Construction - all PCB mounted or wire to board ?

Danny1969

Whats the wisdom of the guys who manufacture things on here on a regular basis regarding mounting everything on the board or flying to the pots and sockets using Molex headers or similar ? 

In my particular design I can see mounting everything on the PCB would be amazingly quick but could it be 100% reliable over years of inserting XLR \ DC \ Jack and other sockets ? At the moment I'm making 8 way Molex header connectors to go from said pots and sockets to board but it is time consuming 

martinw

Danny1969 said:

...... but could it be 100% reliable over years of inserting XLR \ DC \ Jack and other sockets ?

Not in my experience of repairing amps. Not only does the component itself wear out/fail, but the solder joint at the PCB is prone to failing, no matter how well secured the socket might be to the chassis. (Although good quality boards and soldering will help hugely here).

Admittedly, some might last for 10 years or more before failing, and be a relatively quick and easy repair, but you did say 100%!

OTOH if it's a small PCB and easy to remove, it might not be more of a job than replacing the component on its own anyway. And if you're making bespoke 'harnesses' attached to the socket, any repairer would have to transfer that over, meaning more time.

Personally if I was going down this route, I'd want to make getting the PCB out a quickish job, make the PCB double-sided/through-plated, with good strong solder joints, and have as many components attached to it as possible/sensible.

ICBM

I agree with martinw.

Neither method is absolutely 100% reliable. As he said, PCB-mounted jacks and pots can eventually crack their joints even if very firmly chassis-mounted - nothing is ever absolutely rigid, and the force when you tug a lead sideways can be huge - but a really good-quality through-plated board tends to resist damage much better.

Those Molex-type jumper connectors are a pain in the backside for failing too - it's often where the wire is crimped into the contact that fails, rather than between the contact and the pin in the PCB part. They can also crack their solder joints too, on single-sided boards.

Of the two I would say a single PCB is slightly better *if* it's a high-quality through-plated one. But on the other hand it also makes changing a broken component harder if you ever have to - often you have to carefully destroy the component first to avoid board damage, which is time-consuming.

I have to say I do also like the tidiness of a single PCB with everything on it and no wires anywhere, but that's probably just my OCD .