Is it normal/common to use this way of connecting point to point wire?

Question

I want to make a circuit and am uncertain if the following is feasible/common and if there are better solution.

From the pin headers (the light blue circles), e.g. GndIn (upper yellow circle), I want to use 24AWG stranded wire to three other places on my protoboard (and one other), see the lower yellow circle.

Should I:

1. Solder it like in the picture (one pin header with three wires soldered directly to the pin header); I can imagine it's a bit hard to solder three wires at the same time', maybe I should connect them first and solder them as one wire
2. Make a vertical solder line until three pins below the GndIn pin header and solder each wire to a separate protoboard hole? However, this takes more space.
3. Use another solution?

And I have actually the same questions for IC pins (not clearly shown in my example picture).

The protoboard I use is this type:

Answer 1

With so many unused holes, you can be more creative in routing jumper wires to holes and expand the number common pads. Use the adjacent row if necessary.

• Just route then as neat as you can, like a PCB layout without clusters of overlapped wires to avoid signal crosstalk and so solder joints can be clearly inspected.
• It doesn't take any longer and if the wires are tight and routed tight or bent in right angles, it will look better. Snake wiring looks a bit suspect to prospective clients or employers. Flush rectangular routing without overlap looks well planned.
• Trained assemblers will use instant adhesive dots sparingly to prevent long loose wires. ( as long as you know it is permanent)
• Don’t use excess solder.
• Get the right solder temp to allow you to solder in 2~3 seconds by preheating and then add solder wire in a smooth sequence then release.
• Magnet wire is popular for thinner appearance and I just burn thru the varnish without inhaling or use a fume extractor.

Answer 2

My recommendation would be to only have one or two wires per pad and to daisy-chain your connections. It will make soldering easier and fault-finding less confusing.

On the other hand, if you can get three wires through the hole then there's nothing to stop you soldering all three.

Figure 1. The underside of a project made on Veroboard. Note the neat solder joints and the holes drilled through to break the tracks. Image source: Wikipedia Veroboard.

Figure 2. A Vero tool is rotated by hand to remove copper around any hole thereby isolating the strips either side of that hole. This tool doesn't go right through the board as in Figure 1.

I've only used that type of board a couple of times and found it very difficult to make a good looking job. The standard strip-board or Veroboard is much simpler to use and very versatile.

Figure 3. Rather neat circuits can be built on Veroboard if the components can be mounted perpendicularly to the direction of the copper tracks. Here there are no flying wires and all cross-connections are done with components or wire links. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Other options such as solderless breadboard patterned versions exist also.

Figure 4. The breadboard-patterned version. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

There are many stripboard designers available which allow you to place components, links and break tracks. These can help to generate a plan for a very neat layout.

Answer 3

Unlike stripboard or the plastic breadboards, that board appears to have no connections between holes, so you have to make any between-hole connections yourself.

If you have a component inserted in a hole, it may be easier to solder the wire to that hole/component lead, rather than putting the wire in an adjacent hole, then trying to connect the two holes. (You'll find that solder will bridge large gaps where you don't want it to, but won't bridge a microscopic gap where you do want it to).