What is your "go to" tip for making a pedal work properly every time?

[Mark Hammer]

My tip to add to the stack would be to use a checklist for every ground connection you need to make.  A lot of times there are "implied" ground connections, as in "Don't need to connect the ground lug on that phone jack, because I have one going from the board to the other jack." (ergo, both grounded together via the chassis), and we can often lose track and omit ground connections needed to make the thing actually work.

I'm also a big fan these days of using a bit of heatshrink around solder lugs on pots and switches.  If it's a pedal you've made many times before, that's one thing.  But if it's a one-off, and you have only limited knowledge of how long the various connecting wires need to be, you may find yourself twisting things to fit through the holes and inadvertently fracturing a wire that you can't see.  The heat shrink makes the connections to pots and switches a little more robust.  The added insulation also protects nicely against the it-worked-before-I-boxed-it-up (IWBIBIU..."ewbeebyu?") phenomenon that is so common.

[knutolai]

Also if you are making your own layouts using a program like Kicad is very useful. If you draw a schematic you can import your components into a PCB-drawer which only lets you do "correct" connections eliminating some possible human errors

[acehobojoe]

Kicad, I'll try it!

[knutolai]

Its completely free. Very helpful got bigger projects. This video-series gives a easy to follow guide to all the aspects of the program suite:
http://contextualelectronics.com/buildpcbs/

[karbomusic]

I'm also a big fan these days of using a bit of heatshrink around solder lugs on pots and switches.  If it's a pedal you've made many times before, that's one thing.  But if it's a one-off, and you have only limited knowledge of how long the various connecting wires need to be, you may find yourself twisting things to fit through the holes and inadvertently fracturing a wire that you can't see.  The heat shrink makes the connections to pots and switches a little more robust.  The added insulation also protects nicely against the it-worked-before-I-boxed-it-up (IWBIBIU..."ewbeebyu?") phenomenon that is so common.

I do exactly that for the same reasons. Since many of my builds end up on other's pedal boards I spend a lot of time looking at things saying  "but what if, this happens..." then correct for it even though it at first glance in a new build seems rare. Heat shrink in various places is one of the things I use to help with that.