Round PCB Kit (5-Pack)

Comments about RadioShack Round PCB Kit (5-Pack):

The hole spacing is 0.1" as expected, but the holes are too small for almost any components except wire-lead passive components, small transistors and 22AWG wire. I can't get an LM7805 or other power regulators onto it, nor any pin headers or pin jumpers, no screw terminals, nor any of my mosfets onto it.

The board isn't easily reamed (not that you would want to ream every single hole you need but I still tried) even with power tools (yeah, I said with power tools). Maybe I just need a better reamer or maybe this board is really hard. But it takes a lot of muscle, time and tool wear to do just a few holes. The copper pads are barely bigger than the hole and as soon as you ream a hole to be big enough, the copper pad is substantially cut out.

I tried drilling out the holes too, but the smallest bit I have is a 1/16" (I have about 5 of them from my many sets). The 1/16" bit drilled out the copper pad completely. So I went to the local tools store AND the local hardware store. Nobody had a bit smaller than 1/16".

The holes on these boards are NOT the same size as the other Radio Shack PCboards, such as the 276-150 breadboard PCB, or the 276-148 dual mini PCB. Those are fine.

The bottom line is that I have 5 boards that I haven't been able to use for even a single project.

Comments about RadioShack Round PCB Kit (5-Pack):

Good product. Sure beats making round pcb's out of square ones. Wish I could buy only the one size I need and not a multi-pack everytime. Still cheaper than making my own but the extra sizes I don't use are starting to pile up. Still low volume so no need to find another source just yet.

Comments about RadioShack Round PCB Kit (5-Pack):

yes... I bought these because they looked cool, but have yet to find any practical use for them. I find it difficult to lay out parts efficiently on the circular protoboard, but maybe I'm just insufficiently clever.

Comments about RadioShack Round PCB Kit (5-Pack):

The perforation grid on these boards is the same as RS's other industry-standard-spaced boards, and their "breadboard" prototyping board.

If you need a round board, say, to convert a standard-type flashlight to LEDs, this is a lot easier, and much more elegant than cutting a crude circle out of a rectangular board, then filing or sanding to make the edges smooth. These are also prettier, if that matters to you. (It does to me.)

The 5 boards in this package cover the range of typical flashlight sizes, from typical 3-"D" cell flashlight-(60 mm), down to MiniMagLite size (16 mm). This package gives a handy range for the experimenter to work with.

Ideally, this would be called a "sampler-pack". But it would be nice, and more economical, if you could also buy the different-sized boards individually, as most users would have a preference as to the size they'd prefer. I tend to prefer the biggest size for most of my projects, but others would prefer smaller, I'm sure. But, I'm sure I'll eventually get around to the other sizes.

Radio Shack has a great selection of various white and color LEDs, and these boards are great to use with them.