Repaired a Proto-Board®

richardc64 · Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:43 pm Post subject: Repaired a Proto-Board®

I was trying something so simple it just had to work. It did, sort of, but intermittently. I re-did it, trying to be neater about it, but the result was the same. Thinking the cause might be flaky contacts, I moved all components to a different area of the Proto-Board, but there was no improvement. Then I noticed that when my little circuit stopped working, so did the device I was getting power from. A quick check with a multimeter confirmed that the supply voltage sometimes disappeared when connected to the proto-board busses, whether my little circuit was connected or not!

I removed all components and unscrewed all the proto-board sections from the metal base. I did not detect any punctures of the bottom covering of any section, but I proceeded on that possibility, anyway.

I covered the proto-area of the metal base with a piece of self-adhesive Con-Tact®. (Duct tape would probably work equally well.) On top of that I rubber cemented a rectangle cut from a manila file folder. Over that, another layer of Con-Tact. (Sometimes I'm a belt-and-suspenders kinda guy.) I stuck a nail through each screw hole to puncture the Con-Tact & manila sandwich, reassembled everything and re-did my little circuit. It still "sort of" worked, but at least it no longer intermittently took down the power supply.

This fix doesn't address loose, flaky contacts but I may do the same thing just to be safe to all my Proto-Boards, which are quite old and well-worn.

EdisonRex · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:08 am Post subject:

In my experience, 2 things kill proto-boards. The first is that the fingers in each hole get separated (and sometimes get crushed) by inappropriate insertion of components (jamming stuff that's too big in). I think that just using them causes this over time (10 years?) It's possible to repair specific holes but it can get daunting to overhaul the whole board. Second, oxidation does them in. I've tried stuff like Cramolin on older boards to some degree of success. Sometimes, though, it just makes sense to buy a new one... Trying to debug a circuit on a dodgy proto-board gets old real fast IMHO.