Fredric Effects boutique guitar pedals - news and updates

timhulio · September 2013

This is the antidote to my spam/press release thread. For some reason I thought this was the same as the builders/manufacturers forum on TGP, obvs not. Anyway...

I usually build pedals in small batches, but I'm pretty busy over the next few days and I need to post a Grumbly Wolf today.

1) Go to the stock cupboard and grab an enclosure. These Hammond/Eddystone boxes can be bought in quantity from Rapid. Recently I've been buying them direct from the manufacturer, pre-drilled to my specs. Previously I'd been getting them drilled by a local company, until their regular guy left and quality control became an issue (I have similar stories for both powder coating and screen printing). After the boxes are drilled, I get them powder coated professionally. Powder coating places are everywhere, but they'll usually only entertain batches of 50 boxes minimum. Having designed the artwork at 600dpi actual size (so it's not blocky) I get the screen printing done by another company. Then I put the boxes in my stock cupboard.

2) Grumbly Wolf enclosure

3) Notice the masked area by the jack hole. That's to ground the enclosure.

4) Circuit boards are designed in Eagle and manufactured by Seeed Studio. Seeed are cool because the minimum order quantity is 10 boards, so they can be used for prototypes and testing. Turnaround is about a month for the boards, and they offer an assortment of colours.

5) Populate that circuit board. I like to follow the order: resistors -> diodes -> capacitors -> transistors.

6) I like to mount the pots (Alpha PCB mount right-angled leg) and switch (generic DPDT) on the circuit board to cut build time and for neatness.

7) Enclosure with the footswitch, LED lens and DC jack fitted. These components are all from Rapid. Use of Millenium Bypass allows the use of the higher quality DPDT Alpha footswitch rather than the chunky blue 3PDT switches you often see.

8) Here's my desk. The black hood thing is a solder fume extractor. I use lead-free solder, but the fumes can still give you a cough and dry the shit out of your eyes.

9) Flying leads attached to the circuit board.

10) Wire the switch. Notice the IN / OUT / MIL (Millenium Bypass control) / G (Ground) pads are conveniently located so the wires don't need to cross over or go a wandering. Similarly the LED + and - are located directly behind the LED hole.

11) Tools req'd. Initially I went through loads of those cheap 30-40 watt Antek soldering irons, but really a decent soldering station with a temperature control is needed for any semi-serious amount of soldering. You run a much greater risk of burning out components with a cheap soldering iron that doesn't get hot enough for solder to flow easily. With this one you're in and out in a second. Mine is set to 450 degrees, because lead-free solder has a higher melting point. Some people hate it because of this, and the fact that it doesn't come out as shiny as lead solder.

These high quality Piergiacomi needle-nose pliers and wire cutters are really nice to use. It's worth investing in some decent tools.

12) Jacks wired. These enclosed jack sockets take up less space than the Neutrik 'open lugged' type I used to use. In my opinion they also have a more positive feel to them, as with the Neutriks you sometimes felt you were forcing the jack in. These are self-anchoring, which makes them easy to fit, and also grounds them to the enclosure wall.

13) Finished. The 9V DC socket is a switching type, so if a battery is installed it's only used if there's no jack in the socket. Similarly, the input jack socket is wired so power is only drawn if the there's a jack in the socket. This is industry standard stuff, although on some older pedals you might find the output is the one doing the switching. The cable tie is for strain relief on the battery snap. Some pedal builders fill their pedals with cable ties, but this pedal only needs one.

14) Grumbly like the wolf

ddlooping · September 2013

Thanks for sharing, Tim.

rpr · September 2013

Cool

Found a YouTube demo-sounds good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEIOsbTVpjY

monquixote · September 2013

Great post fella.

Exactly the kind of stuff we are looking for on here.

stickyfiddle · September 2013

Excellent stuff

dano · September 2013

Good post, nice to see your setup.

How do you fnd the reliability of those Alpha DPDT switches ? Personally I've not found them too good (maybe 10% break).

frankus · September 2013

That is so tidy

it's also really good to hear about the care and bulk ordering-ness of the enclosures... sometimes lets the side down on pedal manufactury.

thanks

I hope this drives up business - I'm currently making a Bass VI and panicking about parts - where I not - I'd be GASsing like a mutha

Jalapeno · September 2013

Cracking stuff !

timhulio · September 2013

dano said:

Good post, nice to see your setup.

How do you fnd the reliability of those Alpha DPDT switches ? Personally I've not found them too good (maybe 10% break).

Hmmm. What do you mean 'break'? Is this during use or installation? I use absolutely tons of these switches, and if 10% broke I'd stop using them immediately. I've built over a thousand pedals since Jan 2012, and the vast majority use these switches. I've had one switch failure from a customer, however I have destroyed a few through over-tightening during installation.

timhulio · September 2013

Thanks for the positive feedback guys! I'm just adding a few more bits to the original post...

dano · September 2013

timhulio said:

dano said:

Good post, nice to see your setup.

How do you fnd the reliability of those Alpha DPDT switches ? Personally I've not found them too good (maybe 10% break).

Hmmm. What do you mean 'break'? Is this during use or installation? I use absolutely tons of these switches, and if 10% broke I'd stop using them immediately. I've built over a thousand pedals since Jan 2012, and the vast majority use these switches. I've had one switch failure from a customer, however I have destroyed a few through over-tightening during installation.

I suspect generally an over tightening thing, coupled with heavy footed use, it's one particular mate of mine I built some stuff for who seem sto break them. I suspect like you say over-tightening during installation and then a heavy foot is the killer

dano · September 2013

timhulio said:

I've built over a thousand pedals since Jan 2012, and the vast majority use these switches.

I hope you are paying your taxes then ?!

timhulio · September 2013

Yes, Fredric Effects has been a proper business since 2011, and has been my full-time job for the past year. I'm registered as a sole trader.

Accounting tip: I use Gnucash to keep track of where all the money goes.

timhulio · September 2013

Also, that's a slightly WTF post, so you'll have to take a facepalm.

benecol · September 2013

Far more than one facepalm.

Nice post, Tim. Great info. Have one of your Percs and a Scrambler; they never leave my board.

shuikit · September 2013

Thanks for sharing this, imho you're much more likely to some sold with this than the previous post(s)

Sporky · September 2013

Blimey. You look very well organised! The PCB looks very neatly done too - are they double sided? I never got the hang of mounting pots on the PCB.

breadfan · September 2013

Nice thread!

You should put your website address in your signature

ThePrettyDamned · September 2013

Blimey. I just came back to look at these, very nice work on the internals.

ChrisMusic · September 2013

breadfan said: ...You should put your website address in your signature

I second that sentiment, good for business, and lazy people like me.

I had to chase around to find it so I could check this out, wasn't sure what is was, but yes the ring mod sounds great on this pedal.

Loving the discussion / thread BTW.

JD50 · October 2013

Nice work Tim, how do you keep the PCB secure?

Sporky · October 2013

Looks like it's held in position rigidly by the switch and loosely by the pots, which seems a pretty sensible strategy to me.

timhulio · October 2013

Yep, that's it.

Some people who use larger enclosures and don't have the pots mounted to the board use nylon standoffs, which looks pretty neat.

timhulio · December 2013

Just collected this enclosure prototype. CNC machined 1.2mm steel folded into a nice box. I'll be ordering a bunch when I verify the new PCBs fit. Nifty features include- all the holes being in exactly the right place, a square hole, and I can get these in any size and proportion I like. This one is MXR-sized, however.

jpfamps · December 2013

timhulio said:

Nifty features include- all the holes being in exactly the right place,

That's not an insignificant achievement in my experience....

timhulio · December 2013

Seriously. Because I was outsourcing the drilling of enclosures, and no company I used was consistently getting this right (I was rejecting 5-10% of boxes before powder coating) this move to CNC'd enclosures will save money and the time I'd previously spent checking the drilled enclosures.

xwolf5150 · December 2013

Another beautiful build.
Is that silicone that you've applied to the foot switch contacts ,?
What's the reasoning ?

jpfamps · December 2013

timhulio said:

Seriously. Because I was outsourcing the drilling of enclosures, and no company I used was consistently getting this right (I was rejecting 5-10% of boxes before powder coating) this move to CNC'd enclosures will save money and the time I'd previously spent checking the drilled enclosures.

In my experience CNC is the only way to go with the metal work, and even then you are lucky to get it right first time.

ASW · January 2014

Looks great - I bought a golden eagle from you last year and it's awesome.

Misty · January 2014

A really interesting thread, thanks for posting.

funstuie · January 2014

Nice thread.

Those pliers are expensive:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Piergiacomi-Side-cutter-137-mm-evolution-/291036022028

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Fredric Effects boutique guitar pedals - news and updates

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