Plexi Panels-Good for Turrets Boards?

[Chuck H]

Formica would probably work. Getting it heavy enough for decent rigidity in circuit boards might be a problem. And at that thickness I think the cost would prove greater than the normal options. But the cosmetic attributes are there. Especially if you have a plexi glass cabinet

[Tom Phillips]

Will Formica work?...

Sure

...Imagine a woodgrain eyelet board...

See attached photo.

[J M Fahey]

Yes, Formica works and is a popular tube amp board material in Argentina.
Only problem it's "plastic only" and so easy to crack, specially because it's too thin. But it stands soldering temperatures very well.
I prefer to go the extra mile and buy Phenolic boards which are much thicker and have some fiber material built in.
But in an emergency, an old piece of leftover Formica can save the day.

[printer2]

Sure

See attached photo.

I like the look I will have to try it.

I wanted to do an eyelet board but nothing is available locally and shipping drives up the cost outside the U.S. so I gave making my own board a try. I already had fiberglass and resin so I cut some aluminum strips to set the thickness and laid one up. in the end it was a little thicker than the eyelets could handle but it did not turn out too bad. Really not time effective though, but if you wanted to do some odd shaped boards...

[J M Fahey]

Hey printer2, congratulations!!!
I thoughy I was the only madman who made his own stuff but I see I have a partner now !!!
What you did is fine, I have also done it.
The detail you missed is that you do not need to make a "pool" and fill it with epoxy.
You just set your fiberglass sheet on a sheet of some non-stick plastic (I use mylar lightly sprayed with a non-stick coat) , start impregnating it, and let capillarity help spread it more evenly .
It will take what it takes. Don't overdo it.
A heat gun will help you make the epoxy somewhat more "liquid" and spread better.
Surface in contact with mylar will be mirror flat, the other (air) side will have some texture , but it's cool.
Good luck.

[printer2]

Hey printer2, congratulations!!!
I thoughy I was the only madman who made his own stuff but I see I have a partner now !!!
What you did is fine, I have also done it.
The detail you missed is that you do not need to make a "pool" and fill it with epoxy.
You just set your fiberglass sheet on a sheet of some non-stick plastic (I use mylar lightly sprayed with a non-stick coat) , start impregnating it, and let capillarity help spread it more evenly .
It will take what it takes. Don't overdo it.
A heat gun will help you make the epoxy somewhat more "liquid" and spread better.
Surface in contact with mylar will be mirror flat, the other (air) side will have some texture , but it's cool.
Good luck.

Yes I realize that I did not have to make a 'pool' but I wanted the board to come out at a specific thickness and rough size that needed the minimum amount of finishing. I used wax paper as the non-stick media. If I wanted to go all out I could have done the whole vacuum thing to suck out all the air bubbles, but heating the resin (I did not use epoxy rather I used polyester resin and hardener) would allow the air bubbles to escape better. I did use some flat aluminum plates for the surfaces and the bord is mainly flat with the od bump due to the wax paper not being under enough tension to keep it flat. As a first try it dit turn out pretty good.

Yes, always good to know there are other madmen out there.

[Tom Phillips]

Hey Printer2,
Making your own board like you did allows for some interesting possibiities such as a unique color or embedding a custom logo in the board.
Tom

[printer2]

Hey Printer2,
Making your own board like you did allows for some interesting possibiities such as a unique color or embedding a custom logo in the board.
Tom

Heck, you can make a multi layer board by imbedding the wires in the mix. All kinds of possibilities.

[NateS]

Talk about lead dress being super important

Plexi glass is as good an insulator as the others, there is no reason why not.

Yes, but because of that it makes for poor RF shielding. The original 'bread boards' were in fact, bread boards

(link only because I stole their image)

[J M Fahey]

I *still* use bare wire and nails on a wooden board today.
Only way to "breadboard" tube stuff.
.1" pin separation is a no no with hundreds of volts present.
And soldered beats plugged in any day.
Of course, parts legs are not cut, so they can be reused forever.

[Steve Conner]

I can feel the warm, organic, woody vintage mojo! Please take all my money.

[exclamationmark]

0.1" is actually a lot of spacing in circuit board terms when dealing with HV - Some SMPS designs go a lot lower. There is also a peculiarity when dealing with devices such as mosfets in to-220 packages, rated up to 600v with a mere 0.05" creepage distance between drain and source leads! But yeah, I wouldn't want to stick 300v on a breadboard just for the sheer fact that I might accidentally short circuit something or something might spring loose. I much prefer to use terminal blocks for anything past 100v. I've seen some weird stuff happen on amplifier PCB's though - like a plate resistor that was over-dissipating, which slowly carbonized the PCB and caused an arc to the other side of the board!

[Chuck H]

Hey! When applying high voltage to a breadboard (an actual bread board) you could simply dampen it, flip it upside down and use it as a bread warmer too!!! Theres my invention for the day. A heated bread board or bread basket!

[printer2]

Three hundred volts is no problem on a breadboard. Just space the parts wider across the traces in relation to the voltage.