Quality of Life improvements for bulk builds?

[falco_femoralis]

With wires, you don't really need to measure - just clip off a length that is about what you need, but a bit longer, solder one end to your component, then lay the wire inside the enclosure and route it to its destination so you can get an idea of where to trim it, then hold that spot with your fingers, leave about 3/16" extra, and then trim and strip it outside of the enclosure. Then tin the wire and feed it thru up from underneath with needlenose pliers. It's pretty fast, and doesn't require much precious concentration or brain power. There is some waste, but either the waste is too short to matter, or it's long enough that you can use the length of wire elsewhere in the pedal.

 

[vigilante398]

With wires, you don't really need to measure - just clip off a length that is about what you need, but a bit longer, solder one end to your component, then lay the wire inside the enclosure and route it to its destination so you can get an idea of where to trim it, then hold that spot with your fingers, leave about 3/16" extra, and then trim and strip it outside of the enclosure. Then tin the wire and feed it thru up from underneath with needlenose pliers. It's pretty fast, and doesn't require much precious concentration or brain power. There is some waste, but either the waste is too short to matter, or it's long enough that you can use the length of wire elsewhere in the pedal.

That's fine for one-offs, but in bulk builds it really is nice to have pre-measured wires, especially if you can get them pre-stripped. I mostly have switched over to ribbons for everything, but I have a couple designs that I have to use wire for, so I really just need a bunch of the same length wires, and a couple years ago I picked up a used wire cutting/stripping machine. It took a little while to "pay for itself", but with the amount of time and frustration I saved, it definitely has by now.

So that's my biggest tip for "quality of life improvements" for bulk builds, find steps of your process that can be automated and find a way to automate them, either by outsourcing it to a company or finding a machine to do it for you.