PCB mounted Jacks and Foot Switches - yay or nay.

[Greg]

The way I see it as someone who comes from a mechanical background:
if a jack or switch comes loose, in most cases the user would notice it and tighten it before it fell in.
Once tightened, it's not going to be in the same position as it was when soldered to the board, so the board, and more importantly, the solder joint and tracks.. are now under stress.

Over the course of a lifetime the loosening/tightening process can take place many times.
Each time, one jack twisted one way, one the other.. while the switch gets moves up or down.

[Seishin]

Well said Brian. Our infancy failure rate has dropped from 10-20 in 100 to 1 in 1000. Actually with this build method we're able to test at a pedal's "embryonic" stage. A fully populated board is play tested before it is even stuffed into the box. Wires require a certain degree of skilled craftsmanship, though everybody who works here is capable, NONE of us really wants to play with wires all day. This method allows very little room for human error, thus we can train a new person really quickly as we did the last week when my younger brother came to work here. Thus freeing all of our time up to dedicate more focus on improving our CS, our website, and product development. It's about making work easier, more efficient, and at a higher consistency.

Your gripe seems to be a lot less about reliability than it is about how much of a pain it would be to fix. That's where the old way vs new way came from. Sorry if i was not clear. I think building stuff this way probably decreases infancy failure rate a lot... especially for a growing company. I know for us, it is getting harder and harder to make pedals the way we do... I have one guy that does all the final assembly, and wire work. That's basically all he does. It requires a lot more time to familiarize someone with building a product that way... And the worst part is, as the owner, I always find my self scrutinizing the finest details, saying "well i would have done it this way." Not that his way isn't just as good... but it's not my way. I'd hate to think of what it would be like if i had 10 guys doing that same job... or even worse, if the current guy quit. he was sort of eased in to it as the company grew, and he had plenty of electronics experience. (He still does repair work on the side) Having someone else do that job now would basically be a huge pain, and would probably lead to a few unreliable pedals slipping out the door.

[madbean]

Actually with this build method we're able to test at a pedal's "embryonic" stage. A fully populated board is play tested before it is even stuffed into the box. Wires require a certain degree of skilled craftsmanship, though everybody who works here is capable, NONE of us really wants to play with wires all day.

Bingo.

Great topic.

[Seishin]

Got ya. Non-US customers generally buy through one of our partners overseas, distro or retailer. These partners often have extra on hand and will swap if need be, then I ship our partners a replacement for their inventory. Or they hit me up on Skype and ask me to send a replacement ASAP... We really make an effort to make this as painless as possible to the player. Our fulfillment processes are by no means perfect, but they are constantly being improved!

Sure, I understand your decision from a production point of view.. and you can't be fairer than a lifetime warranty.. although I suspect that non-US customers may see that as less useful.

[Greg]

Got ya. Non-US customers generally buy through one of our partners overseas, distro or retailer. These partners often have extra on hand and will swap if need be, then I ship our partners a replacement for their inventory. Or they hit me up on Skype and ask me to send a replacement ASAP... We really make an effort to make this as painless as possible to the player. Our fulfillment processes are by no means perfect, but they are constantly being improved!

Great policy.. and the bonus is you get to analyse any failures and you'll know what does cause any comebacks..

[earthtonesaudio]

A lot of these issues could be solved (or further complicated!) by using flexible circuit boards. I think they might be a bit more expensive though...

[Dirk_Hendrik]

For me the matter has never been on the good or bad of PCB mounted jacks and switches. I never had any problem with that, provided they do have a good mechanical strain relief. When nuts and bolts come loose it's a different situation because that strain relief is gone. I see little difference there with offboard mounten components which are, in that situation, just as prone to failure.

In this quote (no flame intended) I therefore miss one essential remark;

A friend of mine who's been in the repair industry for around 4 decades says most the repairs he's had to make to pedals, by far, were a result of board mounted jacks.

Did these jacks have a mechanical strain relief? In the case if, as an example, Ibanez master, 5 and 10-series I see broken solderjoints and cracked traces all the time for the signal and DC jacks. Why? Because the relief is on the joints. When one looks at the newer tonelocks one will find that all these mechanical problems have been captured, including the board mounted DC connector.

[Dirk_Hendrik]

you're right - I've not seen anything lodged in flux in the 20 years I've been doing this stuff pro. I've seen lots of little bits of wire rolling around in things though causing problems. The flux in stuff I use get's hard in a few seconds, and you can chip it off. It's not sticky, and i can't see how things can get stuck to it. I've never seen it happen.

You've got the right to your opinion though, and I'll never say you're wrong for it. It does look better when cleaned off, and for certain types of flux you must clean it off.

Paul,
You're aware that many in the pedalbiz, either as DIY-er or as sudden pro, not even have a clue what flux is?

(other than the stuff that Marty puts in his Flux capacitor)

[Greg]

For me the matter has never been on the good or bad of PCB mounted jacks and switches. I never had any problem with that, provided they do have a good mechanical strain relief. When nuts and bolts come loose it's a different situation because that strain relief is gone. I see little difference there with offboard mounten components which are, in that situation, just as prone to failure.

In this quote (no flame intended) I therefore miss one essential remark;

A friend of mine who's been in the repair industry for around 4 decades says most the repairs he's had to make to pedals, by far, were a result of board mounted jacks.

Did these jacks have a mechanical strain relief? In the case if, as an example, Ibanez master, 5 and 10-series I see broken solderjoints and cracked traces all the time for the signal and DC jacks. Why? Because the relief is on the joints. When one looks at the newer tonelocks one will find that all these mechanical problems have been captured, including the board mounted DC connector.

Some valid points Dirk for sure.
You can certainly make pcb mounted hardware more reliable if you use the right hardware in the proper manner, and if it never comes loose or never needs to be disassembled, it should last a long time.

The difference between off board mounted parts and on board, when they come loose, is that loose on board parts can damage the board, lift and break tracks etc.

Some interesting commentary from RG here (near the bottom of the page) in which he seems to concur, especially about board mounted jacks:-
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/ ... #msg627397

[Dinosaur]

Did these jacks have a mechanical strain relief? In the case if, as an example, Ibanez master, 5 and 10-series I see broken solderjoints and cracked traces all the time for the signal and DC jacks. Why? Because the relief is on the joints. When one looks at the newer tonelocks one will find that all these mechanical problems have been captured, including the board mounted DC connector.

Boss pedals are unbreakable - right? In the 80s I was repairing a lot of musical gear, and I learned that Boss pedals are really well made and super reliable until .... the nuts on the jack sockets came loose and the solder joints on the PCB were taking the full stress of keeping the jacks located. I repaired many Boss pedals where the jacks had ripped tracks from the PCB.

For those of us who are into the practical side of electronics, it's normal to tighten the jack nut if it comes loose. The average musician won't notice it until the pedal stops working. When the nut loosens on jacks that are connected to the PCB by flexible wires, the jack will eventually fall inside the case when the nut falls off, but there will be no damage to the PCB, and the problem will take a few minutes to fix.

The DC sockets on Boss pedals just sat in a slot in the case and were regularly found to break solder joints and PCB tracks.