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Stripboard

Stripboard consists of parallel copper strips, stuck to an insulating baseboard. Each strip has a series of holes drilled though it.

To build a circuit, each component is positioned on the insulating board, with its legs pushed through appropriate holes. On the copper strip side of the board, each leg is then soldered to the copper strip. In this way, the leg is in electrical contact with anything else soldered to the same strip.

The photograph shows a circuit built on stripboard. The left hand image gives the view of the insulating baseboard side, with the components and any additional wiring needed. The right hand image shows the copper track side of the board.

Image courtesy of Max Horsey.

Advantages

• mechanically robust - a permanent circuit
• ready made baseboard.

Disadvantages

• health and safety precautions needed when soldering
• most components cannot be re-used
• difficult to create a compact layout
• final component layout can be difficult to relate to the circuit diagram.