DEDBUG Protoboard

DEDBUG is a protoboard aimed at deadbug prototyping and free-form circuit construction with components salvaged from electronic waste. Unlike traditional perfboards and stripboards, the main objective of this protoboard is to provide a means to work with SMD components. Recently, we have observed the hacker community slowly abandon manual experimentation and prototyping with SMD components in favour of establishing small-scale production pipelines with DIY automated pick-and-place machines, desktop reflow ovens and other costly production-oriented equipment. We find that this trend loosely mirrors production processes in larger production pipelines, aimed at commercially producing and selling devices. At Unbinare, we would like to preserve the unpremeditated, spur-of-the-moment nature of hardware hacking and openly share the skills required to manually hack free-form circuits with SMD components. The DEDBUG protoboard is designed to allow anyone to experiment and build free-form circuits with relative ease and demonstrates that with few resources one is able to modify and repurpose discarded electronic devices instead of creating new products. The project has been supported by Constant VZW as part of their TechnoDisobedience Project. They generously provided the resources for the design, production and the organization of the first DEDBUG workshop. Further development of the project is supported by NLnet and the NGI Zero Fund as part of the Reverse Engineering Toolkit project.