Veroboard
A veroboard (stripboard) is the board a circuit moves to once it works: a sheet of holes on the 0.1 in (2.54 mm) pitch with copper strips running underneath. Every hole on a strip is joined to every other — until you cut the strip. Chip Hippo models it the way you build on one: place the board, seat the parts across the strips, cut the copper where two things must not meet, and add wire links where they must.
Placing a veroboard
Open BOARDS ▸ Veroboard in the parts tray. The sizes are listed by their millimetres (and inches, where a supplier quotes them), in three groups:
| Group | Sizes (mm) |
|---|---|
| Compact / pedal | 92 × 54, 93 × 55, 25 × 64 |
| Medium | 65 × 144, 122 × 102, 121 × 102, 70 × 90, 100 × 150 |
| Large / Eurocard | 100 × 160, 38.1 × 214.6, 304.8 × 431.8 (a 12 × 17 in sheet) |
Custom size… asks for any width and height from 10 to 500 mm.
Click a size and move the ghost onto the desk. The copper strips always run
down the desk (top to bottom); press R while the ghost is in hand to
turn the board a quarter — 92 × 54 becomes 54 × 92, with short strips or long
ones as you need. A placed veroboard does not turn.
The number of holes comes from the size: as many as fit on the 2.54 mm pitch inside a 1.27 mm edge, centred, so a 92 × 54 board is 36 strips of 21 holes. Where a maker states the layout — the 65 × 144 board is sold as 24 strips of 56 holes — that is used instead. A veroboard does not dovetail onto anything: two side by side are two boards.
Holes and strips
Strips are lettered A, B, C … from the left (after Z come AA, AB
…) and holes are numbered 1, 2, 3 … from the top, so C14 is hole 14 of
strip C. The letters and numbers are printed along the board's edges where
there is room, and the hover readout names every hole.
Seating parts
Parts seat on a veroboard as they do on a breadboard, except that there is no channel down the middle:
- A chip sits with every pin on a strip of its own. Pin 1 and the pin opposite it (pin 14 on a DIP-14) are on the SAME strip — exactly as on a real board — so cut that strip between the two rows for every pin pair you need apart. A wide (600-mil) chip stands six holes across, a narrow one three.
- A resistor, LED, diode and the other two-legged parts lie across the strips, one leg per strip, or stand up to any hole when turned.
- A wire lands in any hole: a link to join two strips, or across a cut to bridge it.
Strips joined by nothing but copper are one net — the probe, the schematic, the build guide and both simulation engines all read the same copper.
Cutting tracks
Press K, or click the Cut track button in the toolbar (the cutter,
beside Bus), to arm the Cut Track tool. The button is shown only while
the desktop holds a veroboard. Then:
- Click a hole to cut the strip there. The cutter drills the copper away round that hole, as a spot-face cutter does, so the hole is isolated and the strip above and below it become two separate runs. The copper drawn through the board shows the gap.
- Click a cut to put the copper back. With the tool armed, the ring over a cut hole is dashed to show that a click there restores it.
- A hole under a chip can be cut — that is where most cuts go.
EscapeorMputs the tool away; arming another tool does too.
Every cut and every restore is one step for Undo and Redo. Cuts are saved with the project, copied with a board, and listed in the Build Guide as a step straight after the board is placed — before anything is seated over them.
The tool is put away while the circuit runs: a cut changes the circuit, so it is made with the simulation stopped, like any other edit.
Looking underneath
In the 3D View, orbit the camera down past the edge of the desk to see the board from below: the copper strips, a real gap in the copper at every cut, and the solder where a part's leg or a wire goes through.
What it does not do (yet)
- The pitch is 2.54 mm only: every part's legs are drawn on it.
- A cut is made at a hole; a cut between two holes with a knife is not modelled.
- Moving a part on a veroboard does not carry its wires with it the way it does on a breadboard: a strip is too long to tell which wires belong to it.
- The AI circuit builder and the example circuits build on breadboards only.