Stripboard is the generic name for a widely used type of electronics prototyping material for circuit boards characterized by a pre-formed 0.1 inches (2.54 mm) regular (rectangular) grid of holes, with wide parallel strips of copper cladding running in one direction all the way along one side of an insulating bonded paper board. It is commonly also known by the name of the original product Veroboard, which is a trademark, in the UK, of British company Vero Technologies Ltd and Canadian company Pixel Print Ltd. It was originated and developed in the early 1960s by the Electronics Department of Vero Precision Engineering Ltd (VPE). It was introduced as a general-purpose material for use in constructing electronic circuits - differing from purpose-designed printed circuit boards (PCBs) in that a variety of electronics circuits may be constructed using a standard wiring board. In using the board, breaks are made in the tracks, usually around holes, to divide the strips into multiple electrical nodes. With care, it is possible to break between holes to allow for components that have two pin rows only one position apart such as twin row headers for IDCs. Stripboard is not designed for surface-mount components, though it is possible to mount many such components on the track side, particularly if tracks are cut/shaped with a knife or small cutting disc in a rotary tool. The first single-size Veroboard product was the forerunner of the numerous types of prototype wiring board which, with worldwide use over five decades, have become known as stripboard. The generic terms 'veroboard' and 'stripboard' are now taken to be synonymous.
History
By the mid-1950s, the printed circuit board (PCB) had become commonplace in electronics production. In early 1959, the VPE Electronics Department was formed when managing director Geoffrey Verdon-Roe hired two former Saunders-Roe Ltd employees, Peter H Winter (aircraft design department) and Terry Fitzpatrick (electronics division). After the failure of a project to develop machine tool control equipment, the department remained operative as a result of success with the invention and development of the new material. New equipment using PCBs was displayed at the 1959 Radio and Electronics Components Manufacturers Federation (RECMF) Exhibition held in The Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, London. The usual configuration for most of the PCBs of that time had components placed in a regular pattern with the circuit formed by maze-like conductive pathways. An interesting alternative, proposed by Fitzpatrick after visiting the RECMF Exhibition on behalf of VPE, envisaged a standard circuit board carrying straight-line conductors on which the components could be suitably dispersed and connected to the conductors to produce the required circuit. A patent application was immediately filed 25 May 1959 and the invention was developed for Vero by associates Winter, Fitzpatrick and machine shop engineers. The British company Vero Technologies Ltd currently holds the UK trademark for Veroboard. In the Americas the Veroboard trademark is now held by the Canadian company Pixel Print Ltd. of Vancouver.
Hole spacing Stripboard holes are drilled on 0.1 inches (2.54 mm) centers. This spacing allows components having pins with a 0.1 inches (2.54 mm) spacing to be inserted. Compatible parts include DIP ICs, sockets for ICs, some types of connectors, and other devices. Stripboards have evolved over time into several variants and related products. For example, a larger version using a 0.15 inch (3.81 mm) grid and larger holes is available, but is generally less popular (presumably because it does not match up with standard IC pin spacing).
Board dimensions Stripboard is available in a variety of sizes.
Assemblies
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 3 mm (0.12 in) twist drill, a hand cutter made for the purpose, or a knife. Tracks may be linked up on either side of the board using wire. With practice, very neat and reliable assemblies can be created, though such a method is labour-intensive and therefore unsuitable for production assemblies except in very small quantity. 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. Alternatively, some types of connectors have a suitable pin spacing to be inserted directly into the board.
Production Production of the proposed new product, Veroboard, was undertaken by the VPE machine tool department. Bought-in sheets of 1.6 mm (0.06 in) copper-clad SRBP printed circuit material were cut to give 122 mm x 456 mm (4.8 in x 18 in) size boards with the individual boards then being machined to form the final product according to the original Veroboard specification. A multiple milling cutter tool, which comprised a bank of side-and-face cutters with suitably shaped cutting teeth, was fabricated, to be used in removing part of the bonded copper on each board leaving 21 conductive strips. For a second operation a special tool with 63 hardened punch bits 1.35 mm (0.052 in) in diameter mounted on a solid base block was constructed to repeat-punch a matrix of holes, on 0.2 in (5.1 mm) spacing, through the copper strips and the base board. Many dimensional, material quality, and tooling problems were encountered before finished boards of acceptable quality could be produced in quantity. These machining problems were encountered due to the non-availability, in 1960, of advanced printed circuit board milling and drilling techniques or facilities for chemical milling (etching) the copper strips. In 1961, as production rates improved with experience, Vero Electronics Ltd was formed as a separate company to market the increasing sales of Veroboard.
Use
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