Post by thread:] In defense of solderless protoboards <- Re: [PI

> ... or use in a solderless protoboard (Ugh... these things should > be outlawed for most uses, but that's another subject). I hope I am not 'most users', because without solderless breadboards I would never have finised a project (No WISP, Wisp628, WLoader, ZPL, not even Jal). Wouter van Ooijen -- ------------------------------------------- Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: http://www.voti.nl consultancy, development, PICmicro products -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email spam_OUTlistservTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

On Sunday, Jun 13, 2004, at 09:02 US/Pacific, Wouter van Ooijen wrote: > without solderless breadboards I would never have finised a project > (No WISP, Wisp628, WLoader, ZPL, not even Jal). > Solderless protoboards are WONDERFUL. But they don't scale very well to large projects, IMO. By the time you get to a circuit that needs one of those "holds up to 30 ICs" boards, you ought to be doing something else. (but you should have been using a bigger micro by then, anyway.) BillW -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email .....listservKILLspam@spam@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

In a message dated 6/13/2004 4:56:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, westfwKILLspamMAC.COM writes: Solderless protoboards are WONDERFUL. But they don't scale very well to large projects, IMO. By the time you get to a circuit that needs one of those "holds up to 30 ICs" boards, you ought to be doing something else. (but you should have been using a bigger micro by then, anyway.) BillW True Bill, just think about before they HAD the nice little compact POWERFUL micro-controllers. We had to put a lot more than 30 ICs on a "breadboard" and wire them. Actually, I can remember when we didn't have those nice little solderless prototyping boards and had to make our own out of an actual wooden board of some type and solder all those connections together. No nice sockets or anything, made for a real messy looking prototype and not so easy to modify either. Ah, those were the "good old days", at least according to some. Personally, I think NOW are the "good ole days" with SPICE simulation and, of course, the nice solderless protoboards, especially the ones with signal generators and power supplies built right in. Just my 5 cents worth. Randy Abernathy 4626 Old Stilesboro Road NW Acworth, GA 30101-4066 Phone / Fax: 770-974-5295 Cell: 678-772-4113 E-mail: .....Cnc002KILLspam.....aol.com I furnish technical support, repair, and other related services for your industrial woodworking machinery. My background as Senior Service Engineer for the SCMI Group for nearly fifteen years with factory training, combines with my extensive background in electronics, mechanics, pneumatics, electrical and CNC machinery to offer you needed support for your machinery. -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email EraseMElistservspam_OUTTakeThisOuTmitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

> > without solderless breadboards I would never have finised a project > > (No WISP, Wisp628, WLoader, ZPL, not even Jal). > > > Solderless protoboards are WONDERFUL. But they don't scale very well > to large projects, IMO. By the time you get to a circuit that needs > one of those "holds up to 30 ICs" boards, you ought to be doing > something else. (but you should have been using a bigger micro by > then, anyway.) I am a programmer. When I ever do a 30-IC project I will be using a hardware library, probably of the Dwarf Board kind. Wouter van Ooijen -- ------------------------------------------- Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: http://www.voti.nl consultancy, development, PICmicro products -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList piclist-unsubscribe-requestspam_OUTmitvma.mit.edu

i agree completely. what i find protoboards very, very useful for is verifying smaller portions of a design before designing a board or soldering a protoboard which are far harder to play with. they are great for exploring new ideas and subcircuits, and great for things like building a parallel port signal monitor for temporary use when first exploring that or another interface rather than building a soldered tool that you'll have no need of once the learning has taken place. this way you get to reuse your components later. for many of us, myself included, money is tight, it's great to be able to use the same parts exploring ideas for part of a project and then use them again for different functions in the finished project rather than having to buy many more of each part and winding up with an exploratory tool that you know longer need (not that i don't recover parts from boards and could just as easily recover them from the exploratory circuits, but it's a lot easier when they haven't been soldered). proto boards are a wonderful tool, like all tools you just have to know their limits and when to select another tool even if it isn't as convenient. i find them a delight for quick exploration, especially when initial ideas are wrong and you have to play with ideas for a while and try out the alternatives or modifications to the original idea. they are definitely not the tool for some projects or for permanent long term projects. now if someone created a similar platform that worked with surface mount parts, that would be truly wonderful, though adapters can be made and help, it reduces the ease of experimentation considerably. William Chops Westfield wrote: ------- > Solderless protoboards are WONDERFUL. But they don't scale very well > to large projects, IMO. By the time you get to a circuit that needs > one of those "holds up to 30 ICs" boards, you ought to be doing > something else. (but you should have been using a bigger micro by > then, anyway.) > > BillW --------- -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.