A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

shabaz — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 11:40:39 GMT

The PCBs arrived a few days ago, here is what they look like:

They appear to be totally fine, apart from one issue; there is through-hole plating on the pads. It's surprising, because last time I tried to avoid through-hole plating (on a Pi Pico prototyping board) it was successful. In any case the boards are still usable, but personally I would have liked to avoid the through-hole plating just to make components easier to desolder when prototyping.

I've updated the blog post with some example photos showing how the PCB can be used.

Feels really nice to finally have some spaciousness for Pi Pico width parts!

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

obones — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 13:25:07 GMT

Nice project!
As a non native speaker, one thing I'm having a hard time figuring out is what the first side is trying to solve.
Could you show how you would place a DIL/DIP package on this?

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

michaelkellett — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 10:16:25 GMT

I'll be interested to see your first project on the board.

I'm finding that prototype boards are becoming more difficult to make universal because so many interesting parts now come in weird SM packages.

Using intermediate prototype boards with maybe a few components and a DIL footprint and then a main board like yours would be a reasonable solution - although I normally just go fo a custom pcb.

Where did you order these and how long will they take to come - the people I use (PCBCART) are good but a lot more expensive.

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

genebren — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 16:03:45 GMT

A very useful collection of prototyping boards. Well done, thanks for sharing!

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

DAB — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 18:31:05 GMT

Great idea.

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

dougw — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 22:48:06 GMT

Nice...

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

wolfgangfriedrich — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 18:39:31 GMT

Those 3 options look really useful for through hole prototyping. Price is not too bad either.

My favourite proto board is this:

SOIC (1.27mm) narrow and wide and TSSOP (0.65mm) pitch fanned out to nearest holes with standard 0.1" through holes + 0805 for decoupling caps. Bottom is GND plane around all the holes.

Twin Industries 8100-SMT8.

RE: A Three-Way Prototyping Board for Awkward Through-Hole Components

shabaz — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:52:21 GMT

The manufacturer approved it.. looks like they don't mind the amount of drill-holes.