Post-Lockdown pedal building

Yorkie · September 2022

UnclePsychosis said:

D*A*M Red Rooster. Its a very nice boost pedal but you'd have to be insane to pay the asking price for a D*A*M one.

Not entirely sure why I built this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sounds really good, I just dont think I have a use for it at the minute.

Those PedalPCB things look so nice. I love how tidy your build looks.

roberty · September 2022

@Yorkie PedalPCB line all the components up in a pleasing way. They print the component values on the PCB as well so you can build them without a build doc. I find putting all the resistors in a big row and doing them in one go a bit fiddly though. Probably best to space them out and and take it in stages. Overall I find Fuzz Dog PCBs easier to work with, and to desolder especially

Musikding posted a drilled enclosure to me by mistake. It's roomy so I might do something a hand wired/vero in this. Not worth posting back really

Yorkie · September 2022

roberty said:

@Yorkie PedalPCB line all the components up in a pleasing way. They print the component values on the PCB as well so you can build them without a build doc. I find putting all the resistors in a big row and doing them in one go a bit fiddly though. Probably best to space them out and and take it in stages.

Nice. Is there anywhere you can buy a basic kit of components, or do you buy what you need separately? I’ve got the basic things, but not opamps, trimpots and that sort of stuff…

Cookiemonster · September 2022

Yorkie said:

roberty said:

@Yorkie PedalPCB line all the components up in a pleasing way. They print the component values on the PCB as well so you can build them without a build doc. I find putting all the resistors in a big row and doing them in one go a bit fiddly though. Probably best to space them out and and take it in stages.

Nice. Is there anywhere you can buy a basic kit of components, or do you buy what you need separately? I’ve got the basic things, but not opamps, trimpots and that sort of stuff…

I use tayda. What you might find useful is looking at the guitar pcbs they make, as they come with parts lists that links directly to the site, so if you scan through them you can get a good idea of the most common parts.

tayda is a big site so this does help initially to A. But the right type/size of component and B. To navigate the site easily.

Cookiemonster · September 2022

Yorkie said:

UnclePsychosis said:

D*A*M Red Rooster. Its a very nice boost pedal but you'd have to be insane to pay the asking price for a D*A*M one.

Not entirely sure why I built this, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sounds really good, I just dont think I have a use for it at the minute.

Those PedalPCB things look so nice. I love how tidy your build looks.

I’m always building things I don’t really need for myself. I really need to give some away or sell them

roberty · September 2022

@Yorkie I have components but I tend to order kits because I'm lazy. My next build will be a bit more ad hoc I think. Vero is great when it works, really conjuring something out of nothing. Musikding do PedalPCB kits, shipping is €5 and there is no longer any import duty on items < £135

I got my noise gate working again finally. Reflowed the solder joints as advised by Musikding. Was surprised that worked. It was passing signal and the key was triggering but there was no gating. Strange issue

I think the pot might be damaged because depending on how I screw it in the rotation is obstructed. I'll get a new one before attempting to use this again

It is a massive pain in the arse to box up. Do not recommend. I would go stone deaf. The boss one is supposed to be good when you use a side chain as well. It gets ragged on but I don't believe a decent noise gate is outside their engineering capability. I'd be curious to try it just for the hell of it

roberty · September 2022

@UnclePsychosis I build lots of stuff I don't need just for the hell of it. Dozens of them sitting unused but there were a few happy accidents. It's a good way to take a scenic tour around the fuzz universe

roberty · September 2022

Oh the point of my noise gate post was if something is working for a long time and suddenly stops it's probably a cold solder joint. Reflow and should be good

Cookiemonster · September 2022

roberty said:

@Yorkie I have components but I tend to order kits because I'm lazy. My next build will be a bit more ad hoc I think. Vero is great when it works, really conjuring something out of nothing. Musikding do PedalPCB kits, shipping is €5 and there is no longer any import duty on items < £135

I got my noise gate working again finally. Reflowed the solder joints as advised by Musikding. Was surprised that worked. It was passing signal and the key was triggering but there was no gating. Strange issue

I think the pot might be damaged because depending on how I screw it in the rotation is obstructed. I'll get a new one before attempting to use this again

It is a massive pain in the arse to box up. Do not recommend. I would go stone deaf. The boss one is supposed to be good when you use a side chain as well. It gets ragged on but I don't believe a decent noise gate is outside their engineering capability. I'd be curious to try it just for the hell of it

Have you tried the otalgia pcbs on eBay super cheap and fun to mod

roberty · September 2022

@Cookiemonster I did a couple of germanium treble boosters from otalgia. Stuart from TateFX sent me the transistors bless him

Cookiemonster · September 2022

roberty said:

@Cookiemonster I did a couple of germanium treble boosters from otalgia. Stuart from TateFX sent me the transistors bless him

Oddly and maybe because of saying I don’t often build with Germs I did a range master and it’s one of my favourite pedals now

Yorkie · September 2022

Cookiemonster said:

roberty said:

@Yorkie I have components but I tend to order kits because I'm lazy. My next build will be a bit more ad hoc I think. Vero is great when it works, really conjuring something out of nothing. Musikding do PedalPCB kits, shipping is €5 and there is no longer any import duty on items < £135

I got my noise gate working again finally. Reflowed the solder joints as advised by Musikding. Was surprised that worked. It was passing signal and the key was triggering but there was no gating. Strange issue

I think the pot might be damaged because depending on how I screw it in the rotation is obstructed. I'll get a new one before attempting to use this again

It is a massive pain in the arse to box up. Do not recommend. I would go stone deaf. The boss one is supposed to be good when you use a side chain as well. It gets ragged on but I don't believe a decent noise gate is outside their engineering capability. I'd be curious to try it just for the hell of it

Have you tried the otalgia pcbs on eBay super cheap and fun to mod

An ignorant’s question: are those transparent components Ge diodes? And if they are, do all Ge diodes look like that?

I’ve built a few pedals, but I’ve only come across that kind of diode once (orange squeezer) and the schematics just said ‘diode’.

roberty · September 2022

@Yorkie they're 1N4148's, silicon. They're very common eg as clipping diodes in the rat 2. The other common one you'll see is 1N4001's which are black with a silver stripe, often used as polarity protection. Germanium ones are usually glass and are quite a bit fatter so you can identify them visually

roberty · September 2022

I'm gonna mod my Carcosa clone for clipping options I think. Don't know whether to have separate switches for top and bottom for asymmetrical options. Wouldn't hurt to do it I guess. I prefer stock but the germaniums are a bit less compressed. Stock is these weird bat ones, fwd voltage ~250mv

Yorkie · September 2022

roberty said:

@Yorkie they're 1N4148's, silicon. They're very common eg as clipping diodes in the rat 2. The other common one you'll see is 1N4001's which are black with a silver stripe, often used as polarity protection. Germanium ones are usually glass and are quite a bit fatter so you can identify them visually

Thanks

Cookiemonster · September 2022

Yorkie said:

Cookiemonster said:

roberty said:

@Yorkie I have components but I tend to order kits because I'm lazy. My next build will be a bit more ad hoc I think. Vero is great when it works, really conjuring something out of nothing. Musikding do PedalPCB kits, shipping is €5 and there is no longer any import duty on items < £135

I got my noise gate working again finally. Reflowed the solder joints as advised by Musikding. Was surprised that worked. It was passing signal and the key was triggering but there was no gating. Strange issue

I think the pot might be damaged because depending on how I screw it in the rotation is obstructed. I'll get a new one before attempting to use this again

It is a massive pain in the arse to box up. Do not recommend. I would go stone deaf. The boss one is supposed to be good when you use a side chain as well. It gets ragged on but I don't believe a decent noise gate is outside their engineering capability. I'd be curious to try it just for the hell of it

Have you tried the otalgia pcbs on eBay super cheap and fun to mod

An ignorant’s question: are those transparent components Ge diodes? And if they are, do all Ge diodes look like that?

I’ve built a few pedals, but I’ve only come across that kind of diode once (orange squeezer) and the schematics just said ‘diode’.

Diodes can look different. DK9s are very nice and look cool. Most circuits are silicon 1n4148 with the protection diode often being either the 4001 or similar

Cookiemonster · September 2022

Try some LEDs I really like to swap in different LEDs. Quite a nice bit on coda somewhere

roberty · September 2022

Added this clipping diode switch yesterday to my Carcosa clone. It was a bit of a nightmare to be honest.

The switch itself was the easy bit, just solder the clipping pairs to the outer lugs of a DPDT and the inner lugs go to the diode pads PCB. I got the drilling right on the second go lol. The metal epoxy is useful to have around if you're me. The worst thing though was desoldering this PCB. It's hard to get the holes completely clear because it's thicker than most and also the layout is quite unfriendly. It's designed to look pretty first and foremost

Anyway it works really well. The D9Es are more open and a bit clearer, and the stock BAT41s are more compressed and saggy. Forward voltage is about 350mv for the germaniums and 250 for the BAT41s

I want to do a Rat (or maybe Life) with separate diode switches for each direction. You could use two ON-OFF-ONs and have 5 variations. Wildly asymmetrical clipping sounds cool on Rats, germanium one side and clean on the other. Kind of broken and messed up

UnclePsychosis · September 2022

@Yorkie thanks for the kind words.

My first builds were a total shit show - they'd work but the wiring etc was a mess.

The trickiest bit in getting them neat is having the confidence (and tools that do the job) to trim the wires to a precise length.

The pedalpcb boards are really nice but I actually prefer the fuzzdog approach. Every pedalpcb one I've ever done has been a right faff to wire the LED whereas fuzzdog is a lot more straightforward.

That said the pedalpcb builds I've done have been absolutely spot on so no complaints there.

UnclePsychosis · September 2022

Oh and pedalpcb is designed for top jacks. I do love that.

roberty · September 2022

@UnclePsychosis I agree Fuzz Dog is much easier to work with. Top jacks are cool but bloody hell you suffer for them

This blog explains 1.2mm vs 1.6mm PCBs, it is exactly my experience https://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/blog/does-thickness-matter

TJT1979 · September 2022

Has anybody compared the Gorva vs Optopuss footswitches with Fuzzdog kits? I’ve used Gorvas and they’re great… just wondering if there’s any benefit in the opto switch?

roberty · October 2022

@TJT1979 they're softer feeling when you click them. I'm club footed anyway so I just use normal 3P2D

Cookiemonster · October 2022

UnclePsychosis said:

Oh and pedalpcb is designed for top jacks. I do love that.

And tayda makes enclosures that fit them. Just wish pedalpcb had a distribution company in the U.K.

roberty · October 2022

Cookiemonster said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Oh and pedalpcb is designed for top jacks. I do love that.

And tayda makes enclosures that fit them. Just wish pedalpcb had a distribution company in the U.K.

Musikding will post them for €4.90 and there's no import duty on anything up to £135

UnclePsychosis · October 2022

TJT1979 said:

Has anybody compared the Gorva vs Optopuss footswitches with Fuzzdog kits? I’ve used Gorvas and they’re great… just wondering if there’s any benefit in the opto switch?

The Gorva is "just" a nicer/higher quality 'normal' mechanically-switched footswitch.

The Optopuss uses a soft-click switch and an optically-switched relay.

I always go for the Optopuss now---I much prefer the softer click, and I'm fairly sure that the optical switching reduces the likelihood of getting the dreaded "footswitch pop". The downside is that its slightly more components / slightly more soldering / won't bypass without power.

TJT1979 · October 2022

UnclePsychosis said:

TJT1979 said:

Has anybody compared the Gorva vs Optopuss footswitches with Fuzzdog kits? I’ve used Gorvas and they’re great… just wondering if there’s any benefit in the opto switch?

The Gorva is "just" a nicer/higher quality 'normal' mechanically-switched footswitch.

The Optopuss uses a soft-click switch and an optically-switched relay.

I always go for the Optopuss now---I much prefer the softer click, and I'm fairly sure that the optical switching reduces the likelihood of getting the dreaded "footswitch pop". The downside is that its slightly more components / slightly more soldering / won't bypass without power.

Have you tried the Gorvas too? They are really soft. Also they’re rated for 30k cycles (rather than 10k for the Alpha switch in the Opto), although this is probably fairly irrelevant in real-life use.

UnclePsychosis · October 2022

TJT1979 said:

UnclePsychosis said:

TJT1979 said:

Has anybody compared the Gorva vs Optopuss footswitches with Fuzzdog kits? I’ve used Gorvas and they’re great… just wondering if there’s any benefit in the opto switch?

The Gorva is "just" a nicer/higher quality 'normal' mechanically-switched footswitch.

The Optopuss uses a soft-click switch and an optically-switched relay.

I always go for the Optopuss now---I much prefer the softer click, and I'm fairly sure that the optical switching reduces the likelihood of getting the dreaded "footswitch pop". The downside is that its slightly more components / slightly more soldering / won't bypass without power.

Have you tried the Gorvas too? They are really soft. Also they’re rated for 30k cycles (rather than 10k for the Alpha switch in the Opto), although this is probably fairly irrelevant in real-life use.

Yes I have some pedals with both. I prefer the Optopuss, the relay switching swings it for me TBH. Both are good choices though, its just preference.

Cookiemonster · October 2022

I need to box but just finished two circuits a Megalith which is called Doom Doom on the Moonn electronics website. And a Shredmaster. Both sound great, really like the Shredmaster

roberty · October 2022

I enjoy decals now. Used to hate it. I'm sort of limited by the range of colour available to me

The Otter's Pocket text is a bit light, could do with being in bold. I'll see if I care enough to do it again in a day or two. I got sick of waiting for my mate to do a line drawing so I got the AI to do one for me instead. Took about 2 minutes

The label for the Tone knob on the Mexicola is mis-centered as well. It seemed alright on the mock up. I'll sleep on it (not literally on it, that would be weird)

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Post-Lockdown pedal building

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