Thread of the Art of Layout and Wiring

[JimRayden]

Alright, post the cleanest gut shots you can find. DIY, commercial, anything. I want my great pedals to go from merely functioning to representable and clean. I think I have quite something to learn at this field and I thought it would be a pretty educative thread for us all.

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Jimbo

PS: By the way, pedals with everything mounted on PCB don't count, I call it cheating.

[woulfer]

I can see I won't have anything to contribute here.

[JimRayden]

Ok, let me start this thread up. Here's a link to a Fulltone gutshot. Pretty much satisfactory wiring, I might say.

http://www.fulltone.com/fd2_guts.asp

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Jimbo

[D Wagner]

Check this out.

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/controlpanels3.html

[JimRayden]

Check this out.

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/controlpanels3.html

How could I forget Mr. Cornish. Here's an example of exemplary wiring:

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/backpanelwire.html

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Jimbo

[R.G.]

The articles are pointed towards tube amps, but they introduce concepts that you'll need.

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/pt-to-pt/pt-to-pt.htm

http://geofex.com/Article_Folders/lead_dress/lead_dress_in_tube_amps.htm

For maximum neatness, dress all your wires into parallel bundles and tie them with cable ties, or even better(as regards appearance and neatness), waxed electronic lacing, breaking out wires as the bundles pass places where the wires are used. Ribbon cable is an alternate for doing this kind of thing.

Unfortunately, that is the worse configuration for carrying low level signals that may pickup hum, noise, and feedback/crosstalk.

For best performance, you want low level, high impedance signal wires run as either shielded cable (better) or twisted pair (OK-ish) or shielded twisted pair (best) and routed all by their lonesome selves (best) or near the grounded chassis (better) or at random as the wires fold into the box (you sometimes get away with it).

The lower the impedance of the wire, the more forgiving it is of interference coming into it, but  the worse it is for coupling its own signals to other wires.
The more gain the wire has after it, the more sensitive it is to interference, but the less it can couple its own signal into other wires.
The worst wires for interference are the input wires to buffered or FET inputs to high gain distortion pedals or tube gain stages. Some combinations of high impedance and high gain may make for almost-intractible noise pickup, crosstalk and self oscillation.

Ribbon cable setups where every other wire is grounded are pretty good solutions in most cases.

As the articles note, you need to know what signal is on what wire, what the impedance driving the wire is, and how much that wire's output is amplified.

[JimRayden]

Thanks RG, you're too kind. Those articles will sure come in handy when I start my next tube project. Thanks for the pedal tips too. I'll print them out for later rereading when I start the next project.

But for now - let the eye candy take over. Let's remember the visual side of wiring is at least half as important as humfree signal processing.

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Jimbo

[powerplayj]

Looks like a lot of these layouts benefited from the custom PCB's in which the pot or switch leads all come of the same area of the board. 

I wish I could just learn just to make a PCB from a schem!!!

[puretube]

you asked for it... 

front:

bottom:

back:


cc. the WahCaster: you know where to find the schemo... 

[no one ever]

the diamond stuff is really neat (when its in a box)

[JimRayden]

A little bumpy for the thread. The following is Ton's idea of a perfect layout.



Heh heh

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Jimbo

[Satch12879]

Jim, that last one... a joke, right?

Between Pete Cornish and Hiwatt, I'm pretty certain the English win hands down, no contest:





What every DIYer should strive for.

[A.S.P.]

far east art of "vintage distorting":

[JimRayden]

Satch, amazing pic, that's what this thread is about.

A.S.P, I'm not sure I recognise the pedal. What is it? Looks like an extremely cheap copy of an EH. Is that one of those new Bearringers?

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Jimbo