PCB design for a hexagonal prototyping board capable of holding DIL chips with up to 48 pins.
Everybody has prototyping PCBs in rectangular form, but what other shapes tesselate well? How about hexagons, would they work? And why stop at 40-pin DIL packages when chips like the 68008 come in 48-pin DIL?
This PCB design mounts the DIL part on a hexagonal board that can be easily tesselated. It has mounting holes for M3 PCB standoffs, or it can be fitted with non-slip feet. In extreme cases, a heavy base can be made out of an insulator such as slate.
This design has been created using the Open Source CAD package KiCad, V8.0.
To install it on Ubuntu Linux:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad
I'm using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS which would give me the very outdated KiCad V6.0 by default. As I write this, the latest KiCad is V8.0.5, which is a big upgrade from the V6.0 which I started with.
Photo of the PCB, as manufactured.
PCB with sockets and headers soldered on, mounted on a base made out of slate.
