Building Pedals

Bill Oakley · Post by **Bill Oakley** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:43 am

Agreed. If this is something you plan on doing for a while, buying bulk is the way to go. I have a stock of just about everything so I don't have to buy and wait for parts to build most things.
Switches and enclosures can be bought in bulk to save some but it's a lot more money to shell out at once as opposed to buying bulk of 20 different values of resistors. Even capacitors can get kind of expensive.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 7:58 am

Bill Oakley wrote:
BacchusPaul wrote:I've been meaning to ask a few questions about building pedals, so I'll chuck them in here as I remember them:

I'm looking to get set up to start building pedals. Does this look like a good deal or a good idea? Or, if not, is there anything better about? Like, would I be better off buying a pack of assorted resistors, a pack of assorted caps, transistors etc?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Beginners-Sta ... 679wt_1189
That's not a bad start but you probably won't use most of the regulators other than the 5v and you will need a lot more pots than that.
You will also need:
3pdt switches
Enclosures
DC jacks
Battery Clips
Mono and Stereo 1/4" jacks
Knobs
I probably forgot a few things.

As for tools:
A good adjustable GROUNDED soldering iron
Wire stripper
Flush/wire cutter
Solder
Solder removal braid and/or pump

That's probably a good start with just the basics but I do highly recommend you build an audio probe if you are going to build pedals.
It will be most handy when something doesn't work and make finding where the signal goes bad a lot easier.

Audio probe! That's smart. I can see how that'd be useful.

I'd probably be buying switches, pots and enclosures to order for a while until I make sure that I'm going to get through a bulk buy of them. I have soldering tools already, although I could do with a stepped drill bit and a wire stripper, as I don't really like using my teeth to strip wires like I have been.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:07 am

Go to Tayda Electronics, Farnell and Rapid and buy in bulk at the latter two if they come up cheaper than Tayda.

Get yourself a CSI Soldering Iron. Reasonable and very solid.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:08 am

BacchusPaul wrote:I could do with a stepped drill bit and a wire stripper, as I don't really like using my teeth to strip wires like I have been.

I don't even want to think about how you're drilling cases.

HONK

SKC Willie · Post by **SKC Willie** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 4:52 pm

so, I'm going to be building parts for another build soon. I have a question about pots. From my understanding they're just a resistor and you can change the value of resistors by putting them in series/parallel.

If I were to buy a bulk pack of 1meg pots, could I then alter the value of the pots by jumping a resistor from lug 1 to 3? I did this with the saltbooter and everything works fine and sounds just like it did with the actual pot in there.

In the build I'm looking at doing, it uses a couple of 5ks and a couple of 10ks, using a 1 meg pot and the formula x(y)/(x+y)=r, it would appear that I could just use a 5k resistor and 10k resistor and I'd only be off a percent or two. Ultimately, the only benefit to this, I suppose was since I have a ton of resistors laying around, I could buy a bunch of 1meg pots and never have to worry about having the right value pot laying around because I'd always be able to get what I need.

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:49 pm

SKC Willie wrote:If I were to buy a bulk pack of 1meg pots, could I then alter the value of the pots by jumping a resistor from lug 1 to 3? I did this with the saltbooter and everything works fine and sounds just like it did with the actual pot in there.

No, the taper would be wrong for most applications. Just get an assortment of different value pots from Futurlec fer cheaps. FWIW, I never use 1 meg pots for anything pedal-related. What circuit uses these?

Post by **Mike** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:19 pm

Erm lots. Gain in many op amp overdrives for a start - rate in modulation circuits etc

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 9:29 pm

Fairy nuff. Nothing I build though.

SKC Willie · Post by **SKC Willie** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:34 pm

And the idea is that, I would think a 1meg would be the most versatile pot in terms of changing value.

I didn't know about the site you had listed but I'm definitely just going to pick some up from there and call it a day. thanks!

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 9:55 am

Yeah that idea of buying loads of 1 meg pots and changing the value won't work because the taper of the resulting pots will be wrong. Just buy the correct values in the first place.

These dudes, about 50 cents a pot = not bad!
http://www.futurlec.com/

SKC Willie · Post by **SKC Willie** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 2:56 am

What would happen if I flipped the ends on the LED?

I'm having power issues and I realized that I used an LED I had already clipped the ends on, so I may have them reversed. Would the pedal still work with the just the LED not working? That's what I would expect but wanted to double check with people who know more about it than me.

Post by **Mike** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:34 am

SKC Willie wrote:I'm having power issues

Elaborate please.

If you flip the leads on the LED you'll burn it, it won't likely short but it might. You can tell the polarity even if the leads are short. The flat edge of the LED = cathode.

SKC Willie · Post by **SKC Willie** » Tue Mar 05, 2013 7:23 pm

I got it figured out. I didn't realize they were center negative pins. I built the Meathead and replaced BC182L with a 2N5088 (accounting for different pin outs) but it acts like a treble booster, not exactly what I was expecting. I'll guess I'll have to order the correct part and wait a few days, which is all I was trying to avoid.

SKC Willie · Post by **SKC Willie** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:31 pm

Using a layout by Tim I went to build a green russian big muff (my first "big" project) and everything seems to function about like you expect but I'm getting a volume drop. If I have the pedal with all the knobs at 10, I'm losing volume. Any idea why this would happen? The novice in me wonders if I got a wrong value on something connected to the input. I'm also using IN4001 for my diodes because I had a couple leftover from a previous project, other than that, I'm not using any subs for parts.

here is the layout I used:

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 1:42 pm

Man I wish that layout was better! It does work though. Check C14 is orientated correctly, and look out for bridges between the vero lines. There are two jumpers (in blue) and the 9V jumper wire (pro huh?). Also there's an error with the volume pot - swap the wires going to legs 1 and 3 (looking at the pots from the rear).

If you want a GBM PCB for the price of postage drop me a PM because I've just switched my stuff from using PCBs for long-leg pots to short-leg ones in common with all my other pedals and have some of the others left over.

Post by **Mike** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 2:29 pm

haha that layout is rough.

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 3:57 pm

Indeed. I did it in half an hour by reading the schematic from left to right. When I reached the width of the enclosure I turned round and came back. Hence the two 9V rows!

sp3k · Post by **sp3k** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:59 pm

timhulio wrote: If you want a GBM PCB for the price of postage drop me a PM because I've just switched my stuff from using PCBs for long-leg pots to short-leg ones in common with all my other pedals and have some of the others left over.

Can I have one?

these blog is awesome for layouts http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.pt/

timhulio · Post by **timhulio** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:04 pm

Yeah sure drop me a PM with your addy.

SKC Willie · Post by **SKC Willie** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:18 pm

timhulio wrote:Check C14 is orientated correctly.

I didn't even realize these had an orientation but by dumb luck, it is correct. I also checked all of my resistor values and all of my 12k resistors seem to be around 11.5-11.6k. Is this going to create a big issue? To me, less resistance wouldn't mean less volume, but at this point, that's all I can really find wrong with my circuit.