[Cruisin Marine]

Okay, I have come up with a plan, which I would like to run past you all. I will buy a blank PCB, the copper side of which will make up my ground plane (hope that's spelled correctly). I feel like with all the advice you have given to me so far, the dead bug method may be the best way for me to prototype the layout. I thought perhaps I could build the final version on the Fibreglass side of a PCB blank for a more rugged construction, drilling through for the ground connections to be soldered to our copper ground plane.
So what do you chaps think? Viable plan? Or off my rocker?
Cheers from Bill.


Hi Bill,
In my eyes a no. It will make your life very difficult and lead to no flexibility at all, and unnecessary , if it is all on the copper plane, you can move things about as you wish EASILY.
I however get your drift, but I would jump from copper plane prototype to PCB design.

If it was me, I would have the basic work on one board and the individual EQ sections on another board connected with thin colour coded wires, or coloured ribbon cable would be better, the complexity of the design may drive you nuts otherwise, your EQ unit is not an easy undertaking at any skill level.

The first stage for me would be to place all chips etc. on some graph paper and play about with the positioning until it all starts to look and feel right. This is essentially what you would do with PCB design anyway, but much more intuitive to the eye and brain.
The key is patience, patience and yet more patience.

Everyone has different ways to approach this, it is all down to what works for you.