Quick Tip for Star Grounding

[chromesphere]

Hi All,

This is probably a noob tip...its a very small detail, but it made my life easier last night so thought i would share it.

I always have problems shoving the 4 ground wires into the hole on the shield terminal of the input jack (star grounding) when i'm wiring up a pedal, they always seem to fray as theres never enough room to fit all four cables through the hole, and it usually ends up messy.  Twisting the ends, doesnt seem to help, they still end up fraying / messy.

I've found using a tiny bit of soldier on the cables after they have been twisted, hold the wire strands together and stop the ends from fraying.  After you have fit them all inside the hole in the tab, you solder them to the tab securely.

Small tip, but hope it helps others.  It was the part of offboard wiriing that i really didnt look forward to

Other tips / ideas welcome!
CS

[GibsonGM]

Good call, CS...it took me a long time to get that one figured out, too!  Tinning your wire rules.    Also, putting a heavier gauge wire into the hole & soldering it in, making a loop, and using that for the other wires seems to help when there are a lot of connections to make. 

Nothing like jamming that 6th lead in the hole and melting everything else attached to it, is there? LOL 

[petemoore]

  PUt the pulldowns right on the switchlugs.
  Not sure if there's a downside to this.
  The leads of the resistors solder really easy to the switchlugs.
  Saves board space.
  Gives a nice place to connect the in/out board wires, right to the resistor leads, helps keep heat out of the switch.
  When I swap circuits, the 1meg pulldowns can stay right on the switch.
  I like to get everything else hot and ready, that way I'm not heating everything else along with the switch lug....pre-tinned wire is  hot, and ready to jump on the switch solder quicker.

[chi_boy]

Have you guys tried the pre tinned wire that Small Bear sells?  That stuff is great and save a lot of time. The wire is also stiff so it stays put once routed.

[Heemis]

I used the pre-bond that chi_boy is referring to for a while, but on my most recent order I got some solid core wire to see if I liked it better.  The first pedal I built with it was a breeze!  No more fraying wires, just strip it, poke it through the hole, maybe bend it on with needle-nose pliars, and solder it up.  The wire seems to hold it's shape when routed a bit better also.

Pedalpartsplus sells a bunch of this wire in 24 gauge.  Try it, you might like it!

[Cliff Schecht]

Err.. Solid-core wire is not nearly as durable as stranded wire. I prefer silver stranded wire with Teflon coatings, it costs an arm and a leg but doesn't easily break from normal usage (or even most stressed situations). Some of the stuff I have came from McDonnell about 20 years ago and is what they used in their F-15's! Great stuff .

[jefe]

Err.. Solid-core wire is not nearly as durable as stranded wire.

That seems to be the general consensus around here... but... I don't quite understand why. I know that if you bend solid wire back and forth enough times, it will break. But once your pedal is wired and closed up, how many time are you gonna bend the wires back and forth? Don't use solid core on your battery clip wires, but other than that, everything else stays pretty much stationary, no?

[Heemis]

I'm with you jefe,  once I've got a pedal finished up and closed, it's very rare that I have to get back inside and make changes, and if I do, it's usually just a quick tip of the pcb, 2 bends at best.  I guess it makes sense that it's not as durable, but I think in most stompbox applications, that doesn't really matter.

[petemoore]

  Strewn across..
  or neatly done with the limitations and advantages of solid core in mind..
  Big differences in application...depends on the wire, the builder experience, the build, understanding of the core wire, how the terminus point is a 'no-flex-stop-point', where it's soldered tends to break first.
  Artwork...looks great, if done right should last fine.
  Reality: Since my 1off's require occasional debugging, tuning, tweeking, and generally get all that done then get boxed..having broken more than a few solid cores at weld points before I mostly quit using it..and with the 1/4'' lengths of core imbedded in solder and potlugs..
  Stranded wire withstands more types of flexing that does solid core wire, the wider the cores, the quicker the sides split. A core wire imparts all of the force through itself to the point very near the fixed end where the stretching is concentrated.
  When bent, one side stretches the other side compresses to some degree, depending on the thickness of the strand.
 

[mac]

Err.. Solid-core wire is not nearly as durable as stranded wire.
That seems to be the general consensus around here... but... I don't quite understand why. I know that if you bend solid wire back and forth enough times, it will break. But once your pedal is wired and closed up, how many time are you gonna bend the wires back and forth? Don't use solid core on your battery clip wires, but other than that, everything else stays pretty much stationary, no?

Though the bending angle into a box is small, there is the human factor. I saw some guys almost throwing their pedals to the floor...
I use whatever I have at hand, never had problems, but I'm very careful.

mac

[Renegadrian]

Just a quick idea I had looking at those vero bits laying around...After I cut a new board for all my projects, I end up with small pieces, one or two tracks and less than 10 holes - quite impossible to use them for another effect...
Maybe you can use them as a GROUND track - solder all the grounds in every hole on that track, and solder a wire at the end to the ground point...

[slideman82]

Some of the stuff I have came from McDonnell about 20 years ago and is what they used in their F-15's! Great stuff .

Great! I will ask Mikoyan-Gurevich if they still have some military specs Svetlana's EL34 from some old MIG-25... so you bought an old F-15 and used all it resistors, wires and IC's? I'm sure it has "mojo" carbon resistors from 1972!