Connecting components within pcb with wires

[Danich_ivanov]

I'm fairly new to a whole diy pedal thing, and so far that's how i do it with my pedals, instead of etching, dealing with all that stuff, i simply pluck the holes in a material, put components in, and connect them with wires, which works very well so far, no problems encountered. I'm just wondering what do you think of this way of doing that stuff, within and not within a commercial scenario? Has anyone went to etching or still wiring? What's you'r observations are, what good or bad things you could say, just spill you'r guts. Cheers.

[Mark Hammer]

Doing it within a commercial context is probably contra-indicated, simply because unless "the material" is sufficiently rigid, if the buyer monkeys around inside the box, there is risk of fractured wires, or things being moved such that they short out against something.

For personal use, it's a whole other matter.  Heck, plenty of people put circuits together on cardboard.

[Marcos - Munky]

I did a few circuits on cardboard, and they worked fine for personal uses. For commercial uses, I expect to see a board when I open some pedal.

It's not hard to etch your own boards. It used to be - until somebody figured that you can transfer toner from paper to board, and that toner is etch-resistant.

[Danich_ivanov]

These are very good points. And that's what i've been thinking of lately, that regardless of how robust wires are and however clean it looks, customers might be a bit discouraged by the fact itself that it is done in a way it is.

[DIY Bass]

It is also nowhere near as expensive as it used to be to have boards manufactured in the small sizes were are dealing with

[GibsonGM]

For commercial, I would definitely use etched boards.  For personal, anything goes of course, but I do like perf-board.   You can do anything with it, and it provides a rigid structure as well as pads to solder to.