Electronics prototyping

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A simple electronic circuit prototype on a breadboard
Example of prototype in optoelectronics (Texas Instruments, DLP Cinema Prototype System)

In

prototyping means building an actual circuit to a theoretical design to verify that it works, and to provide a physical platform for debugging it if it does not. The prototype is often constructed using techniques such as wire wrapping or using a breadboard, stripboard or perfboard, with the result being a circuit that is electrically identical to the design but not physically identical to the final product.[1]

Open-source tools like Fritzing exist to document electronic prototypes (especially the breadboard-based ones) and move toward physical production. Prototyping platforms such as Arduino also simplify the task of programming and interacting with a microcontroller.[2] The developer can choose to deploy their invention as-is using the prototyping platform, or replace it with only the microcontroller chip and the circuitry that is relevant to their product.

A technician can quickly build a prototype (and make additions and modifications) using these techniques, but for volume production it is much faster and usually cheaper to mass-produce custom printed circuit boards than to produce these other kinds of prototype boards. The proliferation of quick-turn PCB fabrication and assembly companies has enabled the concepts of rapid prototyping to be applied to electronic circuit design. It is now possible, even with the smallest passive components and largest fine-pitch packages, to have boards fabricated, assembled, and even tested in a matter of days.

Boards

Breadboard

This section is an excerpt from Breadboard.[edit]
400 point solderless breadboard with 0.1 inches (2.54 mm) hole-to-hole spacing, top and bottom views
400 point printed circuit board (PCB) is electrically equivalent to the above solderless breadboard

A

prototypes of electronic circuits. Unlike a perfboard or stripboard, breadboards do not require soldering
or destruction of tracks and are hence reusable. For this reason, breadboards are also popular with students and in technological education.

A variety of electronic systems may be prototyped by using breadboards, from small analog and digital circuits to complete central processing units (CPUs).

Compared to more permanent circuit connection methods, modern breadboards have high parasitic capacitance, relatively high resistance, and less reliable connections, which are subject to jostle and physical degradation. Signaling is limited to about 10 MHz, and not everything works properly even well below that frequency.

Perfboard

This section is an excerpt from Perfboard.[edit]
Top of a copper clad Perfboard with solder pads for each hole.
FR-2) or a fiberglass-reinforced epoxy laminate (FR-4
).

Stripboard

This section is an excerpt from Stripboard.[edit]
A piece of unused stripboard

printed circuit boards (PCBs) in that a variety of electronics circuits may be constructed using a standard wiring board.[citation needed
]

In using the board, breaks are made in the tracks, usually around holes, to divide the strips into multiple electrical nodes. With care, it is possible to break between holes to allow for components that have two pin rows only one position apart such as twin row

IDCs
.

Stripboard is not designed for

surface-mount components, though it is possible to mount many such components on the track side, particularly if tracks are cut/shaped with a knife or small cutting disc in a rotary tool
.

The first single-size Veroboard product was the forerunner of the numerous types of prototype wiring board which, with worldwide use over five decades, have become known as stripboard.[citation needed]

The
generic terms 'veroboard' and 'stripboard' are now taken to be synonymous.[citation needed
]

References

  1. ^ "PCB Rapid Prototype". www.wellpcb.com. WellPCB. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  2. ISBN 9781430244462
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electronics_prototyping&oldid=1174272541"