Introduction

I frequently encounter various usability problems with standard through-hole prototyping boards, and decided to bite the bullet and spend some time creating my own. It is discussed here!

What Problems Does it Solve?

Working with Dual-in-Line (DIL)Headers

DIL headers are problematic because the only way to access the connections on conventional prototyping boards is to access each row on one side only. I saw a specialist board that solves the issue in a clever way; I decided to replicate it! It is hard to describe, and might be easier to understand by simply looking at the design:

As you can see, pins are paired up, and then the connections are carried through to other pins a further two connections apart. As a result, you can solder in a DIL header and access both rows of connections further downstream or upstream, as desired. You can also convert DIL to DIP on such a layout. It’s also very handy when working with ribbon cable and IDC connectors that have a DIL footprint. You can bring the ribbon cable connections to the end of the board, rather than in the middle and then have to access the connections on either side of the connector. It’s so much more civilized to have the ribbon cable at the end if possible!

The photo here shows how an LCD screen can be wired to a DIL socket. 

You can of course just use normal DIP ICs. A great use-case is the 555 in astable mode, which usually requires connections to be made that straddle the chip. With this prototyping board however, you could make those connections on either desired side of the IC, without running wires over the chip!

Working With Pi Pico and other Wide DIP Devices

The Pi Pico is awkward for working with breadboards, because it is quite wide, and you don’t have a lot of breadboard socket holes left over for making connections. The protoboard proposed here has an area that has a layout similar to breadboard layouts, but with a few more holes on each side. It makes it much easier to prototype with the Pi Pico, and when using surface-mount device (SMD) adapters. Also, there are three sets of rails on either side (unlike breadboards, which have two rails), making it useful to simultaneously support 5V, 3.3V, and ground connections.

The photo below shows the board in use.

Easy Desoldering

A portion of the board is dedicated for easier desoldering during prototyping, The pads are not through-hole in the third area, so solder doesn’t wick in and cause difficulties when removing parts. Note: not all manufacturers will do this correctly, so you may end up with copper inside the pads; it's not a big issue, but for sure it is better for reworking things during prototyping if there is no copper there.

Easy Grounding

The third area of the protoboard has copper on one side of the board, for easier connections to ground! I was in two minds about whether solder mask should be removed on that copper plane, or not. I decided to have the copper bare. As a result, it will however need a bit of care to ensure that there are no accidental shorts by wire leads bending and touching the copper. A workaround could be to apply sticky tape (e.g. Kapton tape) on the copper, and then pierce it with component leads.

A slightly better render of that in green:

The photo below shows this area of the board in use. Please make sure that there are no accidental shorts to the top copper plane!

Large Screw Terminals and Connectors Support

The board has holes on one edge that are suitable for 3.5mm and 3.81mm pitch screw terminals and connectors. There are also holes on a 4.2 mm pitch, ideal for cheap Mini-Fit Jr connectors.

Since you might not need all the above features simultaneously, it is possible to snap apart the board into smaller pieces.

Summary

The prototyping board described here should (I’m hoping at least!) make life easier when working with certain types of through-hole components.

It costs about 28 USD (23 GBP) including shipping, to order a quantity of ten of these boards from a typical PCB manufacturer. That’s $2.80 per board, I think it’s worth it however, since these boards are quite large (160 x 100 mm) so a lot of prototyping could be done on them.

The Gerber files are available here (click to download the zip file), ready for submitting to any PCB manufacturer. I ordered mine in yellow. If you end up trying this board, it would be great to hear your opinion. Please note that the board is currently untested, so there is a risk of wasting your money if there are flaws with it. I'll update the blog post once I've tried the board, with any information that I learn along the way.

Thanks for reading.