Buddy's Stripboard Builds

[BuddytheReow]

First time I've seen this thread and I love it.

I've got a real soft spot for vero builds. As much as I like the ease of PCBs, there's just something about vero that keeps bringing me back. It always feels like the essence of DIY to me.

Exactly. True DIY from start to finish. @MichaelW likes to call these "roll your own" effects, lol

 

[Synchrony Pedalworks]

My biggest issue with vero or perfboard designs is the off-board wiring. The box gets to be a mess, but I bet I can do a better job with wire dressing. I will have to try it again. Great posts.

 

[BuddytheReow]

My biggest issue with vero or perfboard designs is the off-board wiring. The box gets to be a mess, but I bet I can do a better job with wire dressing. I will have to try it again. Great posts.

Offboard can become a mess really quickly. What works for me are 2 things: keep the wires as short as possible and twist related wires together (i.e. wired to the same pot/switch). It will still be messy but a bit more manageable from a troubleshooting standpoint when/if the need arises.

Such as this...my THUNDER FUSS

 

[Fizz]

How do you know where to wire the offboard parts?

 

[steviejr92]

How do you know where to wire the offboard parts?

The vero layout will tell you that!


EDIT: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/

Check out this site they have a bunch of verified layouts.

 

[steviejr92]

My biggest issue with vero or perfboard designs is the off-board wiring. The box gets to be a mess, but I bet I can do a better job with wire dressing. I will have to try it again. Great posts.

So for this i lay my circuit in the enclosure where i want it. Then ill just cut every wire to length one by one. Yes its time consuming but i think having neat wiring with these vero builds is very important.

 

[BuddytheReow]

How do you know where to wire the offboard parts?

Agreed with what @steviejr92 said. The layouts tell you where to wire your offboard components. They are listed next to the empty hole on either end. Take a look at the second post in this thread to see what I mean.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Exactly. True DIY from start to finish. @MichaelW likes to call these "roll your own" effects, lol

That's amazing I've never heard that before.

 

[Fizz]

They are listed next to the empty hole on either end.

I saw that on the image but it seemed to me.. that the pic of your real one had more wires coming out of them on the couple I looked at... did you wire it differently?

I had read this last week and added a stripboard that you linked to at Tayda into my cart. I meant to add a couple more but forgot before I completed the order this weekend. I'm looking forward to trying this out.. especially since I purchased four 1590 boxes and most of the PCBs I'm interested in are 125s.

I should be able to make the OD-1 that I am testing on the breadboard small enough to fit in the 1590 with stripboard.. but I don't see a drawing of it so I will have to rack my brain to figure out how to do it myself. It should be a good challenge but probably above my skill level right now. I could see figuring it out on the breadboard looking stripboards you linked to but those will probably be too big.

 

[steviejr92]

I saw that on the image but it seemed to me.. that the pic of your real one had more wires coming out of them on the couple I looked at... did you wire it differently?

I had read this last week and added a stripboard that you linked to at Tayda into my cart. I meant to add a couple more but forgot before I completed the order this weekend. I'm looking forward to trying this out.. especially since I purchased four 1590 boxes and most of the PCBs I'm interested in are 125s.

I should be able to make the OD-1 that I am testing on the breadboard small enough to fit in the 1590 with stripboard.. but I don't see a drawing of it so I will have to rack my brain to figure out how to do it myself. It should be a good challenge but probably above my skill level right now. I could see figuring it out on the breadboard looking stripboards you linked to but those will probably be too big.

You’re probably seeing all the extra ground wires needed to ground the off board components…

 

[steviejr92]

Remember the part where it says gnd that entire rail is ground so you can add ground wire to that entire rail to any off board components that need it…hope that makes sense

 

[Fizz]

Remember the part where it says gnd that entire rail is ground so you can add ground wire to that entire rail to any off board components that need it…hope that makes sense

Yes it does thanks! And that helps me see it like a breadboard so it makes more sense.

Plus, post 19 is a good shot Buddy provided and he has his completed board close to the pic in the same orientation.. that allows me to understand it.. and he used different colored wire for for ground and 9V.

Buddy's Stripboard Builds

With all the breadboarding I've been doing recently I thought it would be a fun afternoon for myself to solder something and give my other board a break. It was also a good opportunity to try out the new solder I got from Amazon (it works, but doesn't flow very well). Took me about 2 hours start...

forum.pedalpcb.com

 

[steviejr92]

Yes it does thanks! And that helps me see it like a breadboard so it makes more sense.

Plus, post 19 is a good shot Buddy provided and he has his completed board close to the pic in the same orientation.. that allows me to understand it.. and he used different colored wire for for ground and 9V.

Buddy's Stripboard Builds

With all the breadboarding I've been doing recently I thought it would be a fun afternoon for myself to solder something and give my other board a break. It was also a good opportunity to try out the new solder I got from Amazon (it works, but doesn't flow very well). Took me about 2 hours start...

forum.pedalpcb.com

Awesome! Im glad you got it! So is the Ultra Stoner MK II the first circuit youre going to stripboard? I say go for it sounds fun as heck! Then you have to post it for all of us to see!

EDIT: Sorry @BuddytheReow if im messing up your thread!

 

[BuddytheReow]

Awesome! Im glad you got it! So is the Ultra Stoner MK II the first circuit youre going to stripboard? I say go for it sounds fun as heck! Then you have to post it for all of us to see!

EDIT: Sorry @BuddytheReow if im messing up your thread!

Nah, it’s cool. I just wanted to show you guys what I’m up to and possibly to inspire to build a circuit that there isn’t a PPCB here YET. Stripboard isn’t hard necessarily; it’s just an extra few steps like cutting the tracks or bending the leads to certain lengths to fit the spacing. IMO boxing it up is the most time consuming, but a very fun puzzle.

 

[steviejr92]

Nah, it’s cool. I just wanted to show you guys what I’m up to and possibly to inspire to build a circuit that there isn’t a PPCB here YET. Stripboard isn’t hard necessarily; it’s just an extra few steps like cutting the tracks or bending the leads to certain lengths to fit the spacing. IMO boxing it up is the most time consuming, but a very fun puzzle.

I agree! You were actually my inspiration and motivation for doing a stripboard build and since I’ve done about 3 or 4 builds already. It’s my favorite experience so far with building pcbs. Seeing your time and effort pay off from scratch is probably the most satisfying and rewarding thing you can do in this hobby. It’s made me want to build my own circuit board in all honesty!

 

[BuddytheReow]

I agree! You were actually my inspiration and motivation for doing a stripboard build and since I’ve done about 3 or 4 builds already. It’s my favorite experience so far with building pcbs. Seeing your time and effort pay off from scratch is probably the most satisfying and rewarding thing you can do in this hobby. It’s made me want to build my own circuit board in all honesty!

Great to hear! Do you mean designing a PCB or your own circuit from a breadboard experiment to stripboard? I've never tried the former myself but maybe someday.

 

[steviejr92]

Great to hear! Do you mean designing a PCB or your own circuit from a breadboard experiment to stripboard? I've never tried the former myself but maybe someday.

I meant the former! I really want to get into it i still need to get comfortable with working with Spice. Man how cool would that be! I think you should go for it i mean lets talk about the ULTIMATE diy project right?

 

[Fizz]

So is the Ultra Stoner MK II the first circuit youre going to stripboard?

No.. I'm teaching myself about these circuits with OD-1 schematics I am finding and breadboarding them. It would be cool to further solidify my knowledge by putting it to Stripboard. Then someday I hope to create my on PCB of it. I found a video of a guy on YT who does this... he makes it look easy but I don't think the great folks here recommend Eagle. He has a few build videos where he goes through circuit design and the PCB design.

 

[HamishR]

My biggest issue with vero or perfboard designs is the off-board wiring. The box gets to be a mess, but I bet I can do a better job with wire dressing. I will have to try it again. Great posts.

Off-board wiring doesn't have to be a mess. As BTR says it pays to keep the wire as short as possible. But I also think it's important to make it logical so that trouble shooting is easier. Colour coding is a very good idea.

There is a logic to populating the interior of the box. I like to put the stomp switch, DC socket and pots in first and get them all wired up first - ground wires, Volume pot 2 to Out, that stuff. Then I install the jack sockets because most of my pedals have top-mounted jacks these days and they can get in the way of the pot wiring. I like to route this wiring around the perimeter of the enclosure, which makes it neat, keeps it out of the way of the circuit which may help to keep it quiet, and avoids it getting trapped under pots.

Which only leaves wiring the board in place. As I add the wires to the board I kinda put the board where it will sit, pull the wire to the pot where it will connect and cut to length. That means there is only enough wire to join the board neatly to the necessary connections and no more. It actually doesn't take any longer now that I am used to it and not only is it neat it helps keep the board in place. If I want to make changes later on down the track I can usually just unbolt the lower pots and I can get access to the underside of the board.

I guess it's because I came to building pedals from building amps where lead dress is extremely important that I do it this way. Building amps is all about off-board wiring!

Here is a recent build. You can see that the in and out wires to the jacks go around the outside of the box, hopefully avoiding any chance of interference from the circuit. In most pedals its not really an issue but I think it's good practice to avoid any problems you might have with higher gain circuits or whatever. For the same reason the wire from pin 2 of the Volume pot goes down the middle, away from the pedal's output wire. Over-cautious for sure! You might also make out that the wiring from the board to the pots is only just long enough. There is plenty of wiggle room really, but not an excess of wire. In general these pedals are very quiet. Maybe that's more down to the low gain of my preferred pedals I don't know, but less wire can't hurt.

Oh, and I do like to sand the edges of the board flat after cutting just as BTR describes. I have a belt sander so it takes all of 30 seconds to do. It stops wires getting caught on the edge of the board.

 

[Synchrony Pedalworks]

Off-board wiring doesn't have to be a mess. As BTR says it pays to keep the wire as short as possible. But I also think it's important to make it logical so that trouble shooting is easier. Colour coding is a very good idea.

There is a logic to populating the interior of the box. I like to put the stomp switch, DC socket and pots in first and get them all wired up first - ground wires, Volume pot 2 to Out, that stuff. Then I install the jack sockets because most of my pedals have top-mounted jacks these days and they can get in the way of the pot wiring. I like to route this wiring around the perimeter of the enclosure, which makes it neat, keeps it out of the way of the circuit which may help to keep it quiet, and avoids it getting trapped under pots.

Which only leaves wiring the board in place. As I add the wires to the board I kinda put the board where it will sit, pull the wire to the pot where it will connect and cut to length. That means there is only enough wire to join the board neatly to the necessary connections and no more. It actually doesn't take any longer now that I am used to it and not only is it neat it helps keep the board in place. If I want to make changes later on down the track I can usually just unbolt the lower pots and I can get access to the underside of the board.

I guess it's because I came to building pedals from building amps where lead dress is extremely important that I do it this way. Building amps is all about off-board wiring!

Here is a recent build. You can see that the in and out wires to the jacks go around the outside of the box, hopefully avoiding any chance of interference from the circuit. In most pedals its not really an issue but I think it's good practice to avoid any problems you might have with higher gain circuits or whatever. For the same reason the wire from pin 2 of the Volume pot goes down the middle, away from the pedal's output wire. Over-cautious for sure! You might also make out that the wiring from the board to the pots is only just long enough. There is plenty of wiggle room really, but not an excess of wire. In general these pedals are very quiet. Maybe that's more down to the low gain of my preferred pedals I don't know, but less wire can't hurt.

Oh, and I do like to sand the edges of the board flat after cutting just as BTR describes. I have a belt sander so it takes all of 30 seconds to do. It stops wires getting caught on the edge of the board.

View attachment 36228

Wow. Great explanation and description. You have inspired me. I will have to give the vero board another chance. Your build does look sharp, and with your description, I can imagine the process. Thanks for the knowledge!