How do you do your wiring?

[sta63bmx]

I have dummy jacks and a battery clip soldered together that I use when checking to make sure it all works.  That's my preliminary wiring.  Once I get that done, I look in the box and see about how it's gonna go together.  At that point I solder my DC jack and i/o jacks on.  Pots and toggle switches are already wired.  Then I usually put THAT in the box and solder up the footswitch as it's already mounted in the box.  Once that's done I usually wire my LED.  I use ribbon cable for as much as possible so my wiring is very "soft" and compact.  I leave the wires a little longer so I can flop the baord out and work on it if I have to, and I don't use standoffs since the board is usually pretty well "trapped".  I like to insulate around it and put the board in part of an envelope so prevent shorts.

If the box is bigger I'll use standoffs.  I just kinda cram the battery in after that and I might velcro it in if it's floppy.    Here are some typical gut shots.

Packaged


I used standoffs here cause there was a lot of space.  I used a battery clip, too. 

Testing


I have the jacks and the battery clip soldered together already so there's just ground, input tip, output tip, and 9V power to the board for testing purposes.

Envelope and Sloppy "Flip-Out" Wiring


I can pull the board out to work on it, which is cool.  There's the envelope to protect the bottom of the board.  The top is pretty safe since there are tall parts and it hits a rat's nest of insulated wire.

Crammed In There


Once it's "safe" I cram it all in there.  I should plan ahead and mount stuff better, but I am bad at that.

More Flip-Out Wiring


Same deal here.  Only I used some electrical tape.  I used ribbon cable here so it'd be compact and bendy.  I really like using ribbon cable for the pots since it all "packs" real well and you don't wind up with a bunch of single loose wires.

More Crammage


I like trying to keep as much wiring as possible crammed up against the top of the box and "out of the way" as possible so I have all theopen space I can get in the middle of the box.  This pedal was a little aggravating for me.

Man, my in-box wiring is shameful.   That looks like a big RF antenna to me.  I guess you could use me as an example of what NOT to do.

[Gilles C]

I also find your wires a bit too log, but I like the ribbon cable that you used. That my prefered type of wires, but I can't find ribbons anymore in more than 4 wires locally.

Gilles

[sta63bmx]

Yeah, they should be shorter.  *hanging head in shame* lol  Where do you live at?

[Gilles C]

Hahaha... you don't have to be ashamed, that looks very good anyway. And if it doesn't affect the sound (noise, etc...), no problem there.

Here in Quebec city (Canada of course...), I can have a stripboard cutter easily (I wonder why) but I have more problems with the components like wires, transistors, etc...

I know only one or two guys who build effects around here in Quebec, a couple in Montreal which is a couple hundred miles away, and the closest other one is Mark Hammer in Ottawa which has more stores to choose from than me. The best place for electronics parts that I saw is Toronto (from the years I was working on the road...).

Btw, what kind of box did you use for the second one. I never saw one with 6 screws to hold the cover. Very nice.

Gilles

[bwanasonic]

I try to design out as much wire as I can.

I'm moving to this approach myself. I need to find Mouser #s for onboard 1/4" and DC adapter jacks.

Kerry M

[sta63bmx]

Gilles, PM me your address.  I'll send you some ribbon cable.  I have some extra and it's surplus anyways.

That second one is one of two BSIAB builds in identical boxes like that.  They were from some liquid nitrogen measuring system doohickey that got sent to surplus here at our school.  I saw the two little enclosures and took them out of the bhox to be resurrected.  They were "varactor bridge preamp" circuits, whatever that means.  They each had some kind of funky connector on either side and then the inside was just one big Analog Devices circuit of some kind and a couple other little widgets.  They're nice little boxes, real nice.  They were made by Pomona, I'm pretty sure.  Just think, they were about to be scrapped.  And I have resurrected them, that they may live and not die.

If I could make layouts, I would use on-board jacks and pots or at least make it so everything went on a little board of some kind and I could just connect the boards with ribbon cable, either soldering or using headers and plugs.  But I can't.

[Gilles C]

PM done. Thanks.

....If I could make layouts, I would use on-board jacks and pots or at least make it so everything went on a little board of some kind and I could just connect the boards with ribbon cable, either soldering or using headers and plugs.  But I can't.

That's the method Boss uses for the pots and the Leds in their guitar effects. Pretty neat.

I like to do that also. Like in this picture of a prototype which shows this type of wiring, except that I twisted the wires instead of using a ribbon cable.



That's my Electronic Foot Switch.

The next one is when I try to put everything on the pcb...



Gilles

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I can't find ribbons anymore in more than 4 wires locally.

Gilles, don't they have dumpsters full of discarded computers near you? Plenty of wide ribbons in old PCs! 

[Gilles C]

I can't find ribbons anymore in more than 4 wires locally.

Gilles, don't they have dumpsters full of discarded computers near you? Plenty of wide ribbons in old PCs! 

Not that I know. But I should check that.

Some of the ribbon cables that I used before was from discarded equipment at work. But I used all of them.

Hey... even Active Components closed their doors in Quebec last year. I suppose we don't have enough assembling companies buying from them around here anymore. I remember that 30 years ago, I could get free samples locally from a store (for the company I was working for), and a few years later, they moved to Montreal, which is 200 miles away. They only kept the dealers. It is not that I live in a small town, but it's too close from another bigger town... 

Gilles

[mojotron]

I try to design out as much wire as I can.

I'm moving to this approach myself. I need to find Mouser #s for on-board 1/4" and DC adapter jacks.

Kerry M

Yep me too, on a final assembly of a design I don't plan on changing, I usually either make my own layouts so that all the pots' connections are together - like if I were using all board mounted pots - or I take an existing layout and change it so that it is closer to being able to do this. I also like to design in the bypass into the PCB.... if I know I'm going to use a DPDT. This can make it so that a 2" wire length is easier to do.

But, if I just want to get something put together and check it out using someone else's layout, I typically drill out an electrical box top for it, then just wire it all in so that the electrical box top, the PCB and all wiring are all one assembly and I only make a passing attempt to keep the wire length on the short side. This aids in debugging as well as modding later on. Some of my prototypes can get to be a really rat's nest after a few iterations of tweaking. Neatness tends to stifle creativity - so when I know I'm going to either be debugging or resdeigning something I typically don't worry too much about how pretty the wiring looks as long as there is not noise associated with the way I did the wiring.

I really like the way Fulltone does their wiring on the Fulldrive - there are some pictures of that and that is what I would like all of my 'keepers' to look like on the inside. 

[gaussmarkov]

I try to design out as much wire as I can.

I'm moving to this approach myself. I need to find Mouser #s for onboard 1/4" and DC adapter jacks.

Kerry M

i have never understood how this works.  do you solder the jacks on at the very end?  or do you assemble
and then bend the board in order to get the jacks through the holes?

i like short wires, too. so i don't run all my grounds to the board.  often it seems there is a grounded lug
on anotherjack or pot.  as long as everything is running directly to the output jack's ground lug, it
works well.  my understanding is that this is better ground wiring practice, too. 

[dr]

.....I make up a wiring harness, using a piece of the OSB particle board (1" thick) its similar to the "solder block" technique RG has with holes for the pots and switches and jacks; then I measure the distances each wire will go to and make up the harness by putting small nails in the board to make the bends the wires are headed (with a bit of excess length for strain relief) and wire tie or shrink wrap to hold it together then strip all the ends and start soldering it together...its a bit time consuming, but that way if you are using small gauge wire, it makes it so much easier to fit it in the box without much hassle, or breakage....

[bwanasonic]

i have never understood how this works.  do you solder the jacks on at the very end?  or do you assemble
and then bend the board in order to get the jacks through the holes?

Not sure about the DC jacks, but the audio jacks I'm thinking of are a two-piece design - A *body* that solders to the board, and a sleeve/ collar / nut  thingy that screws into the jack. A number of commercial effects use these,

Kerry M.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I try to design out as much wire as I can.

I'm moving to this approach myself. I need to find Mouser #s for onboard 1/4" and DC adapter jacks.
Kerry M

i have never understood how this works.  do you solder the jacks on at the very end?  or do you assemble
and then bend the board in order to get the jacks through the holes?

There is no problem, because there are TWO boards... and the board with the jacks has the jacks both at the BACK of the unit, not at the sides! so, the jacks mount on the board, on the same edge, and just pop into the two holes in the back of the case.

[mojotron]

I try to design out as much wire as I can.

I'm moving to this approach myself. I need to find Mouser #s for on-board 1/4" and DC adapter jacks.

Kerry M

i have never understood how this works.  do you solder the jacks on at the very end?  or do you assemble
and then bend the board in order to get the jacks through the holes?
...

What I do is to make it possible to use board mounted pots and jacks, but typically I still run the wires to non-board mounted pots/jacks - but, if it is all organized you can make the wire lengths very short and all the same length - which is the best way to reduce wire. See the layout for the Vibin' Champ at http://mojotronics.com/images/vibinchamp/vibinchamp_lo_2.JPG - I did that layout along the lines of what I was talking about above.

You can also put the wires "on-board" - but you have to have a bypass and selected jacks to do this.