Post-Lockdown pedal building

Yorkie

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

@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

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

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

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

@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

@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

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

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

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

Cookiemonster

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

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

@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

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

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

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

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

roberty

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

@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

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