building technique: use your enclosure as a jig

[gaussmarkov]

ok.  no doubt this has been suggested somewhere.  but if you haven't seen it, you might like the idea.  i was inspired by seeing someone using a jack as a jig to hold plugs for soldering cables.  if you have a symmetric layout to the holes in your enclosure then you can mount everything on the outside of the box and wire up everything but the jacks.  here's a couple of pictures of a dual mosfet booster i was working on this weekend.

peace, gm

[Processaurus]

Nice.  Thats a good way to make your wiring neat without it becoming a major part of your life.  Wiring offboard stuff has to be the most awkward part of stompbox building, between wires not being long enough, too long, breaking at the solder joint from too much handling, etc. 

[burnt fingers]

Nice idea.  I usually drill my boxes after I've wired everything.  I guess I'm just a little backwards.

Thanks for sharing the info.

Scott

[calpolyengineer]

Now I'm thinking, why not take this a step further and just make a permanent jig with many different position holes in it. That way your layout would not have to be symmetrical, and you could work on a project even before you get the enclosure (or drill one that you already have). Good idea by the way, I don't think I would ever have thought of that, happy to expand on it though.

-Joe

[markm]

Great idea!
I usually just wire it all up inside the enclosure.
Can be difficult at times.

[R.G.]

if you have a symmetric layout to the holes in your enclosure then you can mount everything on the outside of the box and wire up everything but the jacks.

That's an important one to remember - if you have an asymmetrical layout, you'll do some creative use of language when you get it wired on the outside then try to stuff it into the inside. 

Now I'm thinking, why not take this a step further and just make a permanent jig with many different position holes in it. That way your layout would not have to be symmetrical, and you could work on a project even before you get the enclosure (or drill one that you already have).

You mean something like this? http://geofex.com/FX_images/solder_block.gif

[gez]

Yup, that's the method I use. 

[gaussmarkov]

if you have a symmetric layout to the holes in your enclosure then you can mount everything on the outside of the box and wire up everything but the jacks.

That's an important one to remember - if you have an asymmetrical layout, you'll do some creative use of language when you get it wired on the outside then try to stuff it into the inside. 

Now I'm thinking, why not take this a step further and just make a permanent jig with many different position holes in it. That way your layout would not have to be symmetrical, and you could work on a project even before you get the enclosure (or drill one that you already have).

You mean something like this? http://geofex.com/FX_images/solder_block.gif

yes!  the GEOFEX solder block is great.     a possible advantage of using the enclosure is that you can easily fasten the parts onto the enclosure just as for the final assembly.  so parts are less prone to move around.  this may help someone as clumsy as i am.

besides making access for soldering easier, these approaches have another handy feature:  debugging is a lot easier, especially when the circuit board is vertical as with R.G.'s solder block.

i came to appreciate this when i fired this dual mosfet booster up for the first time.  darned if the second booster wasn't totally silent.  it took me 20 minutes to realize that i had completely turned down the output pot on that part of the circuit to avoid a nasty surprise.  doh!  turned out everything was to spec after all.   

[Mark Hammer]

So simple.  So smart.  So right.

[calpolyengineer]

Well if you use an enclosure size GEO soldering block with holes approximately the mirror of where you want them, then a little wire ca be saved. Plus I think it would just make it easier to take off the block and straight to the enclosure because everything would already be in its place. The GEO method gets the job done pretty well, but does leave room for improvement in this regard I think. So it is basically GEO solder block II.

-Joe

[scumbag]

If only I had read this post 24hrs ago. My life would have been so much simpler... 

[R.G.]

The GEO method gets the job done pretty well, but does leave room for improvement in this regard I think.

Thanks.

Actually, the inverted predrilled box was the GEO solder block version I, so I'd have to be going backwards.

Version II is the wooden block to get around the mirror image problem. Version III, which is not illustrated is a block just about shoulder-to-shoulder with holes and several saw kerfs so you can put about any arrangement you like in the block of wood.

The nice thing about blocks of wood is that they're cheap and you aren't limited to only one.

Another idea that didn't get bandied around is to put the predrilled enclosure down on an undrilled block of wood, mark the block with hole locations, add side- and end-mounted components outside the premarked area, and then have a wood block that matches your pedal exactly.  This is even better if you make more than one copy of a pedal, because you can just pick out the block from the last one, solder up the innards and test them and you don't even have to have the enclosure ready yet. Kind of a pre-wiring jig that's exactly where your drilled enclosure would be, and custom per pedal.

Want a better one yet?

Here's Version IV. Take a saber saw and cut the top out of your cast aluminum box. Now cut and fit a new top that screws onto the open-topped box that's left. Drill and fit your holes in THAT removable top and you can build the wiring in place on the top, get it working, then insert the top into the enclosure all prewired. Want to reuse a box? Sure, just swap the top panel that has the pots and PCB attached already.

So many effects, so little time...

[Gringo]

Here's Version IV. Take a saber saw and cut the top out of your cast aluminum box. Now cut and fit a new top that screws onto the open-topped box that's left. Drill and fit your holes in THAT removable top and you can build the wiring in place on the top, get it working, then insert the top into the enclosure all prewired. Want to reuse a box? Sure, just swap the top panel that has the pots and PCB attached already.

So many effects, so little time...

I use electric junction boxes, and do exactly as you say RG. No need to saw anything, as i mount *everything* on the top/lid. That way i can remove the whole circuit and test it outside the box removing only two screws. gets a bit tricky when you have more than 3 knobs, but hey

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

This is almost totally unrelated, but....... today I was trying to solder a plugpack cable to a plug & it was rolling around.. so I PLUGGED IT IN! to an effect. Felt kind of weird, but stopped it rolling.

[Doug_H]

I just install my components inside the box and wire it up like I would an amp in a chassis. In fact I usually do that after the finish is complete, so when I'm finished wiring, it's done. Seems simple enough.

Drilling jigs I understand. Wiring jigs? Ehhhh... Unnecessary IMO...

Doug

[ryanscissorhands]

Here's Version IV. Take a saber saw and cut the top out of your cast aluminum box. Now cut and fit a new top that screws onto the open-topped box that's left. Drill and fit your holes in THAT removable top and you can build the wiring in place on the top, get it working, then insert the top into the enclosure all prewired. Want to reuse a box? Sure, just swap the top panel that has the pots and PCB attached already.

Maybe I'm a little confused. . . isn't this the same as using the back of the enclosure, only more work?

[R.G.]

Maybe I'm a little confused. . . isn't this the same as using the back of the enclosure, only more work?

Maybe - it depends on whether you are only doing one pedal or not.

If you are only doing this to one pedal, don't bother with this. Use the wood block, or the enclosure itself, or nothing, just pop the parts inside the enclosure and wire away.

The whole point of jigs and rigs to make wiring easier is to (a) make the wiring neater and tidier, which returns dividends in long life, and (b) make the task simpler by getting the sides of the enclosure out of the way so you can accomplish (a) more easily.

The wood block and front-of-enclosure techniques do this easily enough, and if you never need a second one (or at least not many more), you're done. Yes, making a cutout and a secondary top panel take more time and effort than simply doing the wiring.

But if you are making a number of pedals, whether identical or different, you can cut the tops out of all the pedals and then have re-usable boxes so as you make more pedals the enclosure part gets easier. And if you batch process a number of enclosures to cut the tops out, it's simpler.

Actualy, if you mount cast boxes upside down so that the removable bottom becomes the top, then you achieve this with no extra work at all. Just drill all the bottoms for your controls mounting  and put the effects on the tops. The cast box becomes a monolithic support for power jack and audio jacks. It just looks a little funny.

The bottom line here is to do what makes the sum total of your work easiest. I think about how much total work I'm going to do and try to think of ways where I can batch process some of it to take advantage of any repetitive operations that might shorten things up. If you're only doing something once, just do it. If you're doing it twice, it's a tossup whether setting up to do the operation repetitively saves you anything. Generally, if you have to repeat something more than twice, it's worth the time to set up to replicate.

Example: making a workbench. There are four legs to cut. If I measure and cut all four one at a time, it will take four times as long as cutting one - and they WILL all be different lengths. If I spend a few minutes setting up the miter saw with a length stop, then I can just cram in a board and cut four times, and they are all guaranteed to be the same size.

Jigging and fixturing are important ways to save time and get consistency. Use them if you can, but not if you can't.

As Albert Einstein said "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."

[rousejeremy]

Holy crap. Why didn't I find this sooner?

[Ark Angel HFB]

Not to say this is the best way to do things... but if you take a bit of time this is something that can be as useful and a can still be used with asymmetrical designs...

first drill you enclosure... next get some cardboard and place it on top of the enclosure...

start some holes in the cardboard that match your holes on the pedal... turn cardboard over and mount the pots and what not. Now you have a jig that can handle asymmetrical designs and free to make....

If you make the piece of cardboard about an inch wider on each side you can crease it and mount the jacks in it also and fold it up to give you the right spacing...

[deadastronaut]

+1 on the cardboard jig..