Prototype Board

julianE

Senior Member
I have been using these boards for as long as I remember,

http://comingsoon.radioshack.com/multipurpose-pc-board-with-417-holes/2760150.html#.Vba4C_lViko

It's getting very difficult to find at the local stores, I called many stores today and found but 1 board. I would think that a similar or same board is available on eBay but
so far I have had zero success finding one. Hopefully someone on the forum has a suggestion for an alternate source or an equivalent.

thanks in advance.
 

julianE

Senior Member
I have a few Kiwi Patch Boards, they are very well made, not available in the states but I'll keep the link.

RadioShack still sells the boards but it does not look like they will be reordering once the stock is gone. I might have to make a road trip and purchase what's left.
I have had the worse time with the proto boards purchased on eBay, one batch had many shorts between copper traces, ended up using an exacto knife to make the board usable.
The rapidonline board looks very good though more than I need for small projects.

The search continues...
 

bpowell

Senior Member
You should design your own!

DIP Proto Back.pngDIP Proto Front.png

This is a proto-PCB I designed...it works great with 8-pin and 20-pin PICAXE...I've built many a project on these PCBs!
 

julianE

Senior Member
Nice job bpowell!
I have ordered from OSHpark and they do a splendid job. I spent some time learning Eaglesoft but I'm not as bright as I once was, just can't seem to master it.
 

manuka

Senior Member
NZ designed quality glass fibre Kiwi Patch Boards are still going strong, although smaller chopped down versions (typically phenolic stuff ex Jaycar) are more cost effective for simpler circuits. With the industry trend to integration it's really a question of how much board real estate you need- check this "work in progress" breadboarded 08M driven 433 MHz LoRa™/GPS combo that barely uses even a small breadboard. Stan.
 

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techElder

Well-known member
Very interesting, bpowell. Do you supply Microchip? I noticed you had "PicKit3" on the board. There must be a story there. Just curious.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Very interesting, bpowell. Do you supply Microchip? I noticed you had "PicKit3" on the board. There must be a story there. Just curious.

Hi Tex!

No, I don't supply Microchip...that 'PicKit3" is just a label for that connector. I can use that connector to program a raw PIC in-circuit using my PicKit3 programmer. I wanted that PCB to work with PICAXE and Raw PIC. There's also a header for USB connection...if I have a USB-capable PIC on there.

Typically, I just use the PICKIT to burn a serial bootloader on the PIC, and then I use the "PICAXE" header for subsequent programming...(although, I have to re-route the serial lines for the PIC).

Brendan
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Any chance of sharing the design files?
The zip file that I use to upload to the board vendor of choice (seeed, dirty pcb, etc.) is attached.

Sadly, I was trying to convert this to SMD, and I overwrote / lost my schematic that the PCB was based on...so you'll have to ring the connectors out with a meter to find out what goes where...if you have some made, I'm happy to help!

I also have the Diptrace PCB file for this...however, you need to have a 500-pin version of Diptrace to load this ( I think I'm using 497 pins or something!)

Please keep me posted if you use this board...I'd love to see it "in the wild"!

Brendan
 

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techElder

Well-known member
bpowell, thanks. I'd like to see the DipTrace file.

Would be nice to see if I could convert to other PICAXE sizes.
 

julianE

Senior Member
Thanks for posting your board, very kind of you. I tried it with OSH Park and their price is a little dear, i will look around for a less expensive alternative.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Thanks for posting your board, very kind of you. I tried it with OSH Park and their price is a little dear, i will look around for a less expensive alternative.
Yeah...OSH Park is spendy...check out the Fusion PCB service from seeedstudio.com, and also look at dirtypcbs.com...very good quality (despite the name).
 

techElder

Well-known member
Please post your modified files back here so we can all benefit! I've thought about playing with a 28x2...
Looks doable. I'll have to remove a few connecting pads, because of the 500 limit, but won't really be noticeable.

What version number would you want on it?

PS. Probably should remove your personal declaration to those named individuals. Would you mind?

EDIT: bpowell, I've got to renege on doing this. Just got another level of stuff to do. Perhaps I can get to it later.
 
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julianE

Senior Member
I went and ordered from dirtypcbs.com, not the best of ordering interfaces but their price was extremely low. I'm not sure if I did everything right, the board photo did come up on the order complete page. Now, we play the waiting game. Thanks again for sharing and I'll update the forum once I receive the boards.
 

fritz42_male

Senior Member
This format is available on ebay - 10 for AU$10 delivered.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/10x-universal-Stripboard-Veroboard-5x7cm-pcb-platine-Single-Side-circuit-board-/321771315883?hash=item4aeb10a2ab

I have been using these boards for as long as I remember,

http://comingsoon.radioshack.com/multipurpose-pc-board-with-417-holes/2760150.html#.Vba4C_lViko

It's getting very difficult to find at the local stores, I called many stores today and found but 1 board. I would think that a similar or same board is available on eBay but
so far I have had zero success finding one. Hopefully someone on the forum has a suggestion for an alternate source or an equivalent.

thanks in advance.
 

julianE

Senior Member
Yes, ordered from that seller a little more than a week ago, it's in transit. I'll report on quality of the boards once I have them.
 

julianE

Senior Member
The ebay boards came in. They look like they are radio shack boards that did not make the cut. Quality is decent and functionally I'm fairly certain they will match the real deal. One of the negatives, there is no white silk screening on the component side so you have to flip the board often to know which traces are connected, easily fixed with a sharpie pen. Also, they are a little larger then radio shack boards.
Boards based on bpowell design are already manufactured and being shipped, hopefully will be here in a week or so.
 

julianE

Senior Member
Yeah... That site is bare bones, but they crank out good PCBs!
They sure do. The boards came in and the quality is very high. Thanks again for sharing your design, I've been examining the board and keep finding all sort of nice details. Every time I think of an improvement I see it's already implemented. I have a PICkit 3 and have been playing with raw PICs.
The board is of such a high quality I'm saving it for a project of worth :)
Thanks for a brilliant design.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
They sure do. The boards came in and the quality is very high. Thanks again for sharing your design, I've been examining the board and keep finding all sort of nice details. Every time I think of an improvement I see it's already implemented. I have a PICkit 3 and have been playing with raw PICs.
The board is of such a high quality I'm saving it for a project of worth :)
Thanks for a brilliant design.
Hey Julian,

I'm glad to hear the PCBs came in and they look like they'll work for you! Do be sure to send a picture when you get one populated and running!

The board works great with raw PIC as well...in fact, I've started cutting a couple of traces, and running a few hay-wires, and I run raw PIC with a serial bootloader...it's great. Auto-resets and everything...I'll mark-up a drawing showing what traces to cut, and what hay-wires to run.

I'm really glad to hear you received your PCBs, because that means my next batch should be here in a week or so...I re-worked the design for SMD chips...and it will allow for PIC or ATMega328...so once I've wired a couple up and make sure they work, I'll add a pic!

Thanks again for the great feedback. I look forward to seeing how you use the boards!

Brendan
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Here are a couple of pictures showing the traces I cut (Red X) and the hay-wires I run (Yellow)...this is to convert the board so it will run a raw PIC with a serial bootloader (it runs the PICs hardware TX / RX lines to the PICAXE connector vs. the software serial port PICAXE uses...)

This is for a 20-pin PIC...you'll need to modify for an 8-pin.
 

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julianE

Senior Member
This is for a 20-pin PIC...you'll need to modify for an 8-pin.
Thanks Brendan,
I happen to have 20 pin PIC chips, I like to echo the Picaxe line so I use the 18F14K22. Little backed up on projects but I'm sure I'll use the fine boards soon. thanks again.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Julian,

Yes, I too, like to run the same hardware PICAXE runs on...so I primarily play with the 18F14K22 (20x2) and the 12F1840 (08M2). Both are sturdy little chips! I also designed the proto board for 18F14K50 which is a USB enabled PIC...so you can throw a USB bootloader on it, and program it directly with no serial cables...just straight USB connection. However, the USB stack is significant in size!

I've got a 18F14K22 running right now with a 25MHZ crystal on it....so it's running at 100MHz...I haven't done much with it as far as ADC and all that...but for logic processing, it's running just fine (and fast!)

I've also got my eye on this chip: PIC16F18345...it's a 32MHZ chip, 20-pin...but lots of cool features...you can re-assign any of the digital inputs / outputs...and it has these core-independent configuration blocks...so you can link input and output without having to use CPU time....something I'd like to play with. Looking at the pinout, it'll drop right onto the proto board as well! :) With a couple of tweaks to the serial bootloader, you could probably even have it use PICAXE assigned serial in/out pins!
 

julianE

Senior Member
I've also got my eye on this chip: PIC16F18345...it's a 32MHZ chip, 20-pin...but lots of cool features...you can re-assign any of the digital inputs / outputs...and it has these core-independent configuration blocks...so you can link input and output without having to use CPU time....something I'd like to play with. Looking at the pinout, it'll drop right onto the proto board as well! :) With a couple of tweaks to the serial bootloader, you could probably even have it use PICAXE assigned serial in/out pins!
Wow, this forum is very humbling. I have so much to learn, best I can do is putter with Great Cow basic do some basic serial communication with pic chips, blink lights. I have read about serial bootloaders, a little over my head. So much to learn. I'm definitely not the smartest guy in this room.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Here is a picture of my latest Proto PCB...this one wasn't built to be out-of-the-gate PICAXE compatible...but cutting a couple of traces, and hay-wiring the TX and RX lines would be easy enough, and you'd have a SMD PICAXE proto board.

In this picture, you can see one PCB is running a PIC (PIC18F14K50) which is USB capable...so I've loaded a USB bootloader, and a quick "Hello world" program.

The second PCB is running at ATMega328PAU with Optiboot serial bootloader installed...it's running a blink sketch from Arduino.

I'm still giving these a shake-down cruise...but so far, I like this PCB!
 

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julianE

Senior Member
Looking good. Everything I read about USB bootloaders is that it's very difficult to get them working. I am friends with a number of programmers and USB for some reason is universally disliked relative to the good old rs232 serial.
My plan is to use the first of your proto board designs as a receiver for the 433 Mhz modules I have sending data all over the place. I bought a bunch of serial lcd displays so I'll use that too. i'm thinking I'll add a bluetooth module and some eeprom memory and while at it attach an 8266 internet module, have one board with everything on it. the internet module can get time from the internet so no need for an RTC tho if there is room might as well throw that in to. I'm leaning towards the 20x2 to run it all, should be a fun project.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Yes, USB is a bit tricky...it's convenient, but it's also a space-hog...so there are trade-off's.

Your project sounds pretty cool. 433Mhz, Bluetooth, and WiFi all on the same PCB eh...do keep us posted...that sounds like a communication hub!
 

julianE

Senior Member
I finally got around to using the proto board. the programming pins are a bit of non standard, i'm used to having 3 pins, center being the receive going to the resistors. on you board it's transmit, receive, blank and then ground. i went and shorted the ground to unused pin and i could use my connectors. of course, the first try did not work because i had the 18F14K22 raw pic chip, i found a picaxe version of the same chip the 20x2 and all is well. not sure if the newer pics are labeled 20X2 or still 18F14K22. the boards are beautiful, soldering is very easy unlike raw copper. Tomorrow, since I have the raw pic I'll use another board and hook it up to the pickit 3.

thanks again for sharing and i'll post photos once i populate the board.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
That "blank pin" goes to pin 4 on the pic (MCLR) check with your meter... You may want to cut that trace (backside of PCB) if your shorting it to ground... Otherwise, you're pulling pin 4 to ground as well... If you switch pin 4 to high, you'd have a dead short possibly damaging the PICAXE.

I used that configuration so I could have a cheap "keyed" connector when connecting my PICAXE cable...I connected the blank to MCLR so I could reset the PIC using the RTS line when using a serial bootloader (Tiny AVR PIC Bootloader).

As far as I know, PICAXE 20X2 are still labeled 18F14K22...I think the "M2" DIP chips are the only ones that got a custom etching.

Yes, the solder-mask makes soldering so much easier and professional looking!

Glad it's working for you so far!
 
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julianE

Senior Member
I'm attaching a photo of the populated board, going clockwise from the picaxe 20x2 chip, bluetooth module, 433 MHz receiver, 3.3 volt regulator, i went with a beefy one, LM3940, i've run it with no heatsink before and it stays cool but i can modify if need be, 8266 WiFi module which fits perfect on the protoboard, just right spacing. Under the 20X2 is a 24LC256, I might play with BOOTI2C Slot command but I think that needs a 24LC128 chip or just use the memory for storage. Everything is meant to be very flexible. For display I'm going to use the serial Datavision LCD displays mentioned on this forum, it's a dual 2 line LCD and I've used it before. Powering everything from a cellphone charger, I can use the 5 volt for the 433 MHz receiver, everything else is 3.3 Volt. Next step is to make everything ugly with wire jumpers :)

picaxe 20x2.jpg
 

bpowell

Senior Member
Looks good! I hear you about the jumpers... I always try to have components on the to, and wire on the bottom... Sometimes it works!

Also, I think you need to add the 10k resistor on the upper left corner... That's the pull up for the serial in line... If it floats, the picaxe can reset spontaneously. The 10 . On the right is the mclr pull up.
 

julianE

Senior Member
I see what you mean about the 10K resistor, for some reason I automatically assumed the 10K next to 22K is part of the download circuit, i will fix that, I also cut the trace you mentioned for the MCLR pin that I grounded. I have seen folks use the bottom for jumpers and it looks neater and they use that thin wire, not sure where to buy that wire, the wire used to modify pc boards, usually it's green. even tho jumpers on top are messy, I find it easier to troubleshoot. I have already started wiring things up, the EEPROM is done and I added a connector for the FTDI cable so I can access the ESP8266. I plan on testing each module as I go along. I have everything in sockets, the 433 Mhz receiver does not work well when in close proximity to bluetooth so i will have to unplug bluetooth if I want to use the 433, i have not tested it with the WiFi module but it might be ok since I have had my laptop with wireless near the 433.
Thanks again for all the help.
 

bpowell

Senior Member
I have seen folks use the bottom for jumpers and it looks neater and they use that thin wire, not sure where to buy that wire, the wire used to modify pc boards, usually it's green. even tho jumpers on top are messy, I find it easier to troubleshoot...
Hey JulianE...

Here are a few pictures of my weekend work.

I'm using the new SMD proto board to put together a demonstrate of charlie-plexing...I'll be showing this to my local maker group. I'm controlling 12 LEDs individually with 4 IO pins...using a 12F1840 (same hardware as a 08M2).

The other two IOs support a push-button for cycling thorough modes, and a status LED that blinks at a 1hz frequency.

I was able to keep the top looking pretty clean, but, at the expense of having a bit of a crazy bottom!

It's important to note...having wires running all around like I do, I forfeit my right to post a picture here and say, "Help!" :)

I'm using bus-wire...or "wire-wrap" wire...it's 30AWG solid core...I think that's what you're thinking about.

I *think* I got it at Radio Shack...not 100% sure...I've had it for a while!

Here are some pictures...although all the LEDs (in the group of 12) appear to be on, never more than 1 LED is ever on at a given moment.

Brendan

Charlie-Back smaller.jpgCharlie-Front smaller.jpg
 
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