PCB mounted pots/switches/LED's

[culturejam]

Plus, I have a Hakko desoldering gun which really helps if things go wrong.

Me too. Changed my life. 

I can desolder a board-mounted pot in about 10 seconds.

[rullywowr]

The other thing that can make life easier (and cheaper) is to use normal pots (ie. with solder lug) as PCB mounted pots.

Solder some solid core wire legs on to each lug contact, and voila, you have a PCB mount pot.

This is how I do it anyhow (PCB mount alpha pots are quite expensive to get hold of in UK).

Other little tips I use:

* Add some sticky foam insulation behind the pots to prevent shorts. This will also give a little 'wriggle room' for fitting the pots.

* If desoldering the full pot is fiddly, then its easy to just snip of the pot and remove the wire legs individually from the PCB.

* If even more wriggle room is needed,  drill mounting holes on enclosures an little bit larger (ie. 7.5mm rather than 7mm). Use locking washer internally to fix the pots solidly when mounted.

But, do you even wriggle bro? 

Bunch of great tips right here gents!

You gotta wriggle it, just a little bit.    (sorry just couldn't resist)

I love PCB mount pots.  It's all about the ease of population and increase of reliability.  PCB mount pots also solve the age old question of "how to secure the PCB inside the enclosure."  It's pretty rare these days that I will pop anything that doesn't PCB mount pots.  This goes double for Vero.  A layout has to be really piquing my interest if I etch a non-PCB mounted board or do a Vero layout...otherwise I would rather make my own layout and wait a few days just for the ease of building and increased reliability.

I was like you.  I resisted for a while.  I had only solder mount type pots.  I eventually started soldering thick resistor leads to solder pots and eventually migrated my entire stock over to PCB mount pots. 

The day I started going with PCB mount pots, my builds became much more professional and reliable.  If you aren't totally happy with the PCB mount layout of a project, simply use one PCB mount location (to support the board) and off-board wire the rest.

It also helps that I am fortunate enough to have one of these bad mama jammas.

[pickdropper]

If you want to get funky and aren't averse to buying somewhat spendy equipment, desoldering tweezers with blade tips can work great.  I have Metcal tweezers and I can desolder all three pins of a board mount pot at the same time. Then I just remove the solder from the board one hole at a time with a wick or solder sucker; it works great.

[raulduke]

You can also buy blade tips for certain soldering irons (not sure if Hakko does one).

Remove the whole pot with blade tip and then desolder the pads as per usual.

[pickdropper]

You can also buy blade tips for certain soldering irons (not sure if Hakko does one).

Remove the whole pot with blade tip and then desolder the pads as per usual.

That's a good suggestion and probably MUCH cheaper.

You really only need one blade to do it.  The dual blade tweezers are nice to have for removing ICs, but not as important for pots.

[juansolo]

The other thing that can make life easier (and cheaper) is to use normal pots (ie. with solder lug) as PCB mounted pots.

Solder some solid core wire legs on to each lug contact, and voila, you have a PCB mount pot.

This is how I do it anyhow (PCB mount alpha pots are quite expensive to get hold of in UK).

Other little tips I use:

* Add some sticky foam insulation behind the pots to prevent shorts. This will also give a little 'wriggle room' for fitting the pots.

* If desoldering the full pot is fiddly, then its easy to just snip of the pot and remove the wire legs individually from the PCB.

* If even more wriggle room is needed,  drill mounting holes on enclosures an little bit larger (ie. 7.5mm rather than 7mm). Use locking washer internally to fix the pots solidly when mounted.

^all of this. Also with solid core wire you're also not limited to the layout the PCB maker likes. See just about all of my builds for examples of that

[pickdropper]

The other thing that can make life easier (and cheaper) is to use normal pots (ie. with solder lug) as PCB mounted pots.

Solder some solid core wire legs on to each lug contact, and voila, you have a PCB mount pot.

This is how I do it anyhow (PCB mount alpha pots are quite expensive to get hold of in UK).

Other little tips I use:

* Add some sticky foam insulation behind the pots to prevent shorts. This will also give a little 'wriggle room' for fitting the pots.

* If desoldering the full pot is fiddly, then its easy to just snip of the pot and remove the wire legs individually from the PCB.

* If even more wriggle room is needed,  drill mounting holes on enclosures an little bit larger (ie. 7.5mm rather than 7mm). Use locking washer internally to fix the pots solidly when mounted.

^all of this. Also with solid core wire you're also not limited to the layout the PCB maker likes. See just about all of my builds for examples of that

The only thing with solid core is that you want to have a good idea of how the wire routing is going to go before you stuff it as you don't want to cause metal fatigue in the wire by reworking it a lot.  I know you already do this Juan,  but it's important to know if you've never used solid core wire before.

[juansolo]

You learn quick with solid core how to deal with it But it's worth getting over the initial inevitable breakages because of what it can offer once you become one with it. You also learn quick to make your builds VERY sturdy because of it too (and as a result of it).

I love the stuff.

[davent]

Guess i'm the other outlier here. I like doing layouts and etching/drilling boards. Soldering up stuff since the 80's i did my first commercially-produced-pcb pedal a month ago and didn't use the board mounted pot layout but did do as Juan does and other's have suggested using the flying solid core. To me board mounted pots and switches are just a layout constriction i don't need or want to deal with that seem to, more often then not, lead to a control layout that i don't find in any way aesthetically pleasing so why bother? I put standoffs in to hold boards so don't need the pots for that function. The control layout for the enclosure stays in flux until the holes are drilled, to go back and forth between pcb revision to accomodate enclosure revision, nah. I'm content with having my electrons travelling through a net of rainbow sheathed copper.

Now I do have a few commercial boards of high, pcb-mounted-controller count i will get to someday. For the most part they aesthically please, only minmal changes planned so far.
Having fun...
dave