Homebrew PCBs

Hi,

After getting a 'knack' for home PCB imaging/etching, I thought my
veroboard/stripboard days were well over. Especially since I've always
laid out veroboard circuits by hand 'as I go', which has been a tad
stressful.

However, an idle search turned up an excellent page on using Eagle (or
similar PCB CAD programs) for veroboard design:
http://www.geocities.com/mike_aus_us/micros/projects/Stripboard_EAGLE/Stripboard_EAGLE.htm?200722

I tried it out with a board I'm currently working on - a universal
development/debugging/programming board for PIC12F675 MCU.

Since I don't have CNC drilling at the moment (still waiting for my mech
eng to get his act together), the PCB version of the layout had 76 holes
to drill, plus 4 topside wires.

In comparison, the veroboard version had zero holes to drill, 36 track
cuts and 12 topside wires.

Result is that for this simple board, the veroboard version took way
less time and effort than etching/drilling a comparable PCB version.
I completed the track-cutting and overhead wire soldering in much less
time than it would have taken to image and etch a bare board, let alone
drill the board after etching.

Something else that made the veroboard construction easier is being able
to print out the layout onto paper and glue it onto the veroboard. This
saved a wad of time with finding the correct places to cut tracks and
solder topside wires. Another time saver was using a handheld rotary
tool with a fine tapered diamond bit for the track cutting. And a third
time-saver was using tricks from the above URL for using Eagle's board
editor for veroboard layout.

My conclusion is that veroboard is vastly easier/quicker overall for
1-off or 2-off boards, provided that:

 * one doesn't have CNC drilling
 * component density requirements are not extreme
 * all components are through-hole, no SMDs
 * board is not intended for larger scale production
 * most/all components have multiple of 100mil pin pitch (or can be bent
   to fit), and have <= .9mm drill holes

Cheers
David