[RMSzero]

I'm simply waiting for parts to arrive to put together my first DIY amp! I have a solderless breadboard that I'm going to test things on to see which opamp I like best, but I was wondering what I should get for the final board to put things on. I don't want to use a Hansen board because that's not as fun as if I put things together from a board with lots of holes in it. What are your suggestions? If I just get a big board with holes, does it need to have metal coating circling each hole on the solder side so that I can solder to it, or can I just solder to the board material, whatever it is?

 

[erix]

I like to use Radio Shack perfboard with the copper plating around the holes. I use the smallest one (the one that looks like you can break it into two equal pieces) alot, though lately I've been getting the biggest size and cutting it to size.

It comes in plain and bussed. Bussed means that some of the holes are connected (the center two rows) so you can put a DIP (or two or..) on it and run the power up the middle.

Put the parts in the holes and bend the leads over so that they touch the leads of the other component. Put a little pre-load on it so it'll stay put and make a good connection. Only after you get the two leads to stay together without holding, should you apply solder. Solder isn't glue!

You can build a regular Cmoy amp (no crosfeed) on a relatively small piece of real estate - check the Headwize DIY section for some ULTRA tiny amps built on perf.

ok,
eric

 

[RMSzero]

It's not that I want to make it tinier than the hansen board, it's that I'm making it BIGGER!! lol some of my caps are a bit larger than the hansen board will take, but i had access to them so why not?

Thanks for the advice. What is this pre-load stuff? I've never used it but it sounds REAL useful if there is no one around to hold your components with pliers for you.

 

[CaptBubba]

You will need to get a board with pads (little copper circles) on it. While I don't solder everything down to the board, the pads are very convenient because you can solder a component to the board in order to hold it still. This is nice for me because I will place everything first to get a tight layout and then solder all the connections. There really isn't any reason not to get them.

Solder will not stick to the fibreglass board itself, only to the copper. I suggest getting a decent sized board for your first project even though the cmoy does not take up much room. I have a 1.5 by 3 inch board that you can get at radioshack and have plenty of room left over.

 

[erix]

I use preload the way a race car builder would.

You bend the lead PAST the point where you really want it to go and then when you let the lead go it 'springs' back a little, pressing against the other part.

Probably not the best definition...

ok,
erix

 

[RMSzero]

Ah! I see what you mean. I am getting better and better at soldering, I really enjoy this kind of work, and I appreciate all the soldering advice I can get as I learn what I'm doing.

 

[tangent]

I prefer the type of protoboard where the pads cover more than one hole. Solder-ringed-hole protoboard is just a little too flexible for my taste: I prefer 3- to 5-hole pad board so I can treat the board more like PCB instead of making all connections by routing bent component leads. It just seems neater to me. I also find it easier to trace connections visually with this type of board, since the number of logical paths is limited. With solder-ringed-hole board, you have infinite flexibility, so you have to actually trace the wires from the top of the board to the bottom and back to the top frequently to follow the "flow" through the circuit. This matters when debugging a broken implementation.

Another nice thing I've come to appreciate is board where the copper pad pattern is also silk-screened on the top side. This lets you "route from the top" more, turning the board over only to solder parts down periodically. On boards without this feature that also have a complex enough pattern that I can't keep it in my head for very long, I've been taking a set of four different-color Sharpie markers and marking out the pattern by hand on the top side of the board before starting the project. It's that valuable!