For almost all of my new projects, I use a PCB now. Even in the prototype stage, and knowing that I'll have to do some "blue wire" modifications, I find that the reliability is much higher, and trouble-shooting is easier. By using the design rules check, I can guarantee that the PCB matches the schematic, which saves time tracking down wiring errors (because there aren't any), and as Greg pointed out it's a much neater product when finished. And having done it enough times now, I find that I can usually go from the schematic to the PCB layout in less time than it takes to use point-to-point wiring; counting board stuffing, the first article is probably a wash time-wise.
I also hand-route almost exclusively. Occasionally, when I have a bunch of small discretes, don't care too much what it looks like, have plenty of room, and am feeling lazy, I'll let the auto-router loose, but that's a lot of conditions to be met, and it doesn't happen often. ~~ Mark Moulding On Wednesday, September 28, 2016 at 7:19:29 AM UTC-7, gregebert wrote: > > It's hard to justify in so few words, but you're better off hand-routing a > PC board. Overall, it will take more time to layout a PC board than to > breadboard it *once*. However, a PC board will give you a much neater and > reliable product. If you end up making 2 or more, the PCB will save you > time and money vs breadboarding. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/ed6e24f4-c529-4f6c-8fbf-7ea073fb9218%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
