Nuts and Volts

copper and scratch its pins into the strip. Use a Dremel drill (a drill press helps big time) and create the required number of holes from the copper side.

Next, you will have to make opens between each pin, but leave enough copper for proper soldering. You may want to remove the first solid copper strip towards the hole strips to prevent any shorts when soldering the wires on to the header. Do not use solid wire with IDCs or for anything “off board.” If the board needs work, just flexing the solid wire to get underneath can cause it to break open.

Soldering/Cutting Vero

Before soldering any device, ensure the copper clad side is fresh and bright. If it is dull and oxidized, use an ultra-fine grit sandpaper to restore it. Strip board is tricky to desolder as the drilled traces tend to lift if too much heat is applied. To avoid this, always use a wet solder tip to conduct the heat quickly when soldering or desoldering.

It is always tempting to bridge over adjacent traces or pins that require connecting when the opportunity arises. Do not go down this road! If rework is required, you may unsolder a connection without realizing it, which will result in wasted time and possibly never getting the board running. If you need to connect adjacent traces, use a bare wire on the component side bent for this purpose.

With more experience, you can leave the small piece of insulation on, but the solder heat has to be perfect because too much will cause the insulation to melt off. There is little metal available to wick away the heat. You may want to make an access point using a raised loop of wire for monitoring power or signals. Vero sells premade loops with colored beads if you want to get fancy. On that note, you may want to use an inexpensive through hole component bender for a more esthetically appearing project.

To keep a nice finished edge when cutting Vero board, always score both sides and align the break with a square table edge; then snap it off. Scoring only one side can result in an uneven break, creating two unattractive pieces of board.

SCrew terminalS VS .100 idCS

It is desirable to use screw terminals for power and any critical measurements since .100 IDCs are not designed for high current. You will find that a typical screw terminal block has pins slightly larger than the Vero board holes.

A tip here is to use a drill bit just a size or two larger than the holes; attach it to a Xacto™ knife tool and hand drill each hole to the desired size.

timeleSS tipS

The mating connector to an IDC header requires a special crimp tool to connect stranded wires to it. A work-around is to solder wires directly to the IDC connector. It should be noted that even with the crimp tool available, there are cases where it is advantageous to solder wire directly to the connector. It takes a fine conical solder tipped iron, and you must be careful how long you apply heat and solder. Too long of a time could result in melting the connector or worse … filling up the cavity that accepts the header pin, rendering the connector useless.

A technique I like is to have a drop of solder on the tip. Contact the top of the metal insert inside of the IDC connector, then add a small amount of solder after contact, and remove. Then, tin the wire and use a wet solder tip to join it to the tinned metal insert.

The use of a handheld auto wire stripper with a strip gauge will keep the stripped wire portion consistent, resulting in a cleaner looking finished product.

Some techs like to use strip board layout software sites available online. I have never used them, but you may want to when first starting out. It may help to just review some layout examples to get going on your own project.

For serviceability, it is great to have all the connections to the Vero board removable, although this might not be practical in some applications. The .100 IDCs are great for LEDs (use integrated LEDs if possible), pushbuttons, connecting logic levels, and to aid in keeping the Vero board removable from all of its wires. IDCs should be avoided when small voltages are used or measured as the contact resistance can cause problems.