They showed and did Promotion play of SEX BOMB BUNNY. And this Game has
tema song of Majingar-Z! Why they know Japanese TV animation?
K. Ikeda, MSX-Print
6 Oct
6 Oct
8:02 a.m.
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12:51 p.m.
Tony Duell skrev:
> If the traces are of the right pitch, you may just
cut away any superfluous
> traces from a veroboard. The common pitch is 2,5 mm, I think, but in some
Certainlty in the UK, the common pitch for stripboard
is 0.1". That's
sufficiently different from 2.5mm to be noticeable over a
reasonable-sized edge connector. We also have 0.15" pitch (which is very
hard to find now), which will not fit US 0.156" connectors...
I'm not familiar with that other measuring system...
The problem is that most stripboard is single-sided and
most edge
connectors are double sided. I have seen double-sided stripboard once,
I've even seen X-Y stripboard (tracks run horizontally on one side,
vertically on the other). But those types are not stocked by the local
electronics shop
To think that I didn't think of that!
Oh well, here's just something which happened to be in my browser at the
moment, on a related topic. It's about making an adapter for running Japanese
games on Western SEGA Master Systems, which involves a card-edge connector.
------8<--------
The Japanese connector is a 44-pin one of a very unusual pitch (0.125inch I
think), which is very difficult to get hold of. I did find one company which
manufactured them, but I'd have had to buy 1000 of them :-(
I made my adapter by cutting (hacksawing) a standard 50-way 0.1inch connector
into segments of six pins each, with four pins on each of the end segments,
kind of like this...
__ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ __
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|__| |___| |___| |___| |___| |___| |___| |__|
|| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||| ||
Note the gaps in between each segment. One of the middle segments was
discarded (50-6=44) and the remaining ones separated and glued in position on
a standard SMS cartridge shell. Then the connector pins could simply be wired
to the corresponding points of the cartridge board (the ROM having been
removed). The whole process was very tedious, but the resulting adapter does
work (thankfully!)
-------8<--------
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Allt ?r under kontroll, och caps lock ?r bredvid.
7 Oct
7 Oct
6:20 a.m.
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6 Oct
6 Oct
2:19 a.m.
Back in the '80-'81 when I was making and selling prototyping boards, including
some for the VME, BICC-VERO was a competitor while Vector, the US' main maker of
hobbyist class protype boards really made no effort to compete at all. While
Vector products were then, and are today, of the lowest conceivable quality and
poorest design imaginable, their prices were right up with VERO and with me.
Where VME was concerned, even the FAE's from MOT, Mostek, and Signetics, all of
whom had their own boards to sell, were pushing my boards because of their
combined low price and desirable features such as uniforom colander ground and
power planes, full 0.100" matrix hole grid, and dry-film solder mask on both
sides to facilitate point-to-point wiring for sensitive analog circuits. The
VERO boards also offered a colander ground plane, but my boards were more
available locally.
AFAIK, BICC-VERO was not widely available but did have a presence in the market
in the U.S. They were the only serious competitor I had, however. I don't
believe they impacted my own sales much, however.
I got into the wirewrap board business only because I couldn't use what others
were offering, mainly because there were no useable provisions for the
then-newly-popularized IDC connectors for cabling and for attachment to
mezzanine boards, etc. Moreover, most of them required VERY COSTLY adapters
for PGA and PLCC packaging, while my own design allowed both IDC connectors and
PGA sockets to be placed nearly anywhere on the board.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: Is there a source for veroboard in the U.S.?
I wanted to bang out a quick thing involving bussed lines (an LED display
for a Dragon's Lair game, if you're curious). I thought it might be
quick to do with veroboard as opposed to point-to-point wiring. I want
to make a prototype before considering burning a board (since that's a
weakness I have at the moment anyway - lack of knowledge about layout
tools). The problem is that I haven't seen veroboard for sale in the
States, only the U.K. and perhaps Western Europe. Here, we have
Veroboard is (used to be?) a trade name used by BICC-Vero. The generic
name for what you are looking for is 'Stripboard'
It must be available in the States. I thought the common brand for
prototyping boards over there was 'Vector'. Surely they must do something
similar.
lots of modular prototyping board, but it's
not easy to use when you
have a lot of parallel connections (like a data bus).
Are there any sources on this side of the pond? If not, how much does
a sheet of about 6"x9" cost? If it's too expensive to buy and ship, I
Getting it that wide is going to be hard (at least over here). The
largest common sizes are designed to stand upright in a 3U card frame, so
about 4". I think 4" by 6" (approx) is a fairly common size.
I went to school in England in 1985 - New
College, specifically, down the
street from Blackwell's Books. I spent many hours there absorbing
Ah,, the_other_place (sorry, couldn't resist...) :-)
-tony
5:46 p.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Yes, "the other place"... I almost planned a trip to Cambridge that
summer to meet Stephen Hawking, but it turned out that he was suffering
>
> I wanted to bang out a quick thing involving bussed lines (an LED
> display for a Dragon's Lair game, if you're curious)...
Veroboard is (used to be?) a trade name used by
BICC-Vero. The generic
name for what you are looking for is 'Stripboard'
That's _just_ the kind of info I was looking for; thanks.
Getting it that wide is going to be hard (at least
over here). The
largest common sizes are designed to stand upright in a 3U card frame, so
about 4". I think 4" by 6" (approx) is
a fairly common size.
I found some strip board this weekend at an Akron-area electronics
shop (www.philcap.com). It was scorchingly expensive; but these guys
have, among other things, a Vector-brand continuous-wrap wire-wrapping
tool on the wall for $75! They _do_ have some stuff that's cheap, but,
as we've recently discussed about other shops, they don't seem to
mark down prices to move slow inventory.
I went to
school in England in 1985 - New College, specifically...
Ah,, the_other_place (sorry, couldn't resist...) :-) from pneumonia and I wouldn't have been able to
meet him if I'd gone.
I _did_ get to read his books at the Bodlean Library (I
was taking
Physics and Calc back home; he uses symbols I'd never even _heard_ of ;-)
-ethan
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