Build Longevity Tips

[karbomusic]

I'm sending at least three builds out the door and into the wild every week. This has caused an intense hyper focus on longevity. As a regular long time player, I know the frustration and the shift in perception when something in your rig suddenly has a problem so I subsequently spend lots of cycles considering how to increase durability.  I obviously can't be there when that pot, jack, switch loosens or that 9V battery wire eventually breaks from repeated flexing or that jack starts wearing out.

So, what do you do to increase lifetime when it leaves your hands? Lock washers, Loctite, glue, rivets, JB weld, wire ties, filling the voids in the box with concrete. 

A couple things I've begun doing:

- Made a QC checklist that I must review before it goes out the door to help catch that screw I loosened in order to make some last minute adjustment.
- I no longer snap off pot tabs, I a have drill press and set it so that I can't drill through the box but deep enough to seat the tab.
- Small lock washers when I can find them.
- Removable Loctite on threaded stuff.
- Thump test, aka banging it some with a small rubber mallet so that if there is something on the verge, it will break before I sign off on it..
- Test ideas in a test box such as gluing in stand offs then tossing the box around and hitting them with a wrench or trying to break them out with my fingers to test the strength.

Yours are...

[roseblood11]

a few more ideas:
always use flexible wires to connect pots, switches and jacks. No hard connections from the pcb to other parts. Use a durable isolation between pcb and pots/enclosure (hard platic or thick foil) and fill the gaps with some kind of non-conducting foam so that the pcb can't move.

[GGBB]

Secure your wire to board connections with a blob of hot glue as a form of strain relief, or use modular connectors. Secure all your wire to hardware connections with heat shrink. Insulate (heat shrink) exposed LED leads.

[davent]

McMaster Carr is an excellent source for lock washers, good selection of stainless steel inner tooth variety.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-washers/=vrmq1a

[karbomusic]

McMaster Carr is an excellent source for lock washers, good selection of stainless steel inner tooth variety.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-washers/=vrmq1a

Nice, thank you!

[lapsteelman]

Use the best quality mechanical components (jacks, switches etc.) I've only had one failure on a gig and it was a cheap DPDT footswitch that I said to myself would be "good enough"
Another thing I do is I make sure the contacts on the jacks are not "sprung" and are holding the plugs securely. I've been debating switching to stereo jacks just because the extra contact seems to hold the plug tighter.
I've been known to do the hot glue strain relief thing as well.

[Crowella]

I wouldn't mind removing DPDT/3PDT switches altogether for a momentary switch and a DPDT relay controlled by logic circuits. On the most recent datasheets I've seen, the 3PDT's I buy are rated at 20,000 cycles and the momentary SPST's are 50,000. I'm assuming normal distribution curves too in regards to build quality but that's big enough difference for me. The relays/CMOS you require as a result last way longer than that.

I also got into the habit of using heatshrink on external wiring connections. Maybe because it looks neater. 

[stallik]

My number one failure is an open jack socket that can short on the case/ board etc if it's rotated. I always check by rotating the socket in the hole with a jack inserted. If anything connects or even gets close, I pop some heat shrink tubing over the metal parts of the socket

[karbomusic]

My number one failure is an open jack socket that can short on the case/ board etc if it's rotated. I always check by rotating the socket in the hole with a jack inserted. If anything connects or even gets close, I pop some heat shrink tubing over the metal parts of the socket

As of late I have also been sticking a piece of heat shrink that is twice as long as needed over all exposed terminals etc. When I heat it with the heat gun to shrink it I heat it just slightly longer which allows me to bend that extra length back around and mash it down. Once it cools, it hardens and creates decent protection....

[Electron Tornado]

 - I never connect switches, pots, or jacks directly to the pcb. I always use wires.

- Re: LED legs - when I strip wire, I keep the insulation. It slips right over LED legs. Have insulation bits that are too short? Use several.

If parts are mechanically secure, problems should be rare, or the result of obvious abuse.  I actually avoid too much heat shrink, glues, or lock tight. I use lock washers where applicable, and make sure things have enough clearance inside. Things will break eventually, and I really don't enjoy having to dig through heat shrink or glue to test or repair something.

When loosening or tightening nuts, I use a piece of heavy plastic (actually a bag that some component was packaged in). Put it between the nut and the pliers or socket wrench. It prevents scratching the paint, and I can still see the nut while working.

[davent]

^I used some recycled clear packaging and a circle cutter to make enclosure protectors for the various sized nuts encountered in a build

[bloxstompboxes]

^I used some recycled clear packaging and a circle cutter to make enclosure protectors for the various sized nuts encountered in a build

Excellent Idea! I scratched a finished enclosure all to hell when putting in a stomp switch once.

[bluebunny]

Excellent Idea!

+1

[stallik]

+1?  More like a +5! Brilliant, simple idea

[bluebunny]

+1?  More like a +5!

+1  +  bold  +  red background  =  +5    

[Mark Hammer]

I realize fewer and fewer pedals are incorporating 9v batteries and battery snaps, but when they ARE used,  I find them to be a source of frailty problems.  I started making my own "industrial-strength" battery connectors some years back.  Here's a tutorial.  http://hammer.ampage.org/files/DIY-snaps.pdf

Although the trend is towards more controls and smaller pots to cope with a simultaneous trend towards smaller enclosures, my own experience is that, unless one is willing to spend large sums of money on high-quality small pots, larger-diameter pots have higher-quality wipers than smaller-diameter ones.  The wiper is one of the weakest links in any pot (the other being the solidness of the rivets securing the lugs to the ends of the resistive strip), so the quality of contact the wiper makes is critical to pot longevity.

In particular, pot wipers scrape the resistive strip through sheer friction.  Some wipers are nicely rounded, and make a smooth and broad contact with the strip, while others have a few little "fingers" that will eventually rub some of the resistive strip surface off, creating dirt and noisiness.  While I suppose most pot scratchiness comes from external dirt.  Self-generated dirt contributes as well.

I like to use Stabilant 22 on a pot that I expect to face heavy use.  It does not dry out, and besides acting as a sort of conductive lubricant, provides an enhanced contact.  NOT cheap ( http://www.amazon.com/Stabilant-5ml-Kit-Makes-30ml/dp/B001E50GQS ), but even 10ml will last you for years. ( http://www.stabilant.com/NoteList.html )

[stallik]

+1?  More like a +5!

+1  +  bold  +  red background  =  +5    

never did understand maths

[therecordingart]

I just spent the past few days in a soldering training course. I've been soldering for a couple of decades now, but wanted to learn IPC standards for soldering and learn what it takes to reach the level of quality required in aerospace and critical medical devices. It's incredible the difference a few new techniques will make. All of the little soldering mistakes most of us make are actually considered pretty big defects in those fields even if the product works.

I've gone back to the drawing board on soldering:

-Clip leads before soldering unless you plan to reflow the joint after clipping the lead. You create microscopic fractures in the joint when you clip after soldering.
-Always use additional flux and clean it off after you create the joint...even if it is "no clean". If the soldering iron will touch it then flux should be on it.
-Using the correct amount of solder in a solder joint. Seems like a no-brainer, but it isn't. There are rules for different parts packages.
-Create a "heat bridge" by laying the solder on the joint then bringing the iron to it. It heats the joint faster and approximately dispenses the correct amount of solder for the joint.

This stuff doesn't matter so much in stompboxes, but it really matters in a rocket or a life support machine. That's the level of quality I want to strive for even if it is a fuzz box.

[PRR]

> Using the correct amount of solder in a solder joint. Seems like a no-brainer, but it isn't.

+1

Many of the joints seen here (all DIY) make me shudder. You should be able to see the underlying joint through the solder, not a blob covering who-knows-what.

[davent]

Oh oh... there goes my stock in Kester.

-Create a "heat bridge" by laying the solder on the joint then bringing the iron to it. It heats the joint faster and approximately dispenses the correct amount of solder for the joint.

For a few years now, for close up work i have extremely limited depth of field (one bunged eye), i discovered that if i first found the pad/joint with the solder i could easily bring the iron in on target,  problem solved.