best tools for efficiency?

[sfr]

Being organized is the big one for me.  Having things I need easily locatable, and in reach.   Having specific tools for specific jobs, rather than trying to make a tool work for multiple things it wasn't designed for.   Having lots of light, a comfortable chair.  Batching my jobs when it makes sense. 

Also, having recently constructed a lot of pedals in one go, I have to say I love having nutdrivers in the sizes I need for jacks and pots and switches.  (I have a wrench for the footswitches, as the nutdrivers won't go over the footswitch) I always had one for 1/4" jacks, as it makes it almost impossible to mar guitar finishes,  but I recently picked up some more.   Having those on hand and in reach is so much easier than trying to deal with tightening nuts with pliers or vice grips or a leatherman or whatever.   Color coded the handles, I don't even have to think about what size I need - the red one is for alpha pots, the blue one is for 1/4" jacks, the green one is for the larger pots I use sometimes, etc. . .

[idlechatterbox]

The original post specifically mentioned "efficiency," so I'll throw this out................

I troubleshoot, but only if I can do this faster than it takes to find the parts and solder a new Vero according to the schem. If at the end of the day I've spent more time building working pedals than troubleshooting, that's just something I'll have to live with. 

Either way, there's good practice soldering everything over, and seeing how the 2nd build mirrors the 1st (what better way to make sure you soldered everything in the proper place, there are no shorts, etc?). If you find a discrepancy, you've just troubleshot. If the 2nd build works, you have what you needed all along: a working prototype. You can now refer back to the non-working one. If build 2 doesn't work, that just shows you that Murphy's Law will ensure plenty of practice troubleshooting. Still, ignoring opportunity costs will not necessarily make you better at electronics; it will just ensure that you do a lot less guitar-playing.

Just a suggestion. Might not be valid for anyone but me of course. 

[johngreene]

An RTS PCB will save him hours and hours.

Tell your buddy to post his schematics on this board. 15 guys will gen one up overnight.

Tell him not to worry either. We're just hobbyists here. No one else reads this board. He's among friends and confidantes. His secrets are safe with us.

Jay... pass it on, man. Don't Bogart the bong.

Snork! LOL. 

aw man, coffee out the nose.....

[Dave_B]

A nice MAGNIFIER with good lighting. Ya' can't build it if ya' can't see it!

+1 on that.  I bought these headset magnifiers last week.  They really make the difference when soldering SOIC chips and they're easier to use than the big magnifier with the light built in, IMO.  Don't answer the door with them on, though.   

Nice drill bits with 1/8" shanks help a great deal, along with a Dremal drill press (as already mentioned).

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

CNC. How could I forget?. Yeah, definitely.
I bet it just warms Francesco's heart whenever BYOC gives the order for 200 more Rebotes.
Yeah, CNC... definitely.

 

[DDD]

Special support (stand) for your guitar, that allows you to take\place the axe quickly and safely for playing (testing sound)\soldering.
What for me, I spend a lot if time to make a change of the circuit, then take a guitar, play a little, put guitar on its place, make the next change, take guitar once again etc etc...

[dachshund]

Patience.

I use an "Extra Hands Magnifier" - there's a picture here -
http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/xac/xacx75170.htm
It's a magnifying lens with alligator clips on the ends of adjustable arms. Quite handy.

A good Weller soldering iron.

I guess the first beginner mistake I made was going out and buying parts at the local R Shack and accidentally buying parts that were SO HUGE that they'd never fit in a normal sized enclosure. Plus I spent 5x what I would have online. I didn't understand at first how important it was to size everything. Pots and caps are subject to wide size variations. So - I'd recommend getting a few bare-aluminum enclosures, small to large, so you can see how everything is going to fit. How does this save time? It may prevent having to build things twice. And you can save the pretty powder-coated boxes for when it's all tested out.

Drill press. I'm finding that I can't drill holes in a straight line

The unibit drill bit. Very handy. Worth the price.

[Processaurus]

There's a big difference between what is efficient for one offs and what saves time for manufacturing multiples.  Hand wiring especially isn't a big deal for one pedal, its murder for a big batch.  Most big pedal companies (even some smart boutiquers) engineer their PCBs to use board mounted pots for that reason (plus it mounts the board in the enclosure).  If you're making one, though, thats 20 times more work than hooking up a few wires.   

Recently I've been working on a batch of six pedals with the goal to sell them, just as an experiment to see if it were worth my time.  I did all the onboard components in  less than 4 hours, but the offboard wiring (five pots, 3 dpdt toggle switches, two stompswitches, two leds, two jacks, battery, DC jack) has taken 3 times as long!  And kind of blown the experiment (plus that part was boring and annoying because you always have to be double checking things, can't space out) ...

Look at companies like boss, its easier for them to engineer little circuit boards for the LED rather than mess with hooking resistors on and heatshrinking them up.  Also they make a daughter board for all their pots and rotary switches, and use a single ribbon cable to connect it to the main board.  I looked inside a Foxrox octron and was interested to see there was a little PCB that went on the 3PDT switch lugs with all the bypass routing on it, and a single ribbon cable that connected it to the board.  None of that design work is worthwhile in small quantities, especially for DIYers. 

I did drill out my enclosures really fast because I spent some time making a drilling Jig, but the jig itself took about 45 minutes to figure out and make.  So the first box took 55 minutes, and every one after that took 10.

[sfr]

I've been thinking of etching a bunch of daughter boards for jacks and switches and pots - even if i don't save the time running a single ribbon connector would save me (although with many layouts out there, it's not hard to slightly modify thigns to run at least the pot connections to a ribbon cable) I find it's much quicker to solder a part to a board and then solder wires to the board than continually soldering to lugs.  I spent a couple hours a while back one afternoon hacksaw-ing up perfboard into little pieces, now I use more board-mount pots (the ones with the little legs, not the long ones) with these little pieces of perfboard.  I don't know if actually saves me much time in the long run, but it feels like it does, and it's just less hassle for me.  (Of course, I also happened to have a whole lot of board mount pots from an a surplus sale a while ago.)

I always wire up my LEDs on little pieces of perf (often with a millenium circuit attached) as I hate dealing with flying leads.  (Often seems to be the most common point of failure when my gear goes out on the road as well, although less so now that i have some better heat shrink)

I know there was a forum member here a while back who had had some perf-board made with layout at the bottom for 3PDT switches and marshall-style board mount jacks wired up for bypass, all sized to fit a BB sized box.  I've often thought of doing something similar but leaving out the perf part.

[Meanderthal]

The original post specifically mentioned "efficiency," so I'll throw this out................

I troubleshoot, but only if I can do this faster than it takes to find the parts and solder a new Vero according to the schem. If at the end of the day I've spent more time building working pedals than troubleshooting, that's just something I'll have to live with. 

Either way, there's good practice soldering everything over, and seeing how the 2nd build mirrors the 1st (what better way to make sure you soldered everything in the proper place, there are no shorts, etc?). If you find a discrepancy, you've just troubleshot. If the 2nd build works, you have what you needed all along: a working prototype. You can now refer back to the non-working one. If build 2 doesn't work, that just shows you that Murphy's Law will ensure plenty of practice troubleshooting. Still, ignoring opportunity costs will not necessarily make you better at electronics; it will just ensure that you do a lot less guitar-playing.

Just a suggestion. Might not be valid for anyone but me of course. 

Valid approach indeed - It's what I do. Or, put it aside for another day. The only difference, a lack of patience on my part motivating this... I'll only throw but so much good time after bad...

[petemoore]

   Mount that iron under: the exhaust tube and close in high intensity lights, a box, with a brick and a soldering iron wedged in the hole.
  This speeds the processes and can be done very accurately, by making it possible to change the board orientation quickly with the free left or right hand, and fascilitates very accurate tip approaches and retreats because the hand moving the board has it's palm braced.
  The left index finger can be used for countless important tasks, 1 example: prying a component and another part in place using the lever-holes.
  It aslo prevents the soldering iron from getting into trouble. Otherwise the iron has many ways it can get into trouble.
  Free left hand, - third hand = quick, accurate, *safe, best for longest soldering iron performance, YMMV.
  {yes...it gets taken out, a freehand iron is needed for deeper in-box soldering, during these times the iron is always prevented from touching the floor because the wire is suspended from above, this also keeps it from knocking the components over the edge-ridge and off the bench, or pulling.

[PaulC]

This isn't meant to sound like a smart ass, but my fav "tool" is a hole drilled into the edge of my bench.  It's my third hand for a lot of things.  Drop a jack or ftsw into it to stand it up for soldering, or lay something over it that needs a quick hole drilled out. 

It'll hold things still better than those alligator clip stands. 

I hate to say it, but next would be my ashtray, but I'm trying to give that one up...

Later, PaulC
Heritage amps/Tim & timmy pedals

[tonefreak]

Unibit
Good Cordless Drill
Desoldering Gun
Lots of storage bins
3rd Hands
Magnifier
Pliers
DMM
Drilling Jig
Assortment of different sized wire cutters
Variable heat soldering station
Sand Paper
Blue painters tape
Right Angle
Metal Ruler
Sponge
Goog lighting
A plan
Organization

Here's my "shop":



A very crude drilling jig that I made to accommodate all different sized enclosures.  Has saved wear and tear on my wrists.  I have it set-up so that I can drill the face as well as the sides:



Painters tape is great... I can mark up an already power coated enclosure with out scratching it up during drilling:

[TELEFUNKON]

ashtray is also good for putting the iron.

[JisforJustin]

Hand wiring especially isn't a big deal for one pedal, its murder for a big batch.  Most big pedal companies (even some smart boutiquers) engineer their PCBs to use board mounted pots for that reason (plus it mounts the board in the enclosure).  If you're making one, though, thats 20 times more work than hooking up a few wires.

I agree that this may be the most efficient technique. I too find that it takes me at least 3 times as long to wire up and solder the off-board parts than it does to solder a PCB. I think the more parts you can stick on your PCB the better off you will be.

I am curious if anyone here has used solder pots? I don't know that much about them, but from what I understand one could use a solder pot and dip the circuit board in for instant soldering of the whole board. Is this correct?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Tonefreak, thanks for the tape on the box trick! That would have saved me from a number of unhappy accidents..
Incidentally, someone was saying a nut driver wouldn't go over the stomp switch - well, you can get nut drivers and sockets pretty well as deep as you want, if you look enough & are prepared to pay!

[TELEFUNKON]

there are those that look like the tool you use for sparkplugs:
2 different sized ends,
and a couple of holes to stick e.g. a screwdriver through.

even fit over uncut long pot shafts.


cheap.

[R.G.]

http://geofex.com/FX_images/solder_block.gif

[tonefreak]

http://geofex.com/FX_images/solder_block.gif

Hahahaha!  PaulC's post actually got me thinking about this very thing!  I didn't think of the saw kerf... great idea!

[petemoore]

  Folgers is selling coffee with a sample of flavored coffee in 'another clear lid', these two lids make excellent parts bins, the top is see through and becomes the bottom when the non-see through lid is removed for access...a tray and a tray lid, somewhat stackable...just right for a projects components or another 'parts of type' storage container.
  the 'bucket' [main coffee container] is great too, I just cut a small slice along the bottom of one [so I could get the stapler to staple there], and fixed in my new stereo mosfet guitar amp...so I can stuff the adapter 'n cords in it.
  The bucket material makes good strapping material also, I stapled a WW to my amp cab in a minute...after sitting there looking at the adapter, envisioning metal plates, long bolts or screws that'd have to be trimmed for about 20..lol, staples and a WW wide strip of plastic coffee container, strapped it down sweet and quick, cheep or frugal.