SteveF's Pedal Building Journey

SteveF

Cheers Phil. Got the insides of the other two to build first, then I’ll do some more ET

SteveF

The switching works!  I added a 3.5mm mono jack socket from bits box it operates perfectly as I wanted.  If you have nothing plugged in, the pedal works as per normal.  If you plug a cable with a 3.5mm TS or TRS plug on the end, you can use the TS to switch from a remote switch, e.g. an amp footswitch (with an adaptor) or a control out from a pedal switcher or helix etc.  You have to ensure the main pedal footswitch is on though.  The benefit of this (took me a while to work out why he wanted it) is that you can have more than one pedal in the same loop in a switcher and then be able to remotely turn off or on the loop itself with the switcher AND the individual pedals using the control out, enabling them to be individually switched with a preset. 

Got this finished off this morning.  It's a Ross compressor. 





Don't like having the diode standing like that (top right) but I forgot about adding one in for reverse polarity protection until late on.  These Schottky diodes have fairly thick leads and seem quite robust, so I'm sure it will be fine.  I insulated the inside of the pedal baseplate just incase that lead would have shorted against the casing. 





Learnt a couple of lessons today.  First, I should probably measure how big the Vero is going to be when complete before I do the hardware layout in future!  This very nearly didn't fit and would have been a wasted enclosure.  In the end I was lucky that I could snip the corners and the top edge (which was from the edge of a larger Vero board) off with some sharp cutters without affecting the circuit.  I did have to move the ground cable from the bottom left to further along the ground rail.   As I go along, I will probably end up working out a standard layout for the jacks and switch to maximise the space for the board.  Unfortunately, the case I have made for the Klone isn't going to fit.  This was 18x18 and the Klone is 21x24 so the jacks would be in the way.  Not to worry - The case looks great and I will just use it for another 3 knob overdrive with a smaller footprint.  I'll knock up another enclosure for the Klone but I will probably build it first and see how tight it would be in a 1590B - tagboardeffects reckons it will fit, but if it's too tight, wiring it in will be a ball ache, so I may just put it in a BB and be done with it. 

Secondly, now that I have pots with the insulating covers and add something to hold the board to the back of them, it adds a couple of mm to the height.  This JUST fit, but I didn't have any leeway at all. I did use Command picture strips that I had lying around to stick to the back of the pots and they are probably thicker than standard velcro, but something to bear in mind in future. 







Really happy with this.  I think I may even make one for myself. 

Philtre

Nice work! Each pedal you make is better than the last one. :-)

You can take the plastic covers off the pots if you need a couple more mm height.

Octafish

Looking good there, tight fit! I kind of get a kick out of trying to cram as much into a small enclosure as possible . I often put my veros in upside down (solder side up). You lose the view of all the components, but I find it more space efficient.

This is a vico vibe (great sounding trem, but not enough output) solder side up into which l managed to squeeze minibomb boost circuit (to left with trimmer) all in a 1590A box....

https://i.imgur.com/0Y0Np7T.jpg

Philtre

I often put my veros in upside down (solder side up).

Good idea!

SteveF

@Philtre @Adam_MD I'm building another one of these for a mate.  I don't have a couple of the parts in the values as per the layout (150n polybox cap and 390 ohm R).  

For the resistor I should be ok putting a 330 ohm and 47 ohm in series to give me 377 ohm which should be close enough.  

For the cap, could I substitute a 100n or 220n, which are the closest two values I have, or should I just wait and order the correct value?  Any idea what effect it will have?  It seems to be connected from the ground rail to Tone pot lug 1, the bottom right pin (8?) on the IC and via a 1K resistor to Drive 1. 

Cheers

SteveF

Ah, been reading up online and seems that caps in parallel behave like resistors in series (in terms of value). So if I chuck a 47nF in parallel with my 100nF, giving me 147nF, that should be close enough. (Not sure what the tolerance on caps is?)

Philtre

Looking at the schematic, the 390R ohm resistor is coming after the 9V + supply as part of the 47uF cap filter. I would think 330R ohm would be fine, but as you say, if you want you can add another in series to up it a bit. I don't think it will matter in this case.

The 150nF cap connects from the resistor from the output of the first stage of the opamp so you should be OK. Certainly combining two in parallel would get you in the right ball park.

I think it will be fine.

Lately I've been experimenting with different values of caps and add in pots at strategic points to vary the resistance on caps. Sometimes it makes hardly any difference, or it's a difference of taste.

SteveF

Cheers Phil.  I also don't have a 5k linear (or otherwise) pot for the tone control.  I have a 10k linear, presumably, this will just make the usual tonal sweep squash into the second half of the pot travel and the first half will give a darker tone?

stickyfiddle

@SteveF I've only just found this thread for some reason, but 200+ posts in and loving it. 

For wahs, I got a cheapie Carlbro (Carlsboro?) thing off ebay a few years ago. It's basically a crybaby shell but chrome and only cost about 20 quid so I was quite happy if it got buggered, and the innards were shit anyway so no loss to the future vintage market!

I put a BYOC board in mine, and drilled for external 9V plus an LED. It's fantastic ally flexible with trimpots for 5 things I can't remember - volume, Q, bass/mid/treble, maybe?? And seeing that second photo again reminds me there's a spare slot for a switchable second inductor. Maybe that's my next project..  

Philtre

SteveF said:

Cheers Phil.  I also don't have a 5k linear (or otherwise) pot for the tone control.  I have a 10k linear, presumably, this will just make the usual tonal sweep squash into the second half of the pot travel and the first half will give a darker tone?

I think you can strap a 10k resistor across the outer lugs of the pot to halve the resistance?

SteveF

stickyfiddle said:

@SteveF I've only just found this thread for some reason, but 200+ posts in and loving it. 

For wahs, I got a cheapie Carlbro (Carlsboro?) thing off ebay a few years ago. It's basically a crybaby shell but chrome and only cost about 20 quid so I was quite happy if it got buggered, and the innards were shit anyway so no loss to the future vintage market!

I put a BYOC board in mine, and drilled for external 9V plus an LED. It's fantastic ally flexible with trimpots for 5 things I can't remember - volume, Q, bass/mid/treble, maybe?? And seeing that second photo again reminds me there's a spare slot for a switchable second inductor. Maybe that's my next project..  

That looks great - grabbing a cheap/knackered wah to steal the case sounds like a plan  

SteveF

Philtre said:

SteveF said:

Cheers Phil.  I also don't have a 5k linear (or otherwise) pot for the tone control.  I have a 10k linear, presumably, this will just make the usual tonal sweep squash into the second half of the pot travel and the first half will give a darker tone?

I think you can strap a 10k resistor across the outer lugs of the pot to halve the resistance?

Ah, didn't think of that.  Would that do anything funny to the taper?  Presumably at full resistance, it's just 2 10k resistors in parallel, but at halfway wouldn't it be a 10 and a 5 in parallel so (10x5)/(10+5) = 3.3k rather than 5

SteveF

So got this one finished today.  I had intended to put a Klone in this enclosure, but failed to look at the layout first and hadn't realised that the Klon's circuit is massive.  Consequently, I put the switch and jacks too far up the enclosure to have a chance of fitting them in.  In the end, I decided to make another Lovepedal Eternity burst clone, as my first one sounded excellent and this was for a mate's birthday.  I'll still tackle the Klone, but at 21x24 Vero, I'm not sure if I will need to chuck it in a BB.

Very happy with this one, getting neater each time I build.  I've discovered that using @Philtre 's blu tack trick to solder is really helpful and when doing the off board wiring, using the same blob to stick the board upside down just above the enclosure (see below) means you can wire to the pots easily, with minimal length of wire and just flip the board down to mount it on the pots.

Again, the 3.5mm jack socket is in series with the ground from the power supply to enable remote switching from the ctrl out of a pedal switcher.  

This one also threw up a couple of challenges where I didn't have the right component values.  I was able to chuck a couple of polybox caps in parallel and a couple of resistors in series to get me close enough, but it is challenging to squeeze them in neatly when all these circuits are designed to be as small as possible. 

SteveF

Ended up having to rebuild the board on the compressor too. I think I knackered something when chopping bits off the edges of the board to make it fit.  I cut the Vero to size this time and carefully filed out notches for the corners of the enclosure as well as filing down all the sides as close as possible to the outer tracks.  Fits a lot better now and works.  Salvaged the transistors (cheers for the socketing tip Phil!) and IC from the original board so not too costly a mistake. 

Philtre

SteveF said:

Philtre said:

SteveF said:

Cheers Phil.  I also don't have a 5k linear (or otherwise) pot for the tone control.  I have a 10k linear, presumably, this will just make the usual tonal sweep squash into the second half of the pot travel and the first half will give a darker tone?

I think you can strap a 10k resistor across the outer lugs of the pot to halve the resistance?

Ah, didn't think of that.  Would that do anything funny to the taper?  Presumably at full resistance, it's just 2 10k resistors in parallel, but at halfway wouldn't it be a 10 and a 5 in parallel so (10x5)/(10+5) = 3.3k rather than 5

Good point. Does this help? https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=90931.0

SteveF

Yes! Thanks. That makes sense. Nice and simply the lower you make the effective value of the pot the more you weight the sweep to the beginning of the travel. 

Separate question then, if a tone pot is supposed to be 5k but you use 10k does it actually make the second half of the travel essentially the same as the original tone pot. Therefore the first half from 12 o clock anti clockwise would just continue rolling off high end? 

Philtre

Don't know about that. Try it!

SteveF

I did! It works fine but haven’t compared it yet. I’ll need to AB it with my other one - assuming that has a 5 in there, I can’t remember. There’s a few different values of components (and different tolerances) in there though so not sure if it will sound the same anyway. I’ll have a play tomorrow and report back.

I must get some more pots. 5k must not be very common - I ordered values based on shopping lists from about 20 odd pedal layouts and no 5ks in any of them. 

Philtre

Fuzz Factory and similar use 5k a lot.