Vero sucks

[GermanCdn]

Vero was my temporary fix when I ran out of fabbed boards to work off, and has grown into a pretty satisfying little niche for me.  There are some basic do's and don'ts I stick to; I don't build delays on vero, cause they never turn out right.  Choruses pretty much the same.

What I like about vero is that there are hundreds of verified layouts out there, you build one, you test it out, if you like it, box away, if not, take off the socketted components, clip the pots off, and toss the board away, you're out about an hour and $1 in parts.  Cheap way of finding out whether or not you like certain circuits (no, I don't breadboard, requires more thought than I usually want to put in during my peak insomniac building time of 4 - 7 am).

That being said, eventually I'll get off my ass and learn to build my own PCBs.

[Cortexturizer]

Personally I love vero. Had only one failure with it [coloursound overdriver from tagboardeffects]. I built dozens of great pedals that are on vero. I always shield the traces with solder all over like this https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ah6HHmAMdJo/T-A7_CwZHuI/AAAAAAAAAhc/SeSN3YwzBLE/s1111/IMG431.jpg and it becomes totally indestructible [this is an octavia in a 1590a].
Someone said it's easier to unsolder, that's true for me too.
To me, the vero method is just much more in a DIY spirit, I really feel like doing a hobby project or whatever, and that's just so cool. To me, pcb's are much better for complicated stuff though. Someone mentioned Harald of the website Sabrotone, I mean, that dude built an ADA Flanger on vero, that vero looks...frightening in the least! I would NEVER make an attempt on it. Never.
When I see a fabricated PC board though, on many of the builds here, it really reduces the DIYness out of it, to be quite honest I don't like it That's why I etch my own boards [and I do it really really bad, but everything works] just to feel a touch more diyness out of it. Dunno. That's just me.

So veros are mega cool for vintage fuzzes, and easy projects, or the "hm, I gotta build this and see if I like it" scenario, but anything more complicated than a tube screamer or a muff, I would go PCB.

There's some residual parasitic capacitance between the vero lines of copper as well, or at least someone told me that, but it's mostly benign and do not affect the tone.

[ch1naski]

Yup. What these guys said. ^^:D

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[davent]

Absolutely abhor perfboard. Have been designing and etching pcb's for years so for even the smiplest circuit would whip up a pcb rather then attempt perf.. Only recently gave vero a try and am totally sold on it. Easy to layout with diylc, easy to work with and like others have said hundreds of verified layouts available. Won't stop using my pcb's but for quick simple throwdowns can't beat vero. Great online source for sheets of phenolic and epoxy vero (as well as perf and copperclad) in Vancouver.

http://www.veroboard.com/

Also printed out a numbered/lettered 30 by 30- 0.1" grid that i lay my veroboard on top of to help facilitate the marking of cut points, easy to locate the x,y co-ordinate.

dave

[alanp]

Whenever I've tried vero, I've found that it doesn't solder nicely. The solder seems to slide off the tracks a bit. Between that, and the having to drill out tracks (I don't have a set of drill bits, I go around to my parent's house and use Dad's workshop), I'm not fussed on it.

Perf, OTOH, is great for quick circuits, you just have to keep your wits about you or you'll paint yourself into a corner and run out of room

[GermanCdn]

Whenever I've tried vero, I've found that it doesn't solder nicely. The solder seems to slide off the tracks a bit. Between that, and the having to drill out tracks (I don't have a set of drill bits, I go around to my parent's house and use Dad's workshop), I'm not fussed on it.

The secret to soldering success with vero is to run the trace side across a Scotch brite pad after the traces have been cut.  It roughs up the surface a little bit and gets rid of any trace cutting "legs" left on the board.

You don't have to have a drill (though I'd recommend drilling out all the trace breaks, as it makes for easy reference from the components side when you're assembling), Farnell makes a little screwdriver trace cutter that will do the job in one twist.

[Droogie]

Us non-etchers are truly spoiled by the number of high-quality fabbed boards!
Working on vero just requires extra care at the board prep and population stages of building. Numbering rows and columns helps, as does marking the board locations before making cuts and jumpers. It's like the old adage "measure twice, cut once".

Once I figured out that troubleshooting just involved rectifying (not that rectifying) the fact that I made a bad cut/jumper, put a part in the wrong hole (you have such a dirty mind, btw), used the wrong value, etc., it became easier to deal with.

I'm not an expert by any means, and have arrived at any useful practices by making plenty of mistakes (making 34 perfect cuts and realizing I had the strips oriented the wrong way!) But as a result I got to try some nice sounding circuits, including an echobase or two, some compressors, a trem lune and plenty of dirt!

And yes, some went in the box of failure—I learned a ton from those!

[GermanCdn]

One more thing, if you're using Mark's layouts (tagboard), make sure you check the transistor orientation against the pinouts inside of the transistor, not the transistor orientation shown on the layout.  The transistor orientation (especially on the earlier projects) was a pretty picture and didn't necessarily match the pinouts shown.

[stevie1556]

One more thing, if you're using Mark's layouts (tagboard), make sure you check the transistor orientation against the pinouts inside of the transistor, not the transistor orientation shown on the layout.  The transistor orientation (especially on the earlier projects) was a pretty picture and didn't necessarily match the pinouts shown.

I'm currently building a TS-808 on there, and got another few projects printed out ready, but I've noticed a lot of the comments do say to check the transistor pinouts. I honestly can't believe how many layouts they have on that site!

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[selfdestroyer]

One more thing, if you're using Mark's layouts (tagboard), make sure you check the transistor orientation against the pinouts inside of the transistor, not the transistor orientation shown on the layout.  The transistor orientation (especially on the earlier projects) was a pretty picture and didn't necessarily match the pinouts shown.

I'm currently building a TS-808 on there, and got another few projects printed out ready, but I've noticed a lot of the comments do say to check the transistor pinouts. I honestly can't believe how many layouts they have on that site!

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Now that Mark has the help from Mirosol they seem to be pumping out un/verified layouts every other day. Been fun watching the site grow. I just wish I enjoyed veros but I honestly can etch a board and start building in 30 minutes now.. got a good system down.

[stevie1556]

Now that Mark has the help from Mirosol they seem to be pumping out un/verified layouts every other day. Been fun watching the site grow. I just wish I enjoyed veros but I honestly can etch a board and start building in 30 minutes now.. got a good system down.

30 mins? That's extremely quick! How do you do it? It takes me well over an hour! I run the UV box for 5 mins to warm up, expose the board for 5 mins, develop it, say another 5 mins, PCB tank takes a good 40-50 mins to warm up (I'm using it in the garden and because it's so cold it takes longer), then 10 mins to etch the PCB. Then got to cut the PCB, I keep scoring it with a Stanley knife, then drill all the pad holes. Actually, now I think about it, I absolutely love stripboard, the best thing ever invented haha!

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[davent]

I'm 30min as well- from printing out the transparency to the etched board ready for drilling.  Drilling time's going to vary depending on board plus there's a bit of time to initially cut a piece of pcb and then trim it up after the etch but all and all not much time is necessary.

Expose the board for 9min, 1" from a regular flourescent bulb (the ones over my workbench), develop 1-2min, etching time varies a little but with fresh acid/peroxide ~5min.

dave

[selfdestroyer]

Here is my process.

1] Print a PCB transfer on photo paper
2] Clean my copper clad
3] Iron on my transfer 10 minutes ( I iron on the photo paper until I can see the traces through the paper)
    HP Glossy Presentation Paper (Office Depot $6.99)
    House hold iron set to (sweet jesus thats hot) setting
4] drop it in the Ferric chloride and set it on my etching rig to agitate it for 15-20 mins
    Video of my etching rig http://music.codydeschenes.com/?p=948
5] drill and remove toner
6] populate

ok so maybe 40 minutes.. also depends on how many holes I need to drill but you get the idea.

[hammerheadmusicman]

i found recently, if you give the ferric chloride a blast in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up (when the mrs is looking the other way!) things etch in half the time!

George

[selfdestroyer]

i found recently, if you give the ferric chloride a blast in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up (when the mrs is looking the other way!) things etch in half the time!

George

I was always afraid to do that..not sure why.. so what I do is I have a larger shallow container with water and microwave that then put my smaller shallow container of FC in that just to warm it up.. but you are 100% right.. it does speed up the process when it is above room temp.