Lordy, I just got some strip/Vero boards (is there a difference?) from SBP for my first try at this sort of thing, but uh, cutting this thing apart feels more difficult than it should. Is there some trick other than just going over and over a cut with a box cutter until my arm is exhausted and trying to snap it off with a pair of pliers?
Just a few? For the first break I was able to get I must've gone over the score mark like 20-30 times with a lot of pressure. On both sides. And still needed my pliers. Are the ones at SBP significantly thicker than others?
Just a few? For the first break I was able to get I must've gone over the score mark like 20-30 times with a lot of pressure. On both sides. And still needed my pliers. Are the ones at SBP significantly thicker than others?
Lordy, I just got some strip/Vero boards (is there a difference?) from SBP for my first try at this sort of thing, but uh, cutting this thing apart feels more difficult than it should. Is there some trick other than just going over and over a cut with a box cutter until my arm is exhausted and trying to snap it off with a pair of pliers?
Just a few? For the first break I was able to get I must've gone over the score mark like 20-30 times with a lot of pressure. On both sides. And still needed my pliers. Are the ones at SBP significantly thicker than others?
First off, I’ve thought about trying a “better” stripboard like the one SBP carries, but it’s a little odd that the holes are also plated on the front of the board… I doubt that would cause any shorting issues with component legs, etc but it’s something I considered.
I’ve only used Tayda stripboard - works great, but if you do a poor job cutting it down it’s a little brittle on the ends (too lazy to attach a pic of Little Brittle from Aqua Teen Hunger Force).
I’ve done Xacto scoring, sawing, shouting at it… not great. The Metals dept where I teach has a 100 year old plate cutter like this, and it’s incredible:
I’m not always there, so when I’m at home and have a little leeway I’ll use some tin snips like these:
Not ideal, but they don’t butcher the board nearly as much as you’d think. Pretty easy to clean up the edges if they’re a bit rough. These work better than expected.
There are desktop shears like the one below that I’d probably consider if I did much more stripboarding and didn’t have access to that antique one.
I can't be getting more tools, I'm afraid. My little apartment has too much stuff in it already. I got the SBP board apart, but the holes may be too close together, which wasn't apparent until I tried putting a regular ol film cap in
The ones at Amplified Parts look more conventional, I just didn't want to pay shipping from multiple vendors. ah well
Keep in mind that the wider hole spacing won't work for DIP IC packages. Those match the boards with the smaller spacing (0.1"). The wider hole spacing (0.15") used to be more common when discrete designs were ubiquitous. I personally prefer the wider spacing for discrete designs though.
Stripboard is the generic name for this style of board. Veroboard is the original brand name for the boards made by Vero Precision Engineering, but some people use it generically to mean any stripboard.
