Whats the most tedious part and how do you make it easier?

[bassmannate]

One tedious part I eliminated was painting. How?...
There's this small two man powder coating business in the industrial park were I work. One morning I just stopped in with a 1590B and asked how much to paint it. They laughed at me. Then they took the box and told me to come back at five pm to pick it up. He was doing silver that day and I got a great finish for free. The next day I showed up again, but this time with six enclosures and a large box of dounuts and coffees. Now I have silver, white, black, and yellow boxes.

I don't think I'll ever paint another stompbox.

Those look really nice. I've always been a fan of powder coating. Unfortunately, I can't find anywhere around here that does it Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place in the phone book or Internet.

[trendyironicname]

Layouts take 60 percent of my time.  I've never used a computer layout creator or anything and that might help me but after I do something up on the breadboard, getting it on perf is usually really frustrating because of the way I am.  One of my favorite things is efficiency and I like it so much,, it makes me inefficient.  Like figuring out how to not have any jumpers in a particular section, when the 1 or 2 jumpers it needed to start with could of been soldered in 1/30th of the time it took me to flesh out a solution.

[ayayay!]

Layouts take 60 percent of my time.  I've never used a computer layout creator or anything and that might help me but after I do something up on the breadboard, getting it on perf is usually really frustrating because of the way I am.  One of my favorite things is efficiency and I like it so much,, it makes me inefficient.  Like figuring out how to not have any jumpers in a particular section, when the 1 or 2 jumpers it needed to start with could of been soldered in 1/30th of the time it took me to flesh out a solution.

Oh man, that is so hilarious yet true!   See folks, I love every step of the process. (Notice though, I've never etched at home and never want to.)  But like trendyironicname I spend a lot of time on the layout.  I think it's worth it, but yeah it's a lot of time eaten up there.  Basically when doing a layout now I have the schem with a couple of pieces of my "layout" word doc ("0's" printed up on a page like perfboard...) and I do it on the couch watching a movie with the kids.  It's much more relaxing that way. 

[trendyironicname]

Basically when doing a layout now I have the schem with a couple of pieces of my "layout" word doc ("0's" printed up on a page like perfboard...)

OMG! Why have I not known about this??  That's like me almost failing calculus before I found out I could do most of it in the calculator I have. I love that system. Forgive me if it's common knowledge to do so or it might seem weird for me to get so excited about the prospect of using this method. But I am.

See folks, I love every step of the process.

That's one of the reasons I love this hobby so much. When I get tired of looking at circuits, I go do something artistic to a box. When I get tired of that, I go play my guitar through one. Even when I had my dream job of being an amp inspector, I hated the thought of doing the exact same thing EVERY day. I'd play guitar all day long, and slowly get crushed with the burden of the prospect of knowing exactly what I'd be doing 5 years from then. Even if I liked it! Prob some deep psychological problems somewhere in there..    But I love this, being involved with everything gives me room to breathe.

[MikeH]

Basically when doing a layout now I have the schem with a couple of pieces of my "layout" word doc ("0's" printed up on a page like perfboard...)

OMG! Why have I not known about this??  That's like me almost failing calculus before I found out I could do most of it in the calculator I have. I love that system. Forgive me if it's common knowledge to do so or it might seem weird for me to get so excited about the prospect of using this method. But I am.

Totally!  Genius! 

[ayayay!]

In that case, Cheers!      Draw some borders up around it to match your perfboard, or tape another next to it to make it bigger.  Simple.  I use DIY layout creator after working this over the way I want.  That program is quite slow on my PC so this is the only way to go for me. 

http://www.box.net/shared/hvb26vuu8i

I usually print 2 or 3 of them.  That way when an "aha!" moment hits, I can start over quickly while I still have my thought process going. 

[MikeH]

Ahhh!  I thought you meant you actually used a printout, and drew the traces on with a sharpie or something, and the photocopied it onto pnp or something.  I was wondering how you got all of the samcing just right, and what font you used to get the right "o" shape, etc.  Still, a much cleaner way of drawing out layouts than my "graph paper" method.  This is a great idea.

[ayayay!]

Ahhh!  I thought you meant you actually used a printout, and drew the traces on with a sharpie or something, and the photocopied it onto pnp or something.  I was wondering how you got all of the samcing just right, and what font you used to get the right "o" shape, etc.  Still, a much cleaner way of drawing out layouts than my "graph paper" method.  This is a great idea.

Are you kidding me?  YOUR idea above is an even better idea!  Seriously folks, there's enough talent here that someone could make that happen!   

[MikeH]

It would take eons of playing with line spacing and fonts and character spacing and all that crap, but it could be done.