How do you do offboard wirings?

[mike_a]

I have a question:
How do you guys do all your offboard wirings?

I mean, what I've been doing is connect everything to the board outside of the box, and after I checked that it works I put it in the box.
The problem is that I have to estimate the lengths of the wires before I put everything in the box.
The result is that most of the time I have wires longer than what is needed.

I'm sure there is a more efficient way.  I've seen really neat looking builds here and I wanted to know if anyone is willing to share their "secrets"  .
for example: I think I heard somewhere that one way is to do all the wirings with all the chassis mount components mounted.
Is this correct?  can anyone explain it?

Thanks,
Mike.

[GravityRobert]

I havent done this method myself but I could imagine you could use a cardboard template of the size of the board and build it on there... add a little more so the wires arent tight

[Zben3129]

Take a piece of wood and make a soldering block.

This is a block of wood drilled like you enclosure will be. Put the pots/switch/led in there, as well as the board, and solder away.

You dont want to make the holes too big, you want them to hold the part tight

Also, don't do sides, just eyeball the jacks. With sides, it would be a more complicated build, aswell as being difficult to solder in

Zach

[darron]

hmnm. i've been thinking about this a bit too to see if it could be easier. i definitely don't do the wiring outside of the box. i'd put in the jacks and switch as they will pretty much be fixed. if im feeling wasteful ( ) then i'l add extra lengths of wire to everything and cut it off, but generally i'll wire with everything in place and have the PCB so that i can be flipped in one direction to get to whatever pots are underneath. i actually like the mount my pcbs onto the 3pdt switch, and then have all of the wire connections up the opposite end so that i can pivot the board out easilly to work on it, having only just enough slacks on the lines, and not having to take out all of the other components.

it can really wrap your brain working out where everything goes huh? i use flash and have heaps of layers for the box graphics, drill holes, footprints of components, the pcb etc. so that i can see exactly how close everything goes over the top of each other and estimate wire lengths.

i'll watch this thread. this is the sort of stuff i'd like to be learning from you guys (:

[Pushtone]

Yeah, I tried a couple pedals that way where you guess the amount of wire. Worked OK, turned out like this...
Too much wire. And I was using 22AWG back then. Nowadays I have lots of 24AWG and I like it better.








But after a while everyone finds their own style and little thing that work.
Sometime because they (I) have certain supplies on hand or are easy to get where they live/work.
Still more buy lots from ebay and have a certain jack, board, mount they get used to using.



My method now is what I would call the "ship in the bottle" for off-board (OB) wiring technique.

First I play around with the board, switche(s), pots, and jacks placement until I figure a way to make it fit.
I keep an eye out for parts placement causing a wire dressing issue.
When I'm confident of an arrangement I make a drill template on the computer.









I mount all the parts and do the "bottom layer wiring" consisting of
the jack-to-switch wires (in this photo shielded wire is used) , LED and ground.
The pedal in the photo has a functioning bypass signal path and LED.









I prep the output jack with as many ground wires I will need.
DC jack, input jack, the board, the LED, any pots.









Next I take take the board and prepare it with leads longer than I need.
I only have black and white wire (I get it free) so I alternate the two.
I use a red marker to stripe the white power wire.

One by one I trim each lead to an exact length while holding the board in its approximate place.
My micro needle nose pliers are key for manipulating the wire in place and marking the trim point.
One by one I work each lead into a neat wire dress. Then strip and tin each lead.











When the board leads are all trimmed upped I start soldering the
shortest ones first to the OB parts mounted in the enclosure.

Again the micro needle nose pliers are used the put the wire in the lug.
If two wires go to one pot lug I wait till both are placed before soldering.
Finished. This one could use even more trimming of some pot wires.

[mike_a]

Thanks guys!

Pushtone, that is some great pics and really helpful!

It's kind of a basic task for pedal builders and it's really interesting to hear how other people do it.
I'm learning a lot... 

keep'em coming.