# Stripboard Editor

> A free, browser-based editor for designing circuits on stripboard (also
> called Veroboard). It pairs a schematic editor with a stripboard layout
> editor and an automatic layouter that turns a schematic into a complete,
> buildable board: placement, board size, strip cuts and link wires. Every
> part is drawn as its real package at true size, so the board on screen is
> the board you build. No install, and no account needed to use it or to
> save a project. Runs at https://stripboard-editor.com.

Stripboard is prototyping board made of a grid of holes over parallel copper
strips, where every hole on a strip is already electrically connected.
Building a circuit on it means placing components, cutting strips to separate
nets, and adding link wires to bridge connections a strip cannot carry.
Stripboard Editor supports doing this by hand, by automatic layout, or by any
mix of the two.

**Schematic editor.** Standard symbol library, wiring and nets. Whatever
touches is connected: a wire end on a wire, a pin on a wire, two pins on one
point; wires that merely cross stay separate. A filled dot marks a junction, a
hollow square a loose wire end. Ground flags, power flags and net labels join
everything of the same name into one net, so GND and VCC need no wires across
the sheet. Parts can be excluded from the board (kept in the schematic but
ignored by the board and its net checks), or mounted off board — pots,
switches and jacks that live on the enclosure, for which the board gets solder
pads or a connector instead of the part.

**Stripboard editor.** Live strip colouring shows nets and conflicts in real
time: a strip takes the colour of the net on it, and a red strip carries two
nets and needs a cut. Select, wire and cut tools; cuts are drilled-out holes or
knife cuts between two holes, they work under parts, and ICs bring the cuts
between their own pins along when placed. Wires and cuts can be selected,
dragged and deleted, and wires can run in parallel on the same strip column.
Rows and columns can be inserted or deleted at any position. Footprints are
editable: the grid and pin positions of ICs and connectors can be matched to a
physical part.

**True-size packages.** Every part is drawn as its real package at true size,
and each part lets you pick the package you actually have — a 1/4 W or 1/2 W
resistor, TO-92 or TO-220. The package sets the body, how far apart the pins
may sit, and how the part is drawn on screen, in the layouter and in the print.

**Automatic layout.** Simulated annealing over a compact, coordinate-free
description of the board (a sequence pair plus rotations, lead spans, strip
groups and reserved blank lines), decoded exactly and finished by the editor's
real router. It places every component, sizes the board, and generates the
strip cuts and link wires. On a free board the result has no slanted link wires
and no wire crossing a component — the layouter buys blank rows or columns
instead. Connectors are kept on a board edge, and cuts are drilled-out holes
lined up in shared columns wherever possible. Several layouts are solved from
different random starts, in parallel on the processor threads, and compared on
completeness first, then on the annealer's own score; the effort setting sets
how many and how long each one searches, scaled to the size of the circuit.
The same circuit and settings give the same board again, whatever the number of
threads, unless "new layouts every run" is enabled. Settings: new layouts every
run, drilled cuts only, no stacked wires, allow standing parts, extra room
between parts, effort, and processor threads. Board dimensions can be locked to a board you already own,
and individual components can be locked in place for the layouter to design
around; both come out somewhat larger, or may keep a few slanted wires.

**Parts.** Built-ins: resistor, capacitor, polarized capacitor, LED, diode,
zener diode, inductor, fuse, transformer, potentiometer (a trimmer is one of
its packages), toggle and momentary switches, NPN and PNP transistors, N- and
P-channel MOSFETs, 555 timer, connectors from 1 to 20 pins, three ESP32 dev
boards and the Arduino Nano. Plus 94 named ICs, searchable and grouped into
logic, op amps and comparators, regulators and references, drivers and sensors,
optocouplers, microcontrollers and modules, audio and timers; op amps, voltage
regulators and optocouplers are picked as real part numbers from this list
rather than as generic symbols. Their pin numbers, pin names and descriptions
come from the KiCad symbol library by the KiCad Library Team, licensed
CC-BY-SA 4.0. A custom component editor covers parts outside the library, and a
per-user parts library keeps custom parts in an account, usable in every
project, shareable as a file, with edits carried into every project that uses
the part.

**Output.** A printable 1:1 build template: a component-side placement sheet to
lay on the board and push leads through, a mirrored copper-side cut sheet
marking every cut, and a bill of materials with a wiring table for off-board
parts. A calibration ruler confirms the print came out at true scale. Colour or
black and white, with an optional QR code back to the project. KiCad-compatible
netlist export carries components, values, pin numbers and nets, so a prototype
can become a PCB; most built-in parts map to stock KiCad symbols and
footprints, and the rest ship as a small footprint library in the same zip.
Netlist import is not supported yet but planned. The whole project also exports as JSON and can
be imported again.

**Saving and sharing.** No account is required; the first save returns a unique
link to bookmark, and unsaved work is kept in the browser and can be restored.
An account collects projects in a dashboard and adds an edit link and a
view-only link, and anyone viewing a shared project can fork it into their own
editable copy that keeps following the original. Projects can carry a
description and notes.

**Branches.** A project can have branches: copies of the design to try an idea
on, saved separately, kept up to date with main and merged back with a review
of every change and a choice wherever both sides changed the same thing.

Every page below is also served as clean markdown at the same URL with .md
appended, which is what the links point to. The whole set concatenated into
one document is at https://stripboard-editor.com/llms-full.txt (about 50 kB).

Scraping, quoting and citing these pages is welcome.

## Docs

- [Quick guide](https://stripboard-editor.com/guide.md): workflow, both editors, placing and wiring by hand, auto-layout settings, printing, exporting, branches, saving and sharing, and every keyboard shortcut. HTML version at https://stripboard-editor.com/guide
- [How branches work](https://stripboard-editor.com/how-branches-work.md): branches inside a project, step by step on an example — starting a branch, switching, updating from main, merging back with conflicts and the board choice, reading the history graph, forks that follow their original, and what view links show. HTML version at https://stripboard-editor.com/how-branches-work has the screenshots
- [How auto-layout works](https://stripboard-editor.com/how-auto-layout-works.md): full explanation of the layouter — what simulated annealing is, the four properties a problem needs for it, what makes a stripboard layout good, the coordinate-free board description and its moves, decoding, scoring, the run schedule, the finishing router, and related work. Every interactive figure on the page is described in the text. HTML version at https://stripboard-editor.com/how-auto-layout-works has the playable versions

## Site

- [Stripboard Editor](https://stripboard-editor.com/index.md): what the editor does, the four-step workflow, the feature list, and how a printed template becomes a soldered board. The editor itself is at https://stripboard-editor.com
- [What's new](https://stripboard-editor.com/updates.md): dated changelog, newest first, and what is planned next. HTML version at https://stripboard-editor.com/updates

## Optional

- [Everything in one file](https://stripboard-editor.com/llms-full.txt): all of the above concatenated, for agents that would rather make one fetch than six
- [Privacy policy](https://stripboard-editor.com/privacy.md): what data is collected, where it is stored and how it is used. HTML version at https://stripboard-editor.com/privacy
- [Karl Funke](https://karl-funke.com): the author of Stripboard Editor