Wire runs

[alanp]

In every pedal, there are wires travelling around the enclosure. 9V, in, out, ground...

Some builders have one bundle of cables travelling from the effect board to the stomp. It's so clean, you could sculpt miniature statues of Liberty in the space left. (Or, in Juan's case, miniature statues of Tanya whatshername.)

Other builders use the classic, "well it works" spaghetti approach. Everyone has done this, even the category 1 builders in their first few goes ever.

Me, I tend to go for a more spread out category 1 these days, where the wires are as long as I want 'em, but with a few mils of space between them, and as close to the enclosure as I can get 'em.

What do you go for? The ultra-tight category one builds always make me wonder about crosstalk, is all.

[jimilee]

My wring depends on how long I've been working on the pedal. If I'm just ready to be done with it, it looks kind of bad, if I haven't been working on it too long, I use heat shrink and run all the wiring through that.

[rullywowr]

I like to make things neat, just for a personal challenge and for that finished look.  Juan's builds (and many others on this forum) are my inspiration for neatness.

I don't worry too much about crosstalk except when dealing with higher gain circuits.  In these high gain type of builds, sometimes it is better to have separation between the signal leads and use shielded wire.

[derevaun]

I make an effort to avoid parallel signal wires. Too much exposure to the old edict to run mic cables perpendicular to AC power cables. It may not help anything, but it can't hurt!

[lincolnic]

I always intend to keep my wires neat...that never actually works out. I don't know how you guys do it!

[culturejam]

It's a case-by-case basis for me. That, and like Jimi, how tired of working on it I am. 

But I generally try to keep the input and output wires as far apart as I can. Doubly so for really high gain stuff.

I also try to keep the wire runs as short as possible, while still allowing a bit of slack for general strain relief and also on the off chance I might need to unbutton things and rework something.

[midwayfair]

It's a case-by-case basis for me. That, and like Jimi, how tired of working on it I am. 

But I generally try to keep the input and output wires as far apart as I can. Doubly so for really high gain stuff.

I also try to keep the wire runs as short as possible, while still allowing a bit of slack for general strain relief and also on the off chance I might need to unbutton things and rework something.

+1.

[davent]

I wire up on a jig drilled to match the control layouts of the finished pedal. Everything gets wired up there except from stompswitch to the jacks. Those are usually floating mid enclosure as are the signal wires from the switch to board where usually everything else is along the enclosure face.




dave

[culturejam]

^^^ Snazzy!

[pickdropper]

I wire up on a jig drilled to match the control layouts of the finished pedal. Everything gets wired up there except from stompswitch to the jacks. Those are usually floating mid enclosure as are the signal wires from the switch to board where usually everything else is along the enclosure face.




dave

That's really nice, Dave.

I've done a similar thing with cutouts from cardboard boxes (usually granola or protein bars), but nothing that nice.

[davent]

Thanks guys, i've used cereal boxes as well, whatever's handy, i've got a piece of 1/16" plywood kicking around so that's what i usually use.

This one shows better, the relationship between the jig and enclosure.

[DutchMF]

I've been cheating a lot lately, wiring everthing up with a certain trajectory (finally a place to use that word!) in mind, and then getting everything real close together using wire wraps. Check the pic of my Weener () below to see what I mean:



Works great and no problems with cross-talk or anything. In situations where I really don't want anything to influence anything else, I think I would use shielded wire.

Paul

[muddyfox]

Awww man!
Everything is so tidy and then you leave the 3pdt crooked like that! 

[DutchMF]

Awww man!
Everything is so tidy and then you leave the 3pdt crooked like that! 

I know what you mean, but there's a bump in the Cry-Baby shell that won't let you mount it at a right angle...... 

Paul

[Stomptown]

I guess I fall squarely into the first group! I like to design my pcb's so all of the wires come from the middle of the PCB down to a 3pdt pcb that is designed to match. I think the reason (besides OCD) is that I can take it apart easily if something fails without dealing with a ratsnest. I do like to make the wires from the in/out jacks long in order to limit the stress placed on them if I do have to remove the guts. I also think zip ties are great for keeping things neat. Others like pick dropper use heat shrink to do the same thing which looks awesome. I'd actually like to try that out soon...