Lead Dress. Important for Pedals?

[Evad Nomenclature]

Hey guys.

So a question.  I've done about 10 builds now, and I recently came across something on geo and here about Lead Dressing.  I read up a little on it, but most of the stuff seemed to pertain to amplifiers.
Is this something that should be done in pedals also?  The reason I ask, is that I really like to use solid core wiring for most of my offboard stuff... Just because it tends to stick nicer the way you bend it (although the occasional breakage off the pcb has happened !)  I guess since solid core doesn't have any shielding, the Lead Dress may be needed?

BTW, I haven't noticed any real problems with individual pedals, but I do seem to be getting a bit more hum than usual when i am using a chain of some of my DIY's (Tube Sound Fuzz, Ross Comp, and a Pulsar all on) Also, the Ross brings up the noise level, but I'm pretty sure that's the norm with compressors since they raise the noise floor considerably.

so, yeah... lemme know 

[jacobyjd]

Stranded-core wire isn't shielded, so there should be no real difference between solid and stranded as far as noise goes.

Regarding lead dress--I tend to follow a couple rules of thumb:

-don't make leads any longer than necessary (allow a little play, but try to use the path of least resistance to get your leads where they're going)

-don't make bends too sharp (especially w/ solid-core)

-if you need to lower noise, try shielded cable for inputs and outputs

Those three things will get you pretty far. Other than that, unless you're talking super high gain, you shouldn't have too many problems.

[Evad Nomenclature]

Awesome Josh.

Thanks.
Been trying to keep those offboard leads short, mainly for aesthetics sake, but that's a good point also.  Technically, the less amount of travel for the signal the better.
I'll look into getting shielded stuff for the ins/outs.

[d95err]

I find that if I cut the leads as short as possible, it gets awkward to mount the stuff into the box or make modifications. This in turn leads to sloppy soldering, mistakes and generally bad quality. So, I'll risk a tiny amount of extra noise in order to make things easy to work with.

[jacobyjd]

I find that if I cut the leads as short as possible, it gets awkward to mount the stuff into the box or make modifications. This in turn leads to sloppy soldering, mistakes and generally bad quality. So, I'll risk a tiny amount of extra noise in order to make things easy to work with.

Yeah, I initially ran into this problem as well--the way that works best for me is to mount the pots in the enclosure, then trim the off-board leads to length before I solder them onto the pots (I do one-off pedals for myself, so I don't always know how long leads need to be ahead of time).

The most you sacrifice with this method is some wire waste. Any of them that are long enough end up as breadboard jumpers

[Ben N]

Generally, the higher the gain, the bigger the issue. Josh, I don't get your point about sharp angles--ever see the inside of a Hiwatt (or one of Dragonfly's pedals)?

[kurtlives]

Generally, the higher the gain, the bigger the issue. Josh, I don't get your point about sharp angles--ever see the inside of a Hiwatt (or one of Dragonfly's pedals)?

I think the sharp angle statement was just implying not to bend solid core wire to hard as it might brake.

I have never had problems with solid core breaking but who knows...

[doug deeper]

dont have grounds going to more then one spot on the chassis (pot ground tabs what have you) just this reduces noise in a lot of builds.
i run a ground wire from my board, the power jack, the led, and any pots with grounds straight to the ground tab on the input jack.
(output may even be a little better! who knows!  )

[jacobyjd]

Generally, the higher the gain, the bigger the issue. Josh, I don't get your point about sharp angles--ever see the inside of a Hiwatt (or one of Dragonfly's pedals)?

I think the sharp angle statement was just implying not to bend solid core wire to hard as it might brake.

I have never had problems with solid core breaking but who knows...

That's exactly what I meant--if there's no need to stress the soft metal we use as wire, then don't. I you need to route it, squared-off bends aren't going to be your most durable bet.

[Paul Marossy]

Lead dress in pedals is mostly a concern with high gain pedals where some of the wires can have "crosstalk" and you get oscillation because of it.

[GibsonGM]

If you need to cross wires, cross them at right angles when possible...esp. power and signal wires!  Reduces the coupling...

[petemoore]

  Induction...how much, what happens to the unwanted signal after it's induced into the SP...is it amplified greatly or enough to produce noticable noise ?
  If you have a really 'live' wire, lots of AC current, and lots of other wire which has very low current...'transferring' a signal from one wire to another wire by induction...like a transformer does...then, if you can detect it, you have induction !
  The point at which this induced signal, amplified, turns up as unwanted noise, then lead dress may seem to be more important.

[cpnyc23]

Something that I've started doing recently has helped a lot in my builds... (this idea came from reading these boards).

When I cut my PCB, I make it about .25" larger than necessary on any side that has pads for off-board wiring.  Then, when I drill the board, I drill an extra hole next to each off-board pad (this hole is large enough for a 22 or 24 gauge wire to fit through).  When I connect the wires to the board, I feed it through the large whole and then connect it to its pad.  This provides strain relief for the wire and its connection on the board (especially useful if you use solid core wire).

I've found that lead dress in pedals is very important if not for sound quality then for organization.  It is much easier to troubleshoot a misbehaving pedal if you can easily follow the wires from their source to their destination.

-chris

PS  I am always looking for hints, tips and tricks from people about how to better layout the physical aspects of pedals, so lets keep this thread going!

[petemoore]

  Through the board offboard wiring is good IME, puts the wire next to the groundplane.
  Cross the sensative wire with the 'spiky' one...don't run the input wire down a path parallel to the wire with signal at high gain in it unless 'unwanted inductance is desired' [getting late, the double negatives are coming out ! lol].

[CodeMonk]

I find that if I cut the leads as short as possible, it gets awkward to mount the stuff into the box or make modifications. This in turn leads to sloppy soldering, mistakes and generally bad quality. So, I'll risk a tiny amount of extra noise in order to make things easy to work with.

Yeah, I initially ran into this problem as well--the way that works best for me is to mount the pots in the enclosure, then trim the off-board leads to length before I solder them onto the pots (I do one-off pedals for myself, so I don't always know how long leads need to be ahead of time).

The most you sacrifice with this method is some wire waste. Any of them that are long enough end up as breadboard jumpers

I'm the exact opposite on this issue.
If the way you dress your wires, makes it harder to build but improves the sound quality, then so be it.
When designing a PCB, I always try to make the off-board wiring connections on or near the edge of the board. This REALLY helps with the organization part of pedal building, IMO. If something or method has an effect on sound quality, then I go the way of better sound regardless of how much harder it makes it to build/maintain.

And as cpnyc23 says : "Then, when I drill the board, I drill an extra hole next to each off-board pad (this hole is large enough for a 22 or 24 gauge wire to fit through).  When I connect the wires to the board, I feed it through the large whole and then connect it to its pad.  This provides strain relief for the wire and its connection on the board (especially useful if you use solid core wire)."

[cpnyc23]

petemoore - a very good point that I will have to keep in mind going forward.

-chris