Soft switching on extra board. Good idea?

[Fancy Lime]

Hi there,

I am finally switching to professionally produced PCBs. My plan is to put the "actual" effects on boards of their own as if I wanted to wire them up for true bypass. However, I also plan on having an additional board containing input and output buffers and all necessary switching logic, which can act as a drop in replacement for a true bypass switch. The idea behind it being that this gives me the freedom to choose between true bypass or buffered bypass on any given build (since either option may be better depending on what role a pedal plays in it's future owners setup) and will save time on development and debugging of new boards, once I have the switching board figured out and tested.

Since I have never seen it done in this way, which seems so very obviously more efficient to me (at least for diyers such as most of us), I am wondering what the downsides of that approach are, which I am missing. What problems may this produce that I am not anticipating?

Insights based on hard data or wild speculation appreciated,
Andy

[PRR]

> what the downsides

PCB avoids hand-wiring. Saves much labor expense.

Two/three PCBs forces hand-wiring. Drives up labor costs. You go bankrupt sooner.

[amptramp]

I have a thread that I started here on quiet switching that might meet your needs:

https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=120006.msg1122277#msg1122277

I think if you are making a variety of effects that all need the same buffering and switching, a switching board that is common to all of them makes sense.  I have no problem with the idea of the effect board being a daughterboard that plugs into the switching board (or vice versa) and sits on top of it.  This way, you could make one enclosure size and one switching board cover all designs with the only difference being the drill holes for the controls.

For selecting buffered or unbuffered, use a board design that allows you to depopulate the buffers and just put in a jumper wire for the unbuffered case.

A separate board allows your circuit design for the guts of the effect to be designed without having to allow space for a buffer and this design will be valid whether you want buffers or true bypass.