Post-Lockdown pedal building

Winny_Pooh

Rehoused my Demeter Compulator simply because my pedalboard needs colour and the current housing looks naff.

I had to chamge things around as a 1590b housing is shallower so needed new (shorter than the previous) regular 16mm alpha pots which then became offset when put in place. Went with it and replaced the DC pin jack with a normal barrel type too.

Names is a play on squash (by way of the legendary Dave Chappelle). Its rub on lettering some posca paint and an envirotex top coat.

andy_k

stickyfiddle said:

andy_k said:

Nope, bat box (with no battery) connected, pedal doesn't work. ( battery is still inside pedal )
???

Hmm. ok. Suggests the DC socket is most likely wired correctly at least. 

It's safe to assume the bat box itself is ok if it works with other pedals. 

Could be the socket itself is broken somehow. Can you check for continuity between the +ve terminal in the bat box to the terminal on the inside of the DC socket, to the point on the circuit where that leads?. 

I will try this, I have built 2 Noisy Crickets from fuzzdog and tried out the test on both, one works one doesn't.
They were both built from the Fuzzdog diagrams and I think it was guesswork as to which pole was which on the DC jack.
There is one which is 90 degrees to the other 2, black is connected to the odd one.
Your test with an empty batbox seems to prove that the socket is working correctly.
So maybe I should just flip the red and blue to see if it helps? it seems to be the only thing I haven't tried.
And then I need to do the same to one of my Noisy Crickets.

EDIT, I checked the Noisy Crickets, and the red wires are indeed different position, so when it is a bit cooler I will fire up the iron and get those wires swapped around in both pedals that seem to be wrong.

roberty

Winny_Pooh said:

Rehoused my Demeter Compulator simply because my pedalboard needs colour and the current housing looks naff.

I had to chamge things around as a 1590b housing is shallower so needed new (shorter than the previous) regular 16mm alpha pots which then became offset when put in place. Went with it and replaced the DC pin jack with a normal barrel type too.

Names is a play on squash (by way of the legendary Dave Chappelle). Its rub on lettering some posca paint and an envirotex top coat.

[snip]

That looks awesome.  I want to make something that colour for a friend.  Is that painted or is it powder coated?

lasermonkey

Yeah, that looks like the red (battery) and blue (socket) are the wrong way round. Swap them over and it should work.

Winny_Pooh

@roberty its a hammond enclosure that comes in purple, lettering and paint then added on top

roberty

Winny_Pooh said:

@roberty its a hammond enclosure that comes in purple, lettering and paint then added on top

Cool thanks. She plays in a riot grrrl punk band so I'm going to do her a really effeminate looking meathead fuzz. Looks fab mate

andy_k

lasermonkey said:

Yeah, that looks like the red (battery) and blue (socket) are the wrong way round. Swap them over and it should work.

Done, and dusted, fixed my dodgy Noisy Cricket at the same time, I would never have known, but now I do, so it wont be happening again.
Thanks to all who offered assistance.

SteveF

New things learnt during lockdown.  How to use Autodesk EAGLE and design a PCB from the schematic.  Using a commonly available schematic online, I produced a direct clone of the Vemuram Jan Ray (which is itself almost a clone of the Timmy) to keep things simple, designed the board layout and sent it off to be made.  

For ease, I used a site called Osh Park in the US but unfortunately the COVID situation has made shipping from the US massively slow. I've ordered my next one from JCL PCB who are in Hong Kong, cheaper and supposedly quicker.  I'll report back when they arrive.  Anyhoo, they arrived eventually and I couldn't wait to get it built and check if it works.  Happily, it worked perfectly. The quality of the boards seems really high.  Not flimsy at all and a nice pretty purple solder mask. 

Enclosure is a textured finish 125B available at Tayda.  Graphics were lifted from Pinterest, tweaked in Photoshop and printed on sticky vinyl before coating with Envirotex. 

Here are the results: 

andy_k

Super neat @Stevef, plenty of room for a 9v though?
I think my recent acquisition of a Tommy (shapeshifter clone) is probably one of my favourite pedals.

SteveF

andy_k said:

Super neat @Stevef, plenty of room for a 9v though?
I think my recent acquisition of a Tommy (shapeshifter clone) is probably one of my favourite pedals.

Yeah, loads of room in there but I never use batteries except in my wah which is off my board.  For the odd time I want to just plug a pedal or two in without them going on the board or for testing, I have a couple of battery snaps connected to DC plugs so I can just plug them into the socket outside the pedal.

Once I made the board, I realised I could have put it in a smaller enclosure than the 125B but I like them to match and it's easier to do the top mount jacks on these  

SteveF

The other thing I learned is, if you use those little plugs to connect the DC jack, you can take the guts out without having to desolder the DC jack.  I got a pack of 20 from Amazon. Clearly they only work if you have your + and  - connections next to each other on the board.

         20 Pieces Micro JST PH 2.0 2-Pin Connector Plug Male and 20 Pieces 10 cm Red and Black Silicone Cable Wire with Female Connector     

roberty

That's awesome @SteveF really impressive

rsvmark

Necro bump. After waiting for weeks I finally got the components I ordered. Weeks, well months. Drilled the enclosure and got powder coated, and mock ups below... 

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50442004056_9c9eca1d30_h.jpg ;

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50442003631_ee76c548d8_h.jpg ;

Of note this build are the hacksaw treatment to pot shaft - the knobs are lovely - machined from billet ali, but dont accomodate the full shaft by 3.5mm. Simple job to remove the top  - looks rough now but no -one will ever know...

Considering the second graphic design as the lettering is clearer - gonna remove some darker areas in photo shop so the base colour (RAL 5013) shows through and send for UV printing... direct onto the painted enclosure. In theory is will work. Updates coming in another 2 months. 

roberty

@rsvmark ;looks great man

SteveF

Had a go with a UV printing service the other day.  Done myself a little logo and made another Jan Ray clone for my friend Jon.  

Happy with the results - a few little lessons learned again and would make a couple of changes for next time.  Working with vector art is a steep learning curve.  I'm used to just fumbling my way along with photoshop.

stickyfiddle

Looks great - both of you!

I still have a couple of kits I’m struggling to find time for.

SteveF

rsvmark said:

Considering the second graphic design as the lettering is clearer - gonna remove some darker areas in photo shop so the base colour (RAL 5013) shows through and send for UV printing... direct onto the painted enclosure. In theory is will work. Updates coming in another 2 months. 

Looks great.  The UV on mine seems pretty solid.  Tried scratching at it with a fingernail and no marking at all.  Time will tell how durable it is. 

Where did you send yours for UV? 

SteveF

Also made up a few others.  Haven't done graphics yet as I wanted to check that the boards worked.  More lessons learned but overall happy. 

Broadcast Dual clone with a 9-27V switchable charge pump. 





EQD Plumes clone





King of Tone (well, Prince of Tone I suppose) and Klon in one box with an order switch. 

Cookiemonster

SteveF said:

Also made up a few others.  Haven't done graphics yet as I wanted to check that the boards worked.  More lessons learned but overall happy. 

Broadcast Dual clone with a 9-27V switchable charge pump. 





EQD Plumes clone





King of Tone (well, Prince of Tone I suppose) and Klon in one box with an order


Where did you get the EQD kit ?

SteveF

I didn’t.  I did the PCB layout from a schematic and had it made.  I’m aware you can get them from pedal pcb though,