freestompboxes.org

I am waiting on a couple of things, but will be building the MBB kit from General Guitar Gadgets soon. My questions right now are about the process. Is it usually better to do the off board wiring before stuffing it all in the box? If not how do most folks test before boxing?

Thanks,

Chuck

depends on your confidence level with the circuit. There are certain things I wire up in the box but others I test before I stuff the box. If i'm testing them I usually wire up the pots ahead of time so I just have a board with In, Out, +9V and Ground that I can plug up to my breadboard and test out. Here's an example:

If you use Dr Balls' method, just be sure you use long enough wires to the pots so they'll reach when it goes into the enclosure - Saves the effort of desoldering from the board and pot when it somes to boxing up. Equally, you don't want to have wires any longer than they need to be: One way is to make a mock enclosure out of card (easy enough to make a net if you know the dimensions) and poke holes with a pencil where the pots are going to go. You can then get the wire lengths right before you even drill the real enclosure.

Thanks for the good ideas and input. I am anxious to get started.

I do what dr balls does, hate digging in there after to re-solder something.

If I'm doing a symmetrical layout, I wire up the pots, switch, LED and battery snap + power socket (hopefully remembering to use external nut type) with the components mounted in the holes of the drilled enclosure, but upside down/inside out: That is to say with the pot shafts facing into the pedal. I can then make all the connections without the sides getting in the way, and get all the wires the optimum length and routing. I then just undo the pot nuts and drop the whole lot out as one, flip the box over and load it into the inside out the box.