looking for ideas for wiring test bench

[bluesman13]

Hi all,

I'm new to wiring, soldering, etc, but I'm interested in setting up a strat wiring test bench. By that I mean having a mock strat setup with output jack, pots, pickups and a selector switch so that I can try different wirings. On stew mac, they sell a "wiring jig" (see attached photo) that may fill the bill, but I envision a test pickguard with pickups, pots and a selector switch connected by test leads so I can try different wirings without having to re-solder everything - also n output jack so that can plug it in and see if the wiring is doing what I want. I'm curious what you have used or use if you do these sorts of things? One thought I had has to do with grounding safety - any issues there? Thank you to all of you for your input...

[ozboomer]

Depending how 'feral' y'want to get, it might be worthwhile to set-up a 'loom' where you have a board of some sort where you bring out the leads from each component into a series of terminators... and then you can use jumper leads/connectors to make the relevant connections.

I did something similar with a small breadboard some years ago:-

HTH

[stevewf]

Test bench? Yay!

1) One method I've used with Start-style guitars is to sacrifice a junky pickguard. I cut it into two pieces. One piece has the controls only, and the other pice the pickups only. That way, I can leave the pickups under the strings and fiddle with the controls separately.

The pickup pice gets held in place on the guitar with its normal screws*. The control piece gets taped on (extra-) temporarily. Sometimes the control piece gets moved entirely to the bench (along with a temp output jack), with long pickup leads attaching the guitar to the external assembly. While this introduces lots of hum (and undoubtedly some loss of highs due to the added capacitance), it enables me to do the basic testing.

I keep those pieces and use them for later Strat projects, too. Added feature: the control piece can be used for positioning components for soldering, since the controls are all mounted on it.

*I buy all my pick guards at one place, in order to improve the odds that I always have the same mounting hole pattern. Talking about the holes for mounting the pickguard itself to the guitar body. If necessary, I re-drill the guitar body to accommodate my new "standard" hole pattern. Re-drilling can be tedious, which is why I try to get a standard hole pattern that doesn't change between different pickguards. I've had good results with pickguards from stratosphereparts.com, good in terms of consistent hole pattern and general quality (though I have no idea if the holes match Fender's pattern).

2) Another method I've used - what I've named the Ash Lab - also depends on the pickups being held in position in the guitar body, with long leads to a little external box, where I mount the controls on a little panel. There's another panel on the box that has a few breadboard sections and an interface for the long pickup leads. That way I can quickly change the wiring scheme in a test bed, without having to pull the controls out from under the strings. I can test different capacitor values, etc.

3) Comment on the wooden template thingies: You could easily make one like that out of cardboard by tracing hole patterns from the real pickguard. The wooden LP template didn't help with wiring the output jack, but my cardboard version did. Also, the wooden one didn't have the right spacing for the LP selector switch. There might be similar limitations with the Strat version. Cardboard!

[ozboomer]

May 27, 2023 20:55:55 GMT -5 stevewf said:

...the Ash Lab - also depends on the pickups being held in position in the guitar body, with long leads to a little external box, where I mount the controls on a little panel.

Fanx! for the realization of the idea I was trying to explain..

When I was doing all my experimenting, I should've remembered my old '10-in-1' (upgraded to 65-in-1) electronics kits - Hmm.. even better with the spring clips, eh?

... You could easily make one like that out of cardboard by tracing hole patterns from the real pickguard.

..and y'got in before I could. Sooo many times, I've used pickguards made out of cornflake packets ...particularly as I'm continuing to (partly) work on my (fanciful) Strat-with-Jazzmaster-pickups project

[bluesman13]

great! thanks for ozboomer and stevewf for great ideas. I really like the plastic basket with the holes for the pots and output jack. this is what I've got going right now. Clearly I've got some organizing to do :-) Steve (no, the picture is not reversed).

[stevewf]

May 27, 2023 21:26:14 GMT -5 ozboomer said:

...and y'got in before I could. Sooo many times, I've used pickguards made out of cornflake packets

Cornflakes? Ridiculous.

Mine have been Raisin Bran. Cornflakes, imagine! 

[stevewf]

More seriously:

Envious for the dedicated work area. Me, I gotta pull everything out of storage totes, set up on the table, do the job and slough (to use Carnie jargon for "close up, pack up and cart out quick").

Some items to consider adding:
- solder smoke extraction/filtering
- Quad Hands holder. I love mine much more than the 'helping hands' I have like the one in the photo. Much more easily posed, the hands don't fall off, and with the tip cushions in place, it can hold pickguards, etc. Doesn't have as much "bounce back" as the beaded plastic arms I tried. Not perfect in that respect, but the Quad Hands is the best I've used.
- tiny little amp or a headphone/jack adapter, if only for tap testing.
- handy trash receptacle for those bits of wire and insulation, lest they end up in the carpet or socks.

[bluesman13]

thanks for the idea of the solder vent - my GF was saying that I should be careful, but one day I was feeling really bad after soldering for a while - I was thinking that I kinda of liked the smell of the solder yikes. Now I know better, I wear a mask and turn on the ceiling fan, but that's probably not enough...any ideas on which one to get? I just got the helping hands and it is difficult to use - it doesn't seem to turn the right way, and the alligator clips are cheap and they fall out...I'll check out the quad hands - where did you buy yours? 

sorry, no raisin bran or corn flakes for me - captain crunch! :-) Steve

Like this? (it looks like that marvel villian - what's his name Dr. Octopus?

[stevewf]

Yes that's the brand. I got mine direct from their web site. While I didn't get the one in the photo, I did get one that has two pairs of arms: long and short. I use the longs ones most. I freely remove/replace the grip pads (not present in photo).

I don't use mine like the photo, where the workpiece is held up high. I use one arm to hold a wire and another (or more) to hold the workpiece in place while I solder, all down low near the table. The QuadHands clips can be freely rotated on the end of the arms and then locked in that rotative orientation. The motion I'm talking about is like flipping a hand from palm down to palm up, or in between, without moving your arm. I think the free rotation plus locking is part of why they don't fall off - you never have to force them into position/orientation. The thing was more expensive than the little helping hands, but every time I get it out, I smile.

All the while, a little USB-powered fan is pulling smoke away from my face. I have to admit that I don't filter the smoke, I just keep it out of my eyes. Is it only me whose eyes seem to attract flux smoke? I doubt it; convection. There do exist fan/filter units; I've just never shopped them.

[kitwn]

That Quad Hands looks brilliant. I want one!

The fumes from solder flux can cause asthma and you risk becoming sensitised to them by repeated exposure. Look after your lungs, getting a replacement set can be very expensive.

Kit

[bluesman13]

yes, you're right about the fumes -lead poisoning is a real thing.  I took a glance at solder fume vents - several hundred dollars for one...

[ozboomer]

May 29, 2023 0:39:26 GMT -5 bluesman13 said:

yes, you're right about the fumes -lead poisoning is a real thing.  I took a glance at solder fume vents - several hundred dollars for one...

Unsure about the 'strength' of those 'gooseneck' things... but even if you otherwise set-up a couple of G/C-Clamps with a piece of dowel, you could easily mount a smallish funnel so it's 'bell' is 'pointing' to the work.. and its outlet could be hooked into a vacuum cleaner/Dustbuster with a couple of garden hose fittings and it would take away most of the fumes without a huge risk of causing dry joints and such...

[kitwn]

May 29, 2023 0:39:26 GMT -5 bluesman13 said:

yes, you're right about the fumes -lead poisoning is a real thing.  I took a glance at solder fume vents - several hundred dollars for one...

I don't think you get fumes from the lead, it's the resin flux embedded in the solder that is the key danger, though you should wash your hands after handling the solder. Professional fume vents are expensive but any fan that dissipates the smoke is going to be a big help as long as the room you're in is reasonably well ventilated. Ozboomer's idea about using a vacuum cleaner should work, you could even make a collection hood out of cardboard and gaffer tape. It doesn't have to look good to work. How much care you should reasonably take is largely dependant on how much soldering you plan to do and how often.

[stevewf]

ozboomer said:

Unsure about the 'strength' of those 'gooseneck' things... 

Good Question. [edit: Was it a question? <== That's a question, right? [edit edit: <==so's that!]]

So I set up a lab, got a few hundred sample QuadHand goosenecks and did an official test.

Not really. Instead, I grabbed the nearest object - my USB-powered smoke fan - pinched it in the QuadHands, extended it out horizontally and noticed that the gooseneck barely drooped. Then I grabbed the other QH and it very much drooped. I guess that means the fan's weight is about at the limit of what a QH gooseneck can be expected to hold up when extended horizontally. Then I weighed the item on a kitchen scale: 144grams.

At the risk of hijacking the thread, I'll go on a little bit.

I've learned to use little pedestals in addition to the QH. Like a 4-inch length of 2x4 lumber. The subject rests on top of the lumber and the QH stabilizes it. Another QH holds a wire.

Another QuadHands trick I've learned is to tilt the metal base. That's because there's a limit to haw far the gooseneck can bend. Since I like my subject to be down at the table, or maybe on a small pedestal, that means the gooseneck has to reach and bend at just about that limit. Tilting the base extends the bend-reach.

Last tidbit: it came with little documentation, so I had to figure out how to use the jam nuts that hold the "palm" rotation in place. Once I got that, I really liked them, much more than the little standard Helping Hands rig I had (whose cast iron base has now stripped, letting the knurled steel shaft pivot too freely.