Breadboarding/Prototyping - How to and Tips/Tricks

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#21
My first (and, thus far, only) tube amp, I built on a piece of scrap PCB. I drilled holes for the tube sockets and used some short terminal strips to allow for point-to-point wiring. It worked out quite well. I have some pictures for show&tell here. I'll let you take a guess at which channel I built ad-hoc from the schematic and which one I planned out on paper first... 🙂

BTW: Before I moved to the scrap PCB method, I tried mounting everything on a piece of plywood where I soldered the parts to brass nails. This was how I built circuits in 1st grade when I only had a couple of parts involved. It works, but it's a bit annoying to work with for larger circuits.

I like George's (tubelab) solution, though.

~Tom
 
#22
From what I can gather, the plastic pegboard is a "wet environment" material ONLY.
Click to expand...

Google "White Poly Pegboard". I find several places selling it including a chain called "Do it Best" which has several stores in Colorado. It is not in stock but they have a "site to store" shipping service that is free.

Fahnstock clips. Sringloaded, you insert a bare wire end into a slot and the spring loads up and holds it in place.
Click to expand...

Those were what I used on Tubelab 1. They take up too much real estate when screwed down to a piece of PC board as they were intended to be used.

Nothing saves so much time as having a ready source of variable bias, variable B+ and common filament voltages.
Click to expand...

I agree, bigtime! There are 5 working power supplies on my bench right now and two more in the closet that get dragged out occasionally. When I am designing an amplifier I like to have every source except the filaments adjustable. You can turn knobs and find out what voltages every thing really wants, then after the amp is perfect you can set out to design the power supply. As I found out with the "red board" you can get carried away and blow stuff up big time. I have a 0 to 650 volt, 0 to 1.7 AMP power supply. Too much on the voltage knob, and the electrolytics will go BANG!
 
#23
[comment]However, the 'devil (as they say) is in the details'. I found it on Amazon before and was elated - but did you notice the shipping charge??? $211 for each sheet[/comment]

Weird. I bought two sheets of that, from them, in Oct 2008, for a total cost of $41.43. Shipping was $13.85.

Is there a number you could call them at and ask, or email?

--Mark
 
#25
As far as breadboarding goes, I stole George's pegboard idea. 'Looks like he secured the Eurostrips with screws which is probably fine, but just to be sure of no chance for arcing between adjacent terminals, I secured mine with contact cement.
 
#28
markr14850 said:
Amazon.com: GeoMatrix PEGBOARD Pegmaster White Poly Pegboard: Home Improvement

$19 for a 2'x4' sheet
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WOW! Amazon came up with $211.82 for shipping on that!

I found it here for $13 per sheet plus shipping($22.82 total for one sheet). Two sheets including shipping is $42.65 .

2'X4' WHT POLY PEGBOARD

I would think one sheet would be enough, but two would guarantee that you never needed the second sheet😀.

The local HW stores (Lowes, Home Depot, ACE, etc) didn't have any.
 
#30
bereanbill.jpg
 
#33
FUNNY you shold say that my Dad was on an English bank note along with Mr Faraday.
he was on the front bench on the right hand side of a £20.

also the goalkeeper in the 2nd pic(leak fc)
 

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#35
Another guy here gets the credit for inventing this, but I've put together some breadboarding fixtures using various tube sockets mounted into PVC pipe end caps. I use bits of euro-strip for contacts, and attach components/bits of perf board as needed. Attached is a prototype of an experimental sand/vacuum line amp (check the "Evil Sandman" thread for more details).
 

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#39
OK, here is the deal according to Gillroy's:

2 FTx4 FT White Poly Pegboard by Universal Forest Products and other Pegboard and pegboard hooks at Gillroys.com - <PRE>Pegmaster White Poly Pegboard<</PRE>


At 2' X 4' this item is too large to ship via UPS. UPS has a maximum combined dimension limit.

However, they looked up their distributorship and found a hardware store 15 miles away from me that they ship to. The HW store should have it for me next Tuesday at a total cost of $16.96 for one sheet.

The saga continues....
 
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