freestompboxes.org

Apologies if this topic exists elsewhere - i did a search and came up with nothing.

Question for the seasoned veterans:

What tips and trick do you guys have for getting neat and clean wiring inside your pedals?

I find that as soon as I get into veroboard builds that I have trouble estimating how much wire to use from the board to the pot or switch and the end result looks like a rat's nest of wires.

I find it easiest to solder slightly over-long lengths of wire to the board, then trim them to the appropriate length when mounting the pots in the enclosure.

Another trick that works well if your control layout is symmetrical is to wire the pots + switches to the board using the FACE of the pedal to hold the hardware in place, i.e. mount the pots in the holes from the front, with the shafts sticking down into the box. You can cut wires to appropriate length and manipulate the board and hardware without the sides of the box interfering. When you've got them wired together, you can remove the whole lot in one piece, flip the box over and load it all into the inside of the pedal, and you just have the input, output and power sockets to hook up.

I always wire up my board with longer leads that I know ill need. If im using a large enough enclousre where the board will be mounted to the enclosure and not the back of the pots, then i mount everything and do my wiring in place. If im mounting the board on the back of the pots then i put the pot is the enclosure, adhere the board to the back of the pots, then pull the whole assembly out and wire up the pots.

I use a variation of the 'pots on the outside of the enclosure' and drill out a small piece of plywood to match the drilled pattern of the enclosure, mount the pots and switches to the assembly jig and do the wiring there. Leave flying leads for the power hookup and then put it in the enclosure and finish wiring to the easily accessed jacks and footswitch.

Neat trick, and very neat wiring.

whoa. that's some good stuff. so good that i literally almost tried to double tap my screen to "like" it. def been on instagram way too much.