I was wondering what advice/preferences you guys had for the type of perfboard and hookup wire (gauge, solid/stranded) you think is best for prototyping. I think what I’m going to have is a mix of small daughterboards like the accelerometer breakout board Pololu sells, an Arduino mini, XBee breakout board, as well as a few discrete components. Any suggestions? I’m trying to make everything nice, neat, compact, and robust (as apposed to my current breadboard/jumper setup). I don’t think I want to do a full blown custom PCB just yet.
Are you planning on soldering things together? If so, some of the insulation on typical solid jumper wires melts or shrinks pretty easily. If your parts fit the pattern well, I would recommend using prototyping boards that have groups of holes connected in patterns similar to breadboards.
If you have wires going off the board (e.g. to battery holders), you can drill extra holes and pass the insulated parts of the wires through to get some strain relief. It sucks when your power leads break off.
