Effect Pedal building

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M Fowler
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Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

Hello everyone,

Since building pedals is cheaper then building amps I decided to get back to building pedals. Hoping to get some talk going regarding the subject. I know there are plenty of DIY pedal forums out there but I enjoy the company right here.

I ordered from a new vendor to me Pedal Parts Plus fron Anacoco, LA. They were fast to ship and I got everything I wanted from them.

Right now I have Dynacomp that needs to be built, a rangemaster, and tone bender. Finished up a kit from CED called the Thunder Drive Deluxe.

The pedal that pissed me off the most is a kit from Weber called the Texas Cattle Drive. I emailed Weber and got no response regarding the use of large Alpha pots verses the 16mm pots. I ordered two 250KA 16mm pots and installed them and still had trouble fitting the jacks and pots into the Weber enclosure. If they had designed this pedal properly they would have located the jacks away from pots. I finally got everything lined up to where the pots should not touch the jacks.

Well it would not be a project if one didn't have problems right?

In my search for similar problems I ran across the attached information.

Mark
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Bob S
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by Bob S »

I've also bought parts from Pedal Parts Plus - TW style knobs around 0.65 each if I remember correctly. Good pricing & fast delivery.
Last time they knocked $5.00 off the shipping too.
Hmm - pedals...
The sickness continues :lol:
Why Aye Man
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M Fowler
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

Hey Bob thanks for chiming in.

Years ago I would etch my own boards and had a lot of fun. I think I am going to get back into that again. My local Radio Shack has large bottles of etching solution in stock. I know there there are lots of kits out there that one could build as well and easier to go that route.

I picked up their cream TW style knobs for something different.

Mark
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martin manning
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by martin manning »

Mark, sounds like you are going through some of the classic FX pedals. I've done all the fuzzes except the Tone Bender, maybe I'll get to that one before too long.

Here is a Gibson Maestro Fuzz Tone I did a while back with a home-brew pcb. Slightly modernized, but it has the right stuff where it counts. For etchant I'm using hydrogen peroxide (drugstore 3%) and muriatic acid (as sold for cleaning masonary) mixed 2:1. Not as messy as ferric chloride, and dirt cheap. Lots of guys use Small Bear for parts; lots of pedal-specific components in one place.
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tele caster
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by tele caster »

Madbean has some great pcbs for sale and project ideas if you etch your own.
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/

I get parts from these guys. Shipping can be slow, but prices are great.
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/
Cliff Schecht
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by Cliff Schecht »

Great thread and great timing. I've been getting back into pedal building by resuscitating boards out of my PCB boneyard. So far I've rebuilt (you ready for this?): Three TS-808's, three wah pedals, three compressors, two flangers, the RF drive from my other thread, a DOD250/YJM308, remodified my Boss Blues Driver to sound good for a change, remodified my Boss Metalzone to sound better, built three power supplies for my pedals and refurbed my chorus/delay pedal. Also in the chorus delay pedal (built in a Russian BMP enclosure) I fit one of my flangers in the bottom so I now have a chorus/flanger/delay in one pedal. I'm sure there's more but that's a general idea.. And most of this has happened in the past 2 or so weeks :lol:

Martin I do have two Tonebender MkII's that are left over from a bulk build I did a few years ago. I sold a couple of them on forums and have both these and more boards left. You're welcome to try one of mine out or I can even send you one of my extra etched boards if are curious enough.

I like Steve and Small Bear, he's been growing that business since I started building pedals and offers a great service to us DIY guys (kinda like RJ here).

With that said I buy most of my parts from Mouser and other stuff (switches and enclosures) from whoever has them the cheapest.
Cliff Schecht - Circuit P.I.
ampgeek
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by ampgeek »

LOL. Me too! Building pedals always gets that "soldering monkey" off of my back for little coin.

I can't speak highly enough about General Guitar Gadgets kits. I have built the majority of their offerings and never once had an issue of any type.

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/home

I am starting to branch out and just joined the Madbean forum earlier in the month. Haven't bought anything as of yet but am seeing a lot of interesting items there as well. Seems like a friendly and informative forum just like we all enjoy here.

Cheers,
Dave O.
Cliff Schecht
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by Cliff Schecht »

Also my two favorite websites for layouts are www.tonepad.com and www.generalguitargadgets.com (both offer schematics and layouts for many popular pedals). Tonepad has a nice selection of everything and IMO some of the best boards if you are etching your own but still want the smallest board possible. Generalguitargadgets layouts aren't nearly as professional but IME are a bit easier to etch at home (wider traces, fatter solder pads) at the expense of a physically larger board.

Also etching PCB's is incredibly easy once you get the process down. The hard part is securing a laser printer that is capable of spitting out PnP Blue sheets. The rest is just screwing up a few boards while you learn your equipment/setup.
Cliff Schecht - Circuit P.I.
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M Fowler
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

I have shopped at Small Bear and General Guitar Gagets too.

I might go with the April specials on General website and check out BYOC specials.

I bought two YY enclosures from http://www.pedalenclosures.com/Products ... fault.aspx

Having some fun. Martin your pedal looks great. I need to improve on my work. :)

Mark
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martin manning
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by martin manning »

Cliff, thanks for the offer. It's kind of low on the list right now, but I'll remember you when it comes up!

Mark, thanks! I have done a couple of GGG things too, an MXR Microamp, and a Russian Big Muff. Both very good and the Muff has become my lad's go-to distortion pedal lately. Lots of fun for sure.
wicker
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by wicker »

I've built myself RF Drive (aka Robben Ford Drive) which was supposed to be kind of D in a box. In fact it was just Zen with diode clipping, I must say that it didn't sound good to me, it had nothing to with smooth tone I was after, so I have modified it and now it sounds good, however, nom I'm looking to built a rack preamp with clean using tube a drive using silicon, might be intresting.
Paul
RevD
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by RevD »

On the weber pedal, maybe it should have been called the one cow cattle drive... (as in couldn't lead a one cow cattle drive)....

I like building pedals, I always have problems with trying to get my big fingers in the way and never seem to have enough space.

I've tried making my own PCB's a few times and they worked, sure weren't pretty. I think next time I'll try the iron on a laser printed circuit onto the copper clad. I really want to try one of those uni-vibe clones next time I get into pedals. I've heard a few that sound quite good despite the funky light bulb/light varistor in a sealed film canister/folded aluminum box whatever it is.. Runoffgroove used to have that uni-vib listed, don't know if they still do I think the uni-vibe when its right is one of the coolest effects there is (Hendrix appreciation coming out here)..

I did find that if you laser print a circuit using the darkest setting so it lays down lots of toner, you can use plain white paper and just iron it on and then soak off the paper. I had prepared a board to do the univibe that way but never got around to etching it. It looked quite good though, I also didn't have the scale right so the board was much larger than it needed to be, but I'll use that method again in the future, I'm pretty confident it'll work just fine without the need for special paper.

Regards,

Don

Ps: Those YY enclosures are awesome, maybe even make my pedals look like something good instead of some jr high electronics project looking...
surfsup
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by surfsup »

Mark did you ever build this one? Just curious...

http://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14365
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SoundPerf
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by SoundPerf »

Wow, I missed this thread. I've been doing a bunch of pedals and pedal related building lately. I just started doing my own boards. I find the positive presensitized boards the best. As far as getting the image on the board, this works great with either a laser or inkjet printer. I've been getting sharp traces.
http://www.texascraft.com/hps/product.p ... 251&page=1

I'm in the midst of designing and building remote switching systems using these chips. I'm making few for some guitarist locally. I have yet to get mine completely finished yet. :roll: So far everything is working great. (usingMV-57 & MV-62 along with the MV-58 master control board)
www.pedalsync.com

Here's my Univibe I built. I have gut shots somewhere but can't find them right now. I actually have someone asking me to build one for them right now.
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Chris
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M Fowler
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Re: Effect Pedal building

Post by M Fowler »

surfsup wrote:Mark did you ever build this one? Just curious...

http://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14365
No I didn't build the Spark Plug pedal but I built a crude home brew 12AX7 pedal, very poor build. :)

Fun reading all the posts :)

SoundPerf nice pedal.

Mark
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