Electronic Prototype Construction

Techniques
Peter D. Hiscocks
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ryerson Polytechnic University
[email protected]
December 4, 2001
Contents
1

Introduction

The Printed Circuit Board

Prototype Milling Machine

Veroboard

The Protoboard

10

Haywire Technique

11

The Dremel Tool Method

12

Radio Frequency Boards

14

Wire-Wrap

15

10 Vectorboard

16

11 Terminal Strip Construction

17

Bibliography and References

18

1 Introduction
It is a common situation that an electronic circuit is needed for a student project, to demonstrate a concept, to
validate a simulation or for one specific application. For reasons of time or cost, a full-blown printed circuit board
is often not a practical solution. This paper describes different methods of constructing a one-off or prototype
electronic circuit.
These techniques are well known among the amateur radio and hobbiest community. This paper brings the
ideas together for students in Electrical Engineering.

2 The Printed Circuit Board

When we think of constructing electronic circuits, we often think of a printed circuit board. An example is
shown in figure 1. Stuffing components into a commercially made circuit board is easy, and the result looks very

Figure 1: Professional Quality Circuit Board

professional. However, the design and manufacture of a full-blown printed circuit is a major undertaking. A
double sided board includes the following elements:
top copper traces
2

bottom copper traces

plated through holes, that connect the top and bottom traces
solder mask, that helps prevent solder bridges between traces
silkscreen, showing component designations and other notes such as the copyright symbol
Using modern methods, the production of a commercial printed circuit board involves a number of steps:
1. Draw the circuit schematic using a schematic editor program. It may be necessary to create some schematic
symbols for the program.
2. Transfer the schematic netlist to a board layout program. It may be necessary to create some package
outlines for the program.
3. Determine the size and shape of the circuit board.
4. Place the components on the board.
5. Route the circuit board traces, using an autorouter.
6. Add circuit board silkstreen notes.
7. Carefully check that all the holes are in the correct position and the correct size, so that the components fit
properly.
8. Generate the gerber files. These describe the board for the manufacturer.
9. Ship the gerbers to the manufacture, cross your fingers, and hope.
Each of these steps takes significant time and require several iterations.
The process also requires access to computer-based circuit layout tools. Student versions are available for
small boards, but the full-blown versions can be extremely expensive1.
Typically the board manufacturer will charge about $800CDN for the setup and production of their minimum
quantity, which might be ten boards. Since these will inevitably have some mistakes, you will have to cut and
jumper traces on these boards. The second run will more likely be mistake free. However, the manufacturer will
have a new setup charge, since the boards will have changed.
This whole process is justifiable when the circuit is going to be produced in large numbers or there are compelling engineering reasons why a printed circuit board is necessary. However in many situations, especially in
the student project environment, a printed circuit is overkill.
In the quest to produce a professional looking circuit board, it is common for a student electrical engineer to
become sidetracked from the main objective of a circuit design project, which is to get the thing designed and
working.
This paper shows some alternatives to the printed circuit board.
1 The

rip-up-and-retry autorouter in the system I use cost $600CDN.

3 Prototype Milling Machine

Rather than ship the gerber plots to a manufacturer and pay the setup and production charges for a printed circuit
board, it is possible to produce the board on a PC Board Milling Machine. Organizations that do significant
printed circuit board development may be able to justify the $20K price of the machine, in which case they can
generate prototypes very conveniently and quickly.
The milling machine is essentially a very precise X-Y plotter with a cutting tool where the pen would normally
reside. The machine cuts tiny slots into bare PCB stock in order to outline each trace. It also drills the necessary
holes in the board and cuts the board out of the copper stock. A double sided board can be produced on the
machine by milling one side after the other.
An example board produced by this process is shown in figure 2. The top photograph is a mobile robot
prototype, viewed from the component side. The bottom photograph is a closup of the wiring side. Each little
blob is a via that consists of a short length of #30AWG solid wire, soldered to the top and bottom traces. Most of
the copper remains on the board (in contrast to a commercial PC Board). the only copper that is removed is from
the outline around each trace.
The milling machine has its application niche, and has made it possible for an organization like Ryerson
University to do quick turnaround development of printed circuit board prototypes. However, there are some
limitations:
The cost is beyond the reach of an individual, so the machine has to be available through an organization.
There are significant operating costs: the milling bits have a very limited life, especially if large areas of
copper need to be removed.
Operation of the machine requires some skill to produce reliable boards. For example, the PC board stock
must not be warped or the traces will have short circuits between them.
The prototype board does not have such amenities as plated through holes, solder mask, or silkscreen
markings. Hand wiring the plated through holes is tedious and must be done very carefully not to create
short circuits2 .
Its not unusual to inadvertently create a short circuit between traces or a trace and ground. Finding and
fixing these can be very time consuming.
In spite of these limitations, a milled prototype is useful in many prototyping situations. It is excellent for
generating radio-frequency prototypes where circuit elements such as inductors and stripline resonators must be
fabricated in the printed circuit board copper. Its feasible to do small production runs if the board can be kept
to one layer. Its often very useful to have a prototype that is essentially the same size and shape as the final PC
board version.
One very useful application of the milling machine is in producing adaptor carriers for surface mount component integrated circuits. Many surface mount integrated circuits are difficult to wire to because of the tiny size of
the package and pins. The adaptor carrier is a small circuit board that has a connection pattern that matches the
integrated circuit and brings the connection points out to a 0.1 inch grid that can be wired into a protoboard or
other circuit.
It should be kept in mind that any printed circuit board produced on a milling machine must be designed using
all the steps discussed in the previous section. For a student project this can be a time-consuming distraction from
the main objective, which is to get a working circuit.
2 I once wired a prototype with over 300 plated through holes. It took several days to accomplish and Ill never do it again. The board had
one intermittent that took some 7 hours to find.

Figure 2: Milled PC Board Prototype

4 Veroboard
I was introduced to Veroboard while in high school, back in the 60s, so Veroboard has been around for a while.
Veroboard is a product out of the UK and is excellent for constructing discrete component circuits such as the
audio amplifier shown in figure 3. As you can see, the result is a professional looking circuit. Veroboard is widely
known and used in the UK, but almost unknown in North America for some reason.
Veroboard is phenolic board, punched on 100 mil (0.1 inch) centres, bare on the top and with copper strips
on the bottom. To construct the electronic circuit, you lay out the components in a north-south direction. The
traces run in an east-west and are broken as part of the construction process in order to isolate the various circuit
connections.
Vero have a special tool for breaking traces, but Ive long since lost mine. A 3/8 drill bit works just fine. Push
it up against a trace and twist, and the trace is broken. In the wiring side view of figure 3 the traces are running
north-south, and you can see where they have been broken. In the component side view of figure 3 you can see
the jumpers on the component side of the board that connect traces on the wiring side.
An example of a schematic and its corresponding Veroboard layout, is shown in figure 4. The horizontal traces
are the Veroboard copper strips on the wiring side of the board. The vertical traces are jumpers that are used to
connect the various traces.
Another Veroboard example is shown in figure 5. After cooking an expensive microprocessor, I installed this
device between the outside world and the microprocessor to limit the voltage on each microprocessor line with a
series resistor and clamping diodes.
Veroboard is surprizingly rugged. Components can be soldered and unsoldered a couple of times before the
copper traces lift. Ive even seen it used in small production runs.
Veroboard is not well suited for complex digital circuits. Its main area of application is analog circuitry.
I find it useful to use the xfig drawing program to plan out a Veroboard layout before constructing it. When
the layout is completed, I print it at 100% scale and glue it to the component side of the board. This then acts as a
guide in constructing and troubleshooting the circuit3 .

3 It would be useful in these days of computer circuit board layout programs, to have a program that would automatically translate a
schematic into a Veroboard layout. As far as Im aware, such a program does not exist. Alternatively, an existing commercial PCB layout
program might be set up in such a way as to generate a veroboard layout.

Figure 3: Veroboard Audio Amplifier, Component and Wiring Sides

R1
75k

C1
100n

D1
1N4148

R5 5k1

R6 10k

C2
16u, 10V

Q1
Speed

TIP120

R2

25k

12

R2 5k1

1
U1A

U1C
10

13

14
U1D
Supply

R3 5k1

5VDC
11

R4
5k1
+

5
6

U1B
-

R7
3k9

Motor
D2

R8

1N4001

1k0

800mA, 1 ohm

0.2 ohm

Q1

U1

NOTES:

Motor Speed Controller

Q1 may be any NPN type TIP series Darlington transistor.

R9

Ryerson Polytechnic University

Peter Hiscocks, October 30, 1997
Print at 70%
Revision: 0.1
File: motcon2.fig

Q1 must be on a heat sink, area 3 inches squared

Op amps are from Quad Op Amp, LM324N or LM324AN (DIP package).
Recalculate resistor values to suit other components.
BCE

For D1, any small signal silicon diode may be substituted

For D2, any 1N4000 series diode or 1 amp diode may be substituted.
R9 is 5, 1 ohm resistors in parallel

2.9"

Q1

Motor Speed Controller, Vero Layout

U1

1.6"
Ryerson Polytechnic University
Peter Hiscocks, Oct 30, 1997
Print at 80% for full scale print
Revision: 0.1
File: motcon-layout.fig

R9C

R9D

R9E

R9D

R9E

R9B

R9C

R4
R9A

R6

R5

R8

R7

D6

R3

C2

Pot Supply
Pot Wiper
Pot Gnd
Motor+
MotorVcc
Gnd

D1

R1

R2

C1

Q1

R9B

R9A

R6

R5

R8

R7

R3

D6

R4

U1

C2

Pot Supply
Pot Wiper
Pot Gnd
Motor+
MotorVcc
Gnd

D1

R1

R2

C1

Figure 4: Example Schematic

Figure 5: Cable Adaptor, Component and Wiring Sides

5 The Protoboard
If youve done any work in electronics, youve probably used a prototyping board. A small protoboard circuit is
shown in figure 6.
The board consists of a number of groups of holes. In the centre of the board, you can see that there are
groups of 5 holes running vertically. Each of these has a connection strip below the plastic, so that anything lead
plugged into one group of five holes is connected to another lead in the same group. There are also larger groups
of holes that run along the top of the board. These can be used as power supply busses. Connections are made
with jumpers of #22AWG solid wire.
The prototype board is a wonderful invention. It allows one to throw together a circuit in minutes. Experimenting is easy, and requires very few tools. (A pair of needle-nosed pliers for pushing leads into the sockets, and
a pair of side-cutters for trimming component leads, are both handy.) One nice aspect of the protoboard is that it
can be set up to mimic the layout of a schematic, with a positive power bus at the top, ground in the middle and a
negative power bus at the bottom4

Figure 6: Protoboard
For low frequency work, the protoboard is an essential tool. However, it does have some limitations in critical
applications. Where large gains or high frequencies are involved, the protoboard does not provide very predictable
grounding paths, and this may lead to noise pickup and oscillation. There is a small capacitance between each of
the connector rows, and this can upset some high frequency circuits. The current capacity of a protoboard is very
limited I wouldnt use it for anything much more than 500mA. If you force large diameter leads into the holes,
the contacts are bent back so they dont make reliable contact, and this can be difficult to troubleshoot.
4 Always, always decouple the power busses to the ground bus with 100nF capacitors. Larger capacitors, such as 10 F electrolytic, are
also a good idea.

10

For a student project, the protoboard is a good place to start. But for a circuit that has to be reliable (when
carried around in a student knapsack), some other method of construction should be used. A useful strategy is to
debug certain parts of a circuit on a protoboard, and then migrate that circuit to some other construction technique.

6 Haywire Technique
This technique uses bare copper printed circuit board as a platform for the rest of the circuit. The printed circuit
board functions as a low impedance ground plane for the circuit. Components are soldered to the ground plane or
to each other. Integrated circuits are mounted dead bug style onto the copper and components soldered directly to
the IC pins. An example of a haywire circuit is shown in figure 7.

Figure 7: Haywire Circuit 1

If you look carefully, you can see where component wires are soldered directly to the ground plane, and the
integrated circuits mounted pins-up. The circuit is an experimental variable-gain preamplifier for an oscilloscope,
where high frequency behaviour is important. The protoboard version of this circuit functioned after a fashion,

11

but it was necessary to build this prototype to get it to operate up to its specification (4MHz). The three toggle
switches select one of 8 gain settings.
A second example is shown in figure 8. In this circuit, the board has been divided into three strips, one

Figure 8: Haywire Circuit 2

each for the positive power, ground, and negative power. Notice the decoupling capacitors at the left end of the
circuit, where power enters the board. The twisted wires in the forground are a gimmick capacitor an adjustable
capacitor of a few picofarads.
Of course, modifications to the circuit require use of a soldering iron. The haywired circuit is more reliable
than a protoboard circuit. You dont have to worry about flaky connections when leads are soldered. The haywired
circuit has fewer problems due to stray capacitance and the large ground plane area minimises problems due to
indictive or resistive voltage gradients.

7 The Dremel Tool Method

When a circuit is not too complicated (ie, can be laid out with a single copper layer) and includes some large,
odd-sized components, the milled circuit technique shown in figure 9 is useful.
In the traditional method of laying out a circuit board, the traces are usually fine lines. But when you think
about it, the large empty space between traces is not necessary the copper could be increased and the space
decreased, providing everything can be made to fit. Then each wire in the circuit becomes an area on the circuit

12

Figure 9: Milled Circuit: Dremel Tool Method

board, and the areas are separated from each other by thin gaps. Putting it technically, each wiring node on the
schematic is allocated an area on the printed circuit board.
This leads to some advantages in circuit board construction.
The areas can be separated from each other by hand, using a Dremel tool with a milling bit to cut a gap that
isolates each circuit area in the copper.
Each copper conductor is now a large area, so it can safely carry a heavy current.
The board can take a fair amount of abuse with a soldering iron and is the copper is still unlikely to lift
(unlike boards with delicate traces), since there is a large area holding it to the substrate.
Each area represents a relatively large target, so component holes can be drilled without worrying too much
about alignment.
The circuit shown in figure 9 is an SCR light dimmer circuit that was built by theatre technology students. This
particular technique was appropriate because the students could each mill out their own board by hand, the board
could take some inexpert soldering without being damaged, and it could handle line current of several amperes.
The position of the milling lines were transferred to the copper layer using carbon paper and then milled out by
hand. Another template, showing drill sizes and positions, was glued to the component side and used as a drilling
guide. The same Dremel tool that was used for milling out the traces can now be used to drill the component
holes.
Notice in figure 9 how the mounting hole areas in the four corners are isolated from the rest of the circuit. The
circuit gaps are plainly visible from the component side of the board, which aids troubleshooting.
Its important when milling the board that all the circuit areas are completely isolated from each other. Its
easy to overlook a copper whisker connecting two areas. After milling is complete, its a good idea to check for
any short circuits with an ohmmeter or continuity checker.
13

Depending on the size of the copper area, soldering to this type of board may require significant heat. A large
copper area may take some time to come up to temperature. So the board should be carefully cleaned before
soldering, and solder joints should be carefully inspected after soldering.

8 Radio Frequency Boards

A related technique for board construction is shown in figure 10.

Figure 10: Radio Frequency Circuits

These are two radio frequency circuits, a 50MHz amplifier on the left, and a section filter on the right. In
both these boards, areas have been milled out using a Dremel tool and then components soldered to the copper
areas. The amplifier board was divided up into squares and the copper squares used as terminal points for the
components. This way, the circuit can be modified and components added without having to change the circuit
board.
Notice the copper board shield that is soldered to several areas on the main board, often necessary to isolate
output from input in an RF circuit. (At radio frequencies, stray capacitance between output and input can turn an
amplifier into an oscillator.) Component lead lengths can be kept short. The material used is double-sided board
stock. One side is used for attaching components, the other as a ground plane. Where necessary, holes in the
board can bring traces from the top side to the ground plane.


14

9 Wire-Wrap
Wire-wrap is a the technique traditionally used for a complex digital prototypes. It supports an extremely high
wiring density, so lots of circuitry can be packed into a small board. In these days of accurate, powerful digital
simulations, the wire-wrapped prototype is not as common as it used to be. After a successful simulation it usual
to migrate the design to a printed circuit board without a wire-wrap prototype. However, wire-wrap is still useful
where there are many ICs to be interconnected and a printed circuit board is overkill.
Views of a wire-wrap board are shown in figure 11. The first part of the figure shows a component view of the

Figure 11: Wire Wrap Board

board, together with the wire used, #30AWG, and a wire-wrap tool, an unwrap tool, and needle-nosed tweezers
a useful accessory. The second part is a closeup of the wire-wrap pins and wiring.
Each integrated circuit sits in a wire wrap socket. The wire-wrap socket has square pins of about a centimeter
in length, which project into the wiring side of the board.
Connections are made with #30AWG solid wire. The end of the wire is stripped for about 1.5cm and then fed
into an offset hole in the end of the wire-wrap tool. The center hole of the wire-wrap tool is then placed over a
pin and twisted. This results in a spiral wrap of 7 or 8 turns of the wire around the pin. The square corners of the
pin cut into the wire, ensuring a gas tight connection that will not degrade with time. Wire-wrap was originally
invented to be used in the telephone system, so it is known to be reliable.
If discrete components need to be mounted on the same board, T44 pins (see section 10 below) can be pushed
into the board so that the component is soldered to the top and wire-wrapped to the bottom. Alternatively, components can be soldered to an IC carrier - a small platform with pins that fit into an IC socket. The carrier is then
plugged into an IC socket and connections wire-wrapped to the pins of that socket.
Its easy to get lost in the forest of pins and wires of a wire-wrap board, and mix up IC numbers or pin numbers.
Its possible to get little plastic labels to go on each IC, but these are expensive. A better alternative is to design
15

the layout on a computer, showing the integrated circuit numbers and pin numbers. Print it out at 100% scale,
glue it to the wiring side of the board, and poke the sockets through the board and paper. This kind of roadmap
will be very welcome when trying to find a particular signal to probe.

10 Vectorboard
The Vector company produces a number of diffirent circuit boards that are useful in the construction of electronic
prototypes. In this section, well look at an application of their bare perforated board. The component and wiring
sides of an example are shown in figure 12.

Figure 12: Vectorboard Application

This board is typical of many electronic circuits. It contains a single chip microprocessor, analogue signal
conditioning circuits and a variety of external connections.
Integrated circuit wire-wrap sockets are fastened to the circuit board using hot-gun glue5 . The component
leads themselves cannot be used for wire-wrapping, because they are round in cross-section. If you do wrap to
a round cross section wire, it will probably work for a while and then fail when oxide forms on the wire and
component lead. If you do wire-wrap on a circular cross-sectional lead, you should solder the connection to make
it reliable.
5 Dont use cyanoacrylate (aka Crazy-Glue, Super-Glue), because it tends to wick up into the IC socket and make the socket unuseable.
Guess how I discovered this . . .

16

A special Vector pin, the type T44, is used to mount discrete components. The square cross section tail of the
T44 pin cuts through oxide on the wire wrap wire and makes a reliable connection. The T44 pin has a fork at the
component end, a shoulder that fits snugly into a Vectorboard hole, and a long tail that is used for wire-wrapping.
The fork section of each T44 pin holds one end of a component such as a resistor or capacitor. The component
leads can be bent to solder to adjacent pins and component leads.
The overall result is a respectable looking circuit, at least when viewed from the component side.

11 Terminal Strip Construction

The terminal strips shown in figure 13 are useful in a variety of circuit constructions. A wide variety, at very low
cost, are available from Cinch-Jones6 .

Figure 13: Terminal Strips and Application

Figure 13 also shows two circuit board constructions that use terminal strips. The left-most circuit is a jig for
measuring inductance. The wiring is supported by the terminals of four binding posts and a BNC connector, plus
a 5-way terminal strip.
The right-most circuit is the remnants of a power supply zener regulator and capacitor filter.
Terminal strip construction is especially effective when there are only a few components to be mounted. Often,
the components can be completely mounted on one terminal strip or between two terminal strips. As in all circuit
construction, a little planning pays off in a neat result.

6I

was unable to find a WEB reference to these devices. There is, however, a picture in the Electrosonic Catalogue, reference [9], page

484.

17

References
[1] Prototyping techniques help verify analog-circuit performance
Walt Kester
EDN Design Feature, Feb 15, 1996
Makes the point that prototyping is essential to verify the predictions of simulations and describes prototyping techniques for high speed op-amps.
[2] The ARRL Handbook
American Radio Relay League
Published annually, always contains one chapter on construction techniques. Reasonable price, a must-have.
[3] High Speed Amplifier Techniques
A Designers Companion for Wideband Circuitry
Jim Williams
Linear Technology Application Note 47
1993 Linear Applications Handbook, Volume II, pp 47-1 to 47-132
Linear Technology Corporation
An invaluable reference on high frequency amplifier wiring techniques, theory and practice.
[4] Layout and probing techniques ensure low-noise performance
Jim Williams
EDN Magazine
(issue unknown)
Construction and probing techniques for switching power supplies.
[5] Handcrafting Design Ideas
Jeff Bachiochi
Issue #70, May 1996, Circuit Cellar INK, pp 62-67
Covers much the same ground as this paper.
[6] A Surface-Mount Technology Primer Part 2
Bryan P. Bergeron
QST Magazine, January 1991, pp 27-30
The use and soldering of surface mount passive components.
[7] Prototyping with smds (Surface Mount Devices)
Nick Wheeler
Electronics World, January 1998, pp67-69
Prototyping with fine-pitch surface mount integrated circuits.
[8] Analog Breadboarding
James M. Bryant
Chapter 9, The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design
Jim Williams, Editor
Butterworth Heinemann, 1995

18

[9] Electrosonic Catalogue 991

Electrosonic Supply
1100 Gordon Baker Road, Toronto, M2H 3B3
416-494-1555

19