DIY Harmonic Energizer pedal

[rps-10]

I've been after a "Harmonic Energizer" clone type thing for a while but there are not many about without extra Fuzz circuits added in.
So much like many peeps on this site that have built their own pedals on Friday I set about building my first pedal.

I thought I'd cheat a bit and get a PCB from Madbean.com. I will go all hardcore and veroboard on next pedal build
Took around four hours I think, in between school runs, making cups of tea and a trip to McDs for lunch.

Things learn't.. solder leads on the board/PCB first, not to the pots and jacks/switch, makes life easier when nearly complete and a neater install.
The rather fitting 70s colour scheme was a total accident. I had ordered a yellow LED as none of the pedals I have, have a yellow LED and brown knobs as I quite fancied something different.
Case was meant to be red Hammerite (smooth) as I have enough of that stuff to paint a cruise liner for one reason or another, then I found the can of Metallic Copper Shiny Spray at the back of the shed and used that instead and came up with this:



Best thing about it is it worked first bloody time!! So no gut shots as I'm not taking it apart incase it never works again although do need to sort out proper labeling etc so it may come apart sometime soon. May even redo it completely but the copper/brown is growing on me.

Only really tested it with my dirt pedals, some its better in front of, others behind. One supprise was it works really well with a Green Ringer.

► Show Spoiler

All this..


into this..


Made the mistake of buying a DPDT switch instead of a 3 way one, so made up the "Buffered" version.
Not so clever soldering leads on this way first, should have done PCB end first.

[Gabriel]

Well done, looks like you did a great job. I tried to make a fuzz face in the past, but failed miserably so I gave up with making pedals. I may try again in future though, a musikding kit looks like an easy way in and they offer a zendrive clone which is intriguing.

[lorez]

nice one si, its great to get the first one nailed. now where is the demo

[timhulio]

Things learn't.. solder leads on the board/PCB first, not to the pots and jacks/switch

I think you did this the right way actually. Solder leads to the pots and jacks, then add the board. Otherwise you'll be attempting to solder to mounted pots UNDER the board.

Anyway, nice build! Really dig the HE circuit, but I couldn't resist tinkering a little with my clones.

[Mike]

There's different schools of thought. I still go to the board first so I can test it in isolation with my test rig. I never commit a board to a case untested.

[timhulio]

I never commit a board to a case untested.

Sonds fair enough for custom builds. With my PCB stuff I'm a 'build-first, test later' kinda guy

[Mike]

I must admit with the Dream Box I'm tempted to solder to the pots first to neaten things up, but there are (2x38 + 2x29 + 16 + 3x4 + 10x2) = 182 solder joints on that fucker. You can bet I'm not in a hurry to commit it to a position where it's impossible to debug without testing.

Makes much more sense with a simpler circuit though obviously.

[rps-10]

If you have seen the Madbean PCB for this I think for what I was intending to do it would have been easier to have soldered to board first. By the time I had realised this it was too late and I wasn't going to de-solder and mess about, so forged ahead and didn't get a the neat build I wanted, its kind of just crammed in there - but I've seen worse

Will have to see about time to do "an demo" I'm off this week as it's half term. Not even sure if the pedal is doing 100% of what it should be anyway as I may have messed something up or the Madbean components maybe way off the original.

[ghost_effects]

great stuff mate! working first time is the best!

[rps-10]

Really dig the HE circuit, but I couldn't resist tinkering a little with my clones.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you add in the expression pedal in/out to your build? Or how do you add such a thing to any pedal, just hot wire the pot with a "stereo jack"?

[Mike]

Some useful reading:

http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/xprnped.htm

[timhulio]

I use these Cliff jacks. Because the terminals are isolated from the enclosure you only need a mono jack. The connection is switched by the jack: if you plug your expression pedal into it the connection to the 50k 'center freq' pot is broken and you can change this value with the expression pedal. Behringer FCV100 exp pedals have 0-50k ring to tip resistance, so that's what I use/recommend.

[rps-10]

Ok I have some Cliff jacks. I've tried the mono one with no luck, just get a huge scream when the jack from expression pedal is plugged in.I am soldering lug 2 (centre) of the pot to the tip contact of the cliff jack.
Is that right? Guess not.

Would it be better to use stereo cliff jack as I can then mimic the connections from all three lugs of the pot to the board with the jack in between.

I'll try anyway, but was wondering if anyone had an answer before I bust my eardrums again

[rps-10]

With a bit of meddling and swearing, I have now added an Expression pedal bypass jack to it and re-housed it in a larger case.





Can't leave anything alone, not even my own "first proper pedal build" Things have to be bodged & modified

[lorez]

so when are we going to hear it

whats next on the project list?

[rps-10]

so when are we going to hear it

whats next on the project list?

Hear it? an demo you mean? when I've painted it I guess. Although I can solder better than I can play guitar.

Next on the list? don't know really, but I do have an idea for a fuzz pedal so may get myself some prototyping type kit to experiment with. My pedalboard is more or less complete now but I still have some GAS for a Tremolo and a Delay. Not sure it's worth building a tremolo though as you can get them very cheap anyway.

It is addictive this DIY pedal stuff

[rps-10]

Finally finished it this evening, no more bodgeing for this one.  

Painted, decal applied and lacquered.




More stuff learnt... Clear sticky inject paper is the stickiest stuff on the planet!!Once it's on it isn't going to come back off cleanly.
Once lacquered, the decal looks a million times better and clearer - if that makes sense.

[NickS]

Looks good. Zirconium tweezer?

[willc]

There's different schools of thought. I still go to the board first so I can test it in isolation with my test rig. I never commit a board to a case untested.

This is the way that will make you less crazy.

Nowadays I always check the board before cramming it in the enclosure.

Great looking build and interesting name.

[rps-10]

Looks good. Zirconium tweezer?

Ok my thinking was that seeing that the Harmonic Energizer's most famous user was Frank Zappa I wanted some sort of reference back to Frank.
"Zircon encrusted tweezer" is part of a lyric from Montana, one of his more popular tunes and the HE is basically a one band EQ device that can be used to "squeeze" your sound (or expand it) So it kind of made sense to me.