Rotary Switch Wiring and Mounting

[Dji]

I've assembled my Great Cheddar and gotten some good noise out of it, but I have a few logistical questions. I currently have it mounted in a test enclosure made from a junction box. The board is held in place by the rotary switch, which is soldered directly to the board and therefore has a specific (and short) clearance. A few of my caps poke out pretty far from the board, so I've used a piece of paper as a non-conductive surface between the board and the top of the enclosure.

This seems to work, but seems a tad shoddy. Also, this doesn't give me access to the on-board pot without completely removing the board. What are my options?

It seems like I could solder my rotary switch onto the other side of the board and all of my problems would go away. Otherwise, I have to drill a hole so I can adjust the pot with a screwdriver. I may also be able to install my bigger caps differently so they don't poke up so much. (It would help if they were radial caps, but I didn't specify when I ordered & axial's what I got.

I can post pics if anyone's interested.

Thanks,
Danny

[petemoore]

you could solder the boardpot to the bottom of the board.
 I do my layouts so I can see and access both sides of the board by CCW-ing 1 or 2 phillips head screw a few turns. I got used to this and debugging and tweeking my boxes is alot easier now.

[Dji]

I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the help.

[Dji]

After navigating the desolder learning curve, I've remounted my switch on the opposite side of the board... and the effect no longer works. Either I dislodged or otherwise damaged something while removing and remounting the switch or the circuit doesn't like the switch mounted on the other side. Or,perhaps, my soldering job on the switch isn't solid... after all, the copper's on the other side of the board, so my solder could just be floating on plastic.

I get a clean guitar sound when in bypass mode. When I hit my stomp switch, I get almost no noise, but I can hear a noise through the amp when I switch around the four-position switch, so something's going through... just not much.

Keep in mind I'm a complete novice, so this stuff is like puzzle building to me just now. I can follow the steps, but my comprehension level is very low.

I've checked my various solders and one capacitor was loose. I resoldered it but my results haven't changed. Tomorrow I'm going to go through the debug process, but I welcome any suggestions.

[markr04]

Heh... another one. Same happened to me. It was working. I fiddled with the switch. It no longer works. Don't feel bad. I had to set that project aside to keep my blood pressure down.