Veroboard

Veroboard is the trademark name of the electronics prototyping board manufactured by the Vero Electronics company. Among electronics hobbyists and professionals, the name Veroboard is synonymous with similar prototyping board, also called stripboard, made by any manufacturer.

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Veroboard is a general-purpose single-sided printed circuit board (PCB), which is pre-drilled with a regular grid of holes on a standard spacing, 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) being the most popular. Each row of holes is connected by a copper track on one side of the board. The board itself is made of synthetic-resin-bonded-paper (SRBP). The 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) spacing allows most standard through-mounted components to be mounted on the board. The components are usually placed on the plain side of the board, with their leads protruding through the holes. The leads are then soldered to the copper tracks on the other side of the board to make the desired connections, and any excess wire is cut off. The continuous tracks may be easily and neatly cut as desired to form breaks between conductors using a 5 mm twist drill, a hand cutter made for the purpose, or a knife. Tracks may be linked up on the component side of the board using wire links or lengths of insulated wire. With practice, very neat and reliable assemblies can be created, but such a method is labour-intensive and therefore unsuitable for production assemblies.

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External wire connections to the board are made either by soldering the wires through the holes or, for wires too thick to pass through the holes, by soldering them to specially made pins called Veropins which fit tightly into the holes.

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A larger version using a 0.15 inch (3.81 mm) grid and larger holes is also available, but is generally less popular. Veroboard is unsuitable for surface mounted components. For high density prototyping, especially of digital circuits, wire-wrap is faster and more reliable than Veroboard.

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Veroboard is similar in concept and usage to breadboard, but is more permanent - connections are soldered and the board itself is not reusable. In contrast, breadboard connections are held by friction, and the breadboard can be reused many times. However breadboard is not very suitable for prototyping that needs to remain in a set configuration for an appreciable period of time, nor for physical mock-ups containing a working circuit, or for any environment subject to vibration or movement.

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A related product is called perfboard (short for perforated board). This is like a Veroboard but without the copper strips, and is also used for electrical prototyping.

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Another variant is called TriPad board. This is similar to stripboard, except that the conductive tracks do not run continuously along the board but are broken into sections, each of which spans three holes. This allows the legs of two or three components to be easily linked together in the circuit conveniently without the need for track breaks to be made. However, in order to link more than three holes together, wire links or bridges must be formed and this can result in a less compact layout than is possible with ordinary stripboard.

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Electronics: The field of electronics is the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically charged particles in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. The design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems is part of the fi...

Prototyping: Prototyping is the process of quickly putting together a working model (a prototype) in order to test various aspects of the design, illustrate ideas or features and gather early user feedback. Prototyping is often treated as an integral part of the development process where it is believed to reduc...

Printed circuit board: A printed circuit board or PCB interconnects electronic components without discrete wires. Alternative names are printed wiring board or PWB or etched wiring board...