Stripboard Magic layout design

Stripboard magic is fairly old and hasn’t been supported for years. I have only been able to get it to run on Windows XP. I tried compatibility mode on Windows 8 and 7 but it didn’t want to know.

You can check out my page on Veroboard and Stripboard resources, tools and stuff here.

If you have even the slightest interest in things stripboard-related then check out my post, Stripboards – the complete guide. I’m sure you’ll pick up at least one tip to either save you time or money!

Stripboard and Veroboard Templates

Download these files and print them off.

Stripboard Magic layout design – circuit diagram

Stripboard magic differs from the other packages here in the fact that you can’t just use it as a drawing-type package and place parts on the stripboard. First, you have to input the circuit that you are designing the layout for. You can define the size of the stripboard in rows and holes and also the working area for the schematic.

This isn’t the most straightforward job as ICs retain their physical leg numbering as you can see from the picture below rather than the block layout that is more traditional of circuit diagrams. That means in practice the circuit diagram you have won’t look like the one you draw in Stripboard Magic.

The circuit diagram input before the layout stage.

Another problem that I encountered was that if your circuit plan called for pins 4 and 8 of an IC to be joined I couldn’t find a way of doing it with the connection going around the IC. It just went across it, this was also the case with linking pins 2 and 6. This also obscures the other IC pins when you place a component.

Information

The standard .1-inch spacing Stripboard was invented around 1959. It’s still used today because of its versatility.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to route the connection to make the circuit diagram easier to read and resemble the one you use, hence the schematic in stripboard magic for the circuit above looks like this and is more a node list.

I think you would get completely lost with a circuit any more complex than the one I used for the test. There’s no way I would be able to make sure that connections were going exactly where I wanted.

Auto-configure

Once you have used the component library to input your circuit you click on “circuit” and “auto-configure”. Stripboard magic places the components on the board and marks track cuts and jumper wires. This is quite surprising and is a bit like AutoCAD on printed circuit board layouts.

When you select auto-configure the program generates a stripboard layout.

The layout can also be compressed horizontally and vertically automatically and then you can select minimize board size to shrink everything down as shown below.

The minimum size stripboard for the layout.

You can also output the final design as a bitmapped image. Also, you can select construction details which are shown as a sort of grid output.

The construction details.

This shows where the components, links and track breaks go.

You can zoom in and out to show the finished layout more clearly as you work.

Stripboard Magic layout design – Final thoughts

The major problem for me with Stripboard Magic is the inputting of the circuit and how it is shown. It just doesn’t enable me to do it how I want and for me that is a major problem. I wouldn’t have the confidence to use it to design any more complex circuits.

It’s also limited to standard stripboard that uses copper strips. There are now some better designs of stripboard. I have an article on types of Stripboards here. Some of them have extra tracks running vertically for power and stuff and you can’t use those on this software. Lochmaster has the ability to create these new stripboards for your designs.

I feel slightly bad by the fact I’m criticizing something that is free and has had a lot of work put into it. The auto layout function is certainly impressive and I wish it could be incorporated into Lochmaster 4.0 the layout program that I use.

You can check out my page on Veroboard and Stripboard resources, tools and stuff here.

Everything you need to know about Stripboards

Hints and tips on the best way to use this underestimated way to build circuits fast.

“Hi, I’m Graham Moore and I’ve been building electronic projects since I was 12. I had a fascination for old radios and taking them to pieces but when my Nan bought me an electric soldering iron, I realised with a few components I could build stuff.

Learning to solder opened up many doors for me as electronics also became a career. I hope you get as much from it as i did”.