Protoboards

What are Protoboards?

Protoboards, short for prototyping boards, are tools that allow people to prototype temporary or semi-permanent circuits. They are indispensable tools for hobbyists and professionals prototyping new devices, and they’re frequently used in classrooms to teach electrical principles. 

Breadboards are the most popular prototyping board, allowing users to plug and play various components and design circuits without the need for soldering tools. Solderable breadboards, sometimes called strip boards, are organized similarly to solderless breadboards but require soldering to secure components. Perfboards, on the other hand, are perforated prototyping boards that don’t have ground plane or built-in copper connections like solderless and solderable breadboards.  

Copper clad boards might also be considered a prototyping board, although the process of etching copper connections and soldering components onto the board is more involved than most prototyping boards. Rather, copper boards are used at the end of the prototyping process when you’re ready to fabricate your printed circuit board after testing it on various other protoboards.

Types of Protoboards

We gave a brief overview of common breadboards and prototyping boards earlier. Here’s a deeper dive into the different types of breadboards and protoboards and the benefits of each.

1. Solderless Breadboards

When people use the term “breadboard,” they’re usually referring to solderless breadboards (solderable breadboards are less common). 

Breadboards feature rows of holes, called contact points or tie-points, that are electrically connected by a single metal strip within the plastic housing. These rows are called terminal strips. Most breadboards also come with vertical columns, called bus rails or power rails, that help distribute power to connected terminal strips. Some mini breadboards don’t include this power rail.

A unique kind of solderless breadboard is the powered breadboard. These are protoboards with a built-in breadboard power supply, so you don’t need to use jumper wires or a battery snap to power your projects. Instead, you can plug the breadboard into a wall outlet and adjust the voltage. 

Fun Fact: Breadboards get their name from engineers that hammered nails into wooden boards—especially the kinds used for cutting bread—and used wire wrap to secure and connect components. In the 1970s, someone took the grid-like plug-and-play approach to prototyping and created a board with predrilled holes and conductive strips of metal that electrically connect the components and help distribute power.

2. Solderable Breadboards

Solderable breadboards go by many names, including stripboard, veroboard, or transboard. Essentially, these protoboards are perforated boards with strips of copper that connect rows or columns of holes. Like the name suggests, solderable breadboards require soldering to secure the components to the board.

They are much less flexible than breadboards and harder to change once soldered. For this reason, solderable breadboards are usually used for circuits that have already been designed or tested on a solderless breadboard. Solderable breadboards offer a semi-permanent or permanent prototype option, whereas solderless breadboards are designed for designing a variety of circuits that can be easily adjusted. 

3. Perfboards

Perfboards are another type of solderable protoboard and stands for perforated board. These are a simpler version of the solderable breadboard, offering a grid of holes ringed in copper that components slot into. However, perfboards don’t have a strip of copper that electrically connects rows or columns. For this reason, wire wrapping techniques and other methods are used to connect components. 

4. Copper Clad Boards

Copper clad boards are the base material for printed circuit boards. They are made of a thin, rigid laminate material that’s coated on one or both sides with copper. Through the process of PCB fabrication, unnecessary copper is etched away to reveal a custom circuit board design that components are then soldered to. 

Copper clad boards are often used near the end-stage of prototyping when you’re ready to take the circuit you designed on a breadboard or other protoboard and fabricate it into a printed circuit board. PCB fabrication often occurs in factories, but it’s possible to fabricate printed circuit boards from home using supplies like copper etchants and photosensitive developers and other PCB equipment. 

5. Breakout Boards and Development Boards

While not a prototyping board in the traditional sense, development boards (sometimes called breakout boards or shields) augment protoboards, allowing you to easily connect integrated circuits to a breadboard. These boards “break out” integrated circuit pins and often combine several components on one board to perform a specific function. Breakout boards have become more common with the rise in popularity of prototyping tools like Arduino.