Perf vs. Vero vs. Etched PCB vs. Fabbed PCB

[karbomusic]

Care to include your suggestions or pros/cons? I'm not as interested in personal preference unless the personal preference deals with real tangibles such durability, circuit integrity, time etc. I have a deal with someone for some build-to-order pedals to go with a product of theirs. I'm keeping them quality high and handmade within reason. I have most all the costing etc. calculated but I need to make a final decision on this piece. I can do any of these but some are obviously more labor intensive, others possibly less stable in the wild or are they? Perception matters too but the big thing is making the proper choice concerning stability and longevity based on the above choices.  


EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to search first and now the thread is here so, if you don't mind humoring me....

[Ice-9]

For small number and single sided boards I would home etch and drill, the issue of bare copper traces corroding over time can be a problem but for this reason I use photo resist board and once the board is developed I do not clean of the photo resist as it protects the copper. When you solder the photoresist around the pad just disappears. For a larger amount of boards I get them fabbed which works out cheaper and the obvious huge jump in quality seals the deal for me.

People are gonna hate me for saying, but If I bought an electronic item and it contained piece of vero I would be pretty darn angry no matter how well it looked built.  Vero board is for prototyping but you did say you were not interested in personal opinions so sorry for that.

[deadastronaut]

+1:

diy for small projects/one offs...

but fabbed is fab..no hassle, nice to work with too ..

(i clearcoat my diy pcbs after populating/testing to preserve em..)

[karbomusic]

Thanks guys!

People are gonna hate me for saying, but If I bought an electronic item and it contained piece of vero I would be pretty darn angry no matter how well it looked built.  Vero board is for prototyping but you did say you were not interested in personal opinions so sorry for that.

No worries, I've had people (other electronics guys) look at some vero's I've done and not blink an eye; I'm telling myself that my mad soldering skills took their mind off of it lol.   More seriously, Vero seems much more durable to me than self-etched and as far as traces go, I have yet to "lift a pad or trace" after repeated resolders of boards I was experimenting with which is not the case with other methods I've used, so I never got the reason people disliked other than "its not cool" and I personally see any perf board as technically prototyping.... but not the point because...

You are right, I really only care about what works best concerning durability vs labor and so on.  I want the number of failures low which trumps many other things. I actually don't prefer Vero for this project, just looking for the best way to go.

but fabbed is fab..no hassle, nice to work with too

Right, my attraction there is less mistakes and higher accuracy. Anything predrilled with grids, vero or otherwise causes me much more mental pain to make sure I don't hit the wrong hole (I know what you are thinking, don't do it ). It literally slows me down by a large margin. Fabbed or etched doesn't have near as much of that risk.

So, I'm leaning toward fabbed. It seems to me the durability and quality trumps the handmade "point to point" aspect if I were to misuse the term.  I just didn't want to get dinged by someone because I used handcrafted and a fabbed PCB and so on.

[R.G.]

And another flower blooms.   

There's really little question - fabbed PCBs with solder mask. If you're really certain that you want reliability and durability, pot it in one of the *flexible* electronic potting compounds. The rigid ones can crack components and joints.

[karbomusic]

There's really little question - fabbed PCBs with solder mask. If you're really certain that you want reliability and durability, pot it in one of the *flexible* electronic potting compounds. The rigid ones can crack components and joints.

This sound good. The guy I'm part-time/partnering with for this project has a respected customer base and I want to match his quality which is what he is known for. He and a couple of his customers have already seen, demoed, evaluated the prototype I sent over and we are all good there. I just don't want to let anyone down so thank you all for the input.

[midwayfair]

You're all weaklings! Perfboard for life!

[amptramp]

I have used these in the past:





They are good for prototyping and usually better than pad-per-hole or Vero for a lot of uses.  They may not be able to get the packing density of printed circuit boards designed for the specific circuit or accommodate specialized parts but this is only interesting if you are building a delay in a 1590A or you are into SMD.  There is a galaxy of types and sizes available so don't take this particular drawing as being the only configuration out there.  As you can see, this design accommodates DIP op amps and other linear or digital IC's, although I would prefer a design with four pin holes connected rather than three.  The traces under the devices are used for power rails,  Some are phenolic board but others are epoxy glass of the same quality you would have on your wish list.

[J M Fahey]

More seriously, Vero seems much more durable to me than self-etched and as far as traces go, I have yet to "lift a pad or trace" after repeated resolders of boards I was experimenting with which is not the case with other methods I've used,

Same here.

Vero is not "amateurish" but simply means less than,say, 5 units made which many times does not justify designing and etching/drilling.

As to avoid being blinded by the ton of unused holes, I saw a technique (I guess it was a German Forum) where they designed the Vero PCB using Bancika's DIY Layout, printed it on regular white paper 1:1 size, and glued it over the Vero component side, using 2 diagonal far away holes for alignment.

Impossible to make mistakes, very easy for beginners, it was a not so crude "silkscreen".

End result was very cool.

By the way:
1) the very first PC was built on Veroboard  

2) I still fondly remember those old British Electronics magazines, chock full of Vero based projects .... and nothing else.
So  much so that I suspect (still today)  that they were somewhat Business related.

FWIW in the last couple years they started pushing a Vero competitor, "The Blob" , a very cool idea: they sold a pack made out of a small Protoboard (some 20/25 columns) and 3 matching same layout PCBs (20/25 columns of 5 + 5 pads, plus 4 end to end horizontal power/ground rails, just like the Proto), so you could transfer a working design exactly tge same to one PCB ... with an important difference: the tracks on the PCB were not drilled,and you soldered parts to them with ... er .... "blobs" of solder.
An early SMT mounting system with through hole parts  

Of course thye idea was to save on drilling operations, plus it was much harder to make a mistake, you had parts and tracks on the same side and you were transfering a working layout  

Crazy idea but worked very well.

Another bonus was that since the bottom side was full and insulated, you could stick the PCB to the chassis with double sided tape or even glue/epoxy it without trouble  

The idea was so good that I copied it for my own use: I silkscreened and etched a lot of them, it was easy and I avoided drilling, the slowest most annoying part.

It saved my bacon many tgimes, when I needed a quickie to solve some problem, whether adding a reverb or themolo module, a balanced line out, an extra Mic preamp , you name it.

Of course you can iron transfer a few and have them for emergencies.

A more modern similar idea is this:
http://www.adafruit.com/

KILLER aids for prototyping and cheaper than dirt.

Imagine 3 breadboard type "Veroboards" for just $8.95 !!!

[karbomusic]

As to avoid being blinded by the ton of unused holes, I saw a technique (I guess it was a German Forum) where they designed the Vero PCB using Bancika's DIY Layout, printed it on regular white paper 1:1 size, and glued it over the Vero component side, using 2 diagonal far away holes for alignment.

Great idea and funny you mention that. A couple weeks ago I purchased a pack of laser printer transparency paper. I create 3 to scale DIYLC templates (jumpers, cuts, parts) and print them on a single 8x11 transparency, cut them out and make overlays that I tape on the top edge so I can flip them up and down. Works incredibly well especially for jumpers and cuts. However, there is something about a PCB where there are only holes for the parts required that I find satisfying. I try to avoid unnecessary debugging at all costs which has made this hobby much more satisfying.

I'll still use most all methods depending on the need of the day so I'm not really a snob of any method, right tool, right job.

[IvIark]

If I was building commercially in potentially large quantities and for larger circuits I'd always use fabbed PCB, for everything else "Viva Vero!"

[bool]

Vero layouts are a bit too much work imho.

Pad-per-hole project boards are very good for either one-offs or "alpha" prototypes - with some skill you can pretty much test a layout in-vivo "as-is" IF you plan on producing a single-sided PCB(s) - or maybe two-sided with a ground plane.

I'm pretty partial to FR-2 pad-per-hole boards, so ymmv.

[digi2t]

Vero layouts are a bit too much work imho.

Yeah...  I know.

[J M Fahey]

Agree that this example IS complex.     Ouch !!!

But if you have to design (let alone make)  your own PCB it will take a lot , both time and mind effort.
When designing complex PCBs I often want to smash the monitor with a hammer 
Oh well.

What scares me is not making the above Veroboard , which can take a couple hours, working at ease and doublechecking everything, but the "unverified" label 

Now that is scary !!!

Agree that troubleshooting a Veroboard this complex is harder than a similar printed board.

[duck_arse]

to me, the choice would be only down to "home made pcbs" or "fabbed pcbs". I'm always somewhat surprised to see vero in production anythings, of any age. it makes no sense to me for more than 1 or 2 boards. same obviously for perf.

which, incidently, I've finally started laying out on. can't avoid the temptation of standing resistors, but the twisty tracks looks fun, at least in the drawing stage. dunno how the soldering will go.

[vigilante397]

Vero layouts are a bit too much work imho.

Yeah...  I know.

I still remember seeing the pics of this one completed. Epic project, but not for someone with my attention span

[slacker]

Unless you can attach some Mojo to perf or vero and use it as a selling point, then for commercial stuff PCBs are your best bet because they look more professional and are quicker and therefore cheaper to assemble. Home made or fabbed depends largely on what your time is worth, if you cost it using a reasonable hourly rate for your time you'll probably find you can't make them cheaper than you can buy them.

For DIY use what ever method you like, there's isn't one that stands out as obviously better than the others.

[sajy_ho]

I started diy with Perf, then going to vero and finally when it comes to digital I had to settle down to PCB.
Actually it's the matter of space and complexity; for simple circuits like Big Muff or a tube screamer Perf is the best choice, becouse you just look at the scheme, then cut the pins and solder them together under the board.
For more complicated circuits like delays using etched PCBs can save alot of time and space.
And finally Vero is the best choice if you have a layout for it...
But, as Jon said "Perfboard for life"

[karbomusic]

Unless you can attach some Mojo to perf or vero and use it as a selling point, then for commercial stuff PCBs are your best bet because they look more professional and are quicker and therefore cheaper to assemble. Home made or fabbed depends largely on what your time is worth, if you cost it using a reasonable hourly rate for your time you'll probably find you can't make them cheaper than you can buy them.

For DIY use what ever method you like, there's isn't one that stands out as obviously better than the others.

This makes a heck of a lot of sense and aligns with where common sense was taking me.

[karbomusic]

And finally Vero is the best choice if you have a layout for it...

It's the opposite for me since I made myself do my own layouts to force myself to know the circuit better. I became what I think is really good at Vero using my on layouts; perf for whatever reason always annoyed me though I see some who do an amazing job at it. However, Vero doesn't feel pro to me (neither does perf) and they are SLOW and labor time is the thing I need to keep down to make this project work. For my own personal projects, I either use Vero or etch my own PCB depending on complexity and time isn't an issue.  

On a side note: Parts in general, are technically free for me, I quit smoking over a year ago and all my smoke money now pays for parts, like clockwork, I buy the equivalent in parts instead, every week in celebration.