# Test Box (BUILD ONE NOW)



## Nostradoomus (Nov 18, 2019)

My old test rig has run its course and I had this flimsy enclosure kicking around so I ordered up a few speaker terminals and a 3pdt toggle and went to town.

It’s bar none the easiest thing you can cobble together that will also be one of the most useful things on your bench.









All there is to it is wiring up an enclosure just like you would any other project, but instead of connecting your PCB board 9V, GROUND, IN and OUT to a board you wire them to a designated terminal. Now in order to test any board before it gets put in a box you attach the leads from your freshly minted PCB into the terminals and you’re good to go.





I find this incredibly useful as a circuit auditioner as well. And you can narrow down your troubleshooting to just your offboard wiring if something goes wrong after this stage.


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## Nostradoomus (Nov 18, 2019)

And for whatever reason imgbb decided to rotate my pictures 90 degrees...so I guess tilt your head if you want to see them the way I intended you to


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## ChrisSchwarzkopf (Nov 18, 2019)

Awesome!!!!!


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## Mourguitars (Nov 18, 2019)

Looks great and a fantastic idea Nostradoomus !

Mike


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## Barry (Nov 18, 2019)

Cool


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## Jovi Bon Kenobi (Nov 24, 2019)

I just finished building a test box. Is there a test box I can build to test my test box? Jk. But I do have a question...
I have a board all done and long wires coming out of all it's offboard pads. Where do they go in the "V,G,I,O" speaker terminals?


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## Jovi Bon Kenobi (Nov 24, 2019)

I think I figured it out except for which speaker terminal the "sw" wire from the board goes into.

- 3 ground wires from the north end of the board go to the "ground" speaker terminal.

- The "+" from the north end of the board goes to the "V" speaker terminal.

- The "in/out" wires from the south end of the board go to their respective "i/o" speaker terminals.

- The "gnd" wire from the south end of the board goes to the "ground" speaker terminal.

- the "sw" wire from the south end of the board goes to which speaker terminal?


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## Jovi Bon Kenobi (Nov 24, 2019)




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## Nostradoomus (Nov 24, 2019)

It’s not necessary to use SW when testing. Or all the grounds...usually all i wire up is the top 9V and G and the bottom IN and OUT.


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## Jovi Bon Kenobi (Nov 24, 2019)

Ah! Makes sense about the ground wires. Don't need all 4 into one terminal. Doy. Ok then my test box works. Thanks a mil!


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## Jovi Bon Kenobi (Nov 24, 2019)

Now that I know it works I decided to label it. Heehee.
It has a switchable audio probe as well. I built it from the tutorial _HERE_ 




I also highly recommend building one. I can't believe I've gone as long as I have without it.


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## Nostradoomus (Nov 24, 2019)

Nice one bud!


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## chongmagic (Nov 26, 2019)

I use this: https://www.delykpcb.com/product/effects-tester-mk-ii-pcb/

This board simplifies the testing process.  Instead of having to use a breadboard, breakout box, or putting it all in an enclosure, just plug in your guitar, amp, and DC power.  Then hook up four wires to your effects board (9V, GND, IN, and OUT).  Now you’re ready to test.
It also allows for a trimpot to help you decide on the brightness of your LED.  Once you find the brightness you like, use the tester pads with your DMM to determine the resistance.
The Mark II now includes the ability to add an audio probe, charge pump allowing -9V and 18V, and a frequency generator.

Just need to make a box for it at some point lol


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## phi1 (Nov 26, 2019)

Here's my contribution.  Been using this for a few years, just a plastic tayda box.  All the grounds (black clips) are connected internally, so you only need to connect one to the pcb being tested, but I like having the others for experimenting with clipping diodes or filters.

The 2 white power jacks are just directly connected together, so I plug power input into one, and the gator clips into the other.

The coarse (50k) and fine (10k) pots for testing the LED resistor are really handy.  The pots as well as a 1k resistor are wired in series so the total resistance is the sum.  You can stick the LED into the socket, and the other side of the socket is like test pads to measure the total R.  However, since I have the pots marked up, I can see the resistance and never end up using those test pads.


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## Blooze (Nov 27, 2019)

Jovi Bon Kenobi said:


> It has a switchable audio probe as well. I built it from the tutorial _HERE_
> I also highly recommend building one. I can't believe I've gone as long as I have without it.



Thanks for the link. Here’s mine I cobbled together last night out of spare stuff laying around. Not as nice as yours and the wiring is a jumble. I have a mini-Klon I need to debug when I get some time this weekend. I’m going to run my old CD player into it and listen through headphones on my 15 year old CMoy amp. Hopefully it works like it’s supposed to.


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