Designing stripboards (prototype boards)

Question

I'm looking for a free software that is able to design electronical circuits on a stripboard (prototype board).

Ideally it would look as professional as Fritzing, which generates very nice graphics that are easy to follow by children.

An electronic circuit might look like this:

It's important to also have a view from the bottom in order to see which stripes have to be drilled in which positions.

I have seen:

• LochMaster 4.0, which is ok, except that it's not free. The image above was made with LochMaster
• VeeCAD, but it looks very basic and technical
• VeroDes also looks quite old

Answer 1

I found out that Fritzing is actually sufficient for my needs. It's not very convenient, but acceptable.

It's also not very obvious how to do it, so here's a short description of here's how it works:

1. Delete the default bread board
2. In the "core parts", find the "basic single-sided stripboard" or the "basic single-sided perfboard" and add it
3. If you need interruptions in the stripboard, click on the PCB wire to remove the copper
4. Add the parts (resistors etc.) as needed

For someone to actually solder the thing, you need 2 views, one with the parts and one for the stripboard.

• First view: select the menu View/Show all layers

• Second view: select the menu View/Hide all layers, then show the breadboard layer. In that view, you'll see where to interrupt the stips:

Disadvantages of using Fritzing:

• As you can see in the above images, the LED and the transistor use (much) more space than needed on the breadboard. I was yet unable to find the LEDs and transistors in a top view. The ICs (like L293D) are fine.

• The breadboard in shown in top view, but you will need to work in bottom view. For printing, I suggest taking a screenshot or saving as image, then flipping the image.