The D.I.Y. FX Pedal Building Thread

Hi Everyone,


Just thought I would start yet another one of my threads, this time it was inspired by some suggestions by Andy40 about putting up a tutorial on building D.I.Y FX Pedals, so, I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss how I build my pedals, I hope this thread will be of some help for those wishing to get into the fun hobby of D.I.Y FX pedal building.


I must point out that the way I build my pedals is not the only way to do it, there are lots of ways to build them, the way I build my pedals is usually dictated by the parts I have available to me in my local Jaycar Electronics Shop, occasionally I will source my parts from other countries if the parts I need are not stocked by Jaycar Electronics, I used to buy my parts from Dick Smith Electronics before they turned into a general Consumer Electronics Store, which is a bit of a shame.

When I go to build a pedal I usually go through a multi-stage process that goes like this:


Step 1, I think about the type of pedal I want to build, this can be influenced by a number of factors.

Step 2, I go online and see if I can find a good circuit-diagram for the pedal I wish to build, Google is one search engine I use a lot, there are a few others though, but I mostly use Google.

Step 3, Once I have found a circuit-diagram, I download it to one of my computers, sometimes I may do a print-out of the circuit-diagram too, if I find a good article about the pedal I'm building, I usually download and print it out too.

Step 4, Once I have the printouts I take some time to study the circuit-diagram to work out how it is supposed to work, this comes in handy during later stages of the build-process because it's usually in the late-stages that a problem is most likely to occur.

Step 5, I get a few pieces of A4 printer paper and draw up a parts list for the pedal I'm building.

Step 6, I go and buy all the needed parts from Jaycar Electronics, or, if they don't have what I need in stock, I'll order the needed parts online.

Step 7, Once I have the parts I need, I sometimes do what's called a "Breadboard Build", this involves building the circuit up on what's called a Solderless Breadboard, this is so I can check that the circuit will work with the parts I have, if I need to do any tweaking I go through and make adjustments till I'm satisfied with the results I get, a classic example is if I'm building an old school pedal that uses Germanium Transistors, like a Fuzz Face for example, I'll try different Germanium Transistors in the circuit till I find ones that work well.

Step 8, Once I've completed the previous step I move onto building the circuit up into a more permanent form.

Step 9, The next thing I do is I get the metal box I'm using for my pedal build and I do all my marking out so I can drill any necessary mounting holes in the box, these mounting holes could be for the pots, footswitch, in and out sockets, etc, while determining where I'm going to place the holes, I bear in mind how much space in the box I have to work with and position the various holes accordingly, sometimes with some of the boxes I use it can be a bit of a tight fit, but I usually end up managing pretty well.

Step 10, Once everything has been fitted in the box, I go ahead and do all the wiring up of the various controls, inputs, outputs and etc.

Step 11, Once all the wiring up has been completed, I do all the testing and setting-up of the pedal, it's usually at this stage when any problems become obvious and I go through the process of fault-finding and fixing the problem, sometimes I'll get lucky and the pedal will work first go, in that case I'll call the build-process finished.


Sometimes with a new finished pedal-build I'll give myself time to familiarize myself with the pedal before I dismantle the pedal in order to spray-paint the metal box and apply labeling and clear coat to it, during this getting-to-know period I may try the pedal out in various scenarios.



So that's generally how I go about building my pedals.


Note: if the PBG forum moderators can find a better place for this thread, please feel free to move it to that place.

really interesting Doc, you seem pretty methodical.
Hope you do a pictorial of your next build, that would be cool

Thanks doc i appreciate the time you put into this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stan

really interesting Doc, you seem pretty methodical.
Hope you do a pictorial of your next build, that would be cool

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I sure will, but I really do need to get myself a new Digital Camera, I'm not that happy with the image quality of the pics I've taken with my Samsung Galaxy Y phone, I really need to be able to take sharper pics so you can see everything more clearly.



@ Andy40, no worries at all mate, I actually enjoy doing these threads, and sharing my knowledge makes me feel good inside.

find my Benson pickup wiring thread in non pitbull gear, that's all done on iphone, lighting is the key to good shots on a phone. They are not masterpieces by a long shot, but it shows up wiring just fine.

cool thread Doc

When I go to build a pedal, I tend to concentrate on designs that use Analog electronics, and parts that are relatively easy to get, a lot of the old Chorus and Delay pedals from the 1970's used a type of technology called "Bucket Brigade", I won't go into too much detail about how it worked though, back then Bucket Brigade ICs used to be fairly inexpensive and readily available, nowadays they are very hard to get and expensive if you can find them, you can occasionally buy them on eBay but there have been lots of reports of counterfeit Bucket Brigade ICs being sold.


There is one IC that can be used to build a Chorus and Delay pedal and it's not hard to get, it's called a PT2399 IC and was originally designed for use in Theater Hi-Fi Surround Sound applications, I have a little chorus pedal that I built using a PT2399 IC, it's called a Little Angel Chorus, the problem with it is it sometimes doesn't power up correctly.


If you're interested in building a Compressor, Chorus or Delay pedal you can find details to build one on this website, note that you need to register as a member, registration is free though:


www.freestompboxes.org


Have a look in the DIY Stompboxes thread.


You can find circuits for lots of other pedals on freestompboxes.org too.

Doc, how do you do your PCB? Back when Dick Smith used to sell electronic components, I used to etch PCB's by drawing the tracks onto a copper plated board with some sort of ink pen, then dip it into an acid that ate away the rest of the copper. I then rinsed off the board, cleaned off the ink, leaving the tracks I wanted. Then it was drilling holes for the components.

I found out about vero-board after that, but that was using wire to join the components on the back of the board. I built a 6800 Dream computer on vero-board when I was in high school (with a lot of help from a very knowledgeable friend!). The circuit diagram for the computer was published in a magazine, Electronics Australia. I was the envy of all my geeky friends!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Swanny

Doc, how do you do your PCB? Back when Dick Smith used to sell electronic components, I used to etch PCB's by drawing the tracks onto a copper plated board with some sort of ink pen, then dip it into an acid that ate away the rest of the copper. I then rinsed off the board, cleaned off the ink, leaving the tracks I wanted. Then it was drilling holes for the components.

I found out about vero-board after that, but that was using wire to join the components on the back of the board. I built a 6800 Dream computer on vero-board when I was in high school (with a lot of help from a very knowledgeable friend!). The circuit diagram for the computer was published in a magazine, Electronics Australia. I was the envy of all my geeky friends!

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Well, seeing as I don't have alot of PCB making material at home, most of my pedals are made using Veroboard, I have tried etching my own PCBs a few times but I got variable results, so I tended to stick to using Veroboard, it's a bit time-consuming because you need to design a suitable layout on graph paper first though, but it worked for me, a couple of Tonebender pedals I built (a Mk I and a MkII) used some Tagboards to mount the components, another pedal I built used an 8-Way Tagstrip to mount the components, I was a big fan of the Electronics Australia Magazine too, I used to buy them each month, it's a bit sad that the only Australian DIY Electronics magazine in existence is Silicon Chip, we used to have a Magazine called Electronics Today International.


Speaking of the ETI Magazine, I have a big file full of the complete construction details of the ETI International series Music Synthesizers as published back in the early 70's, I would absolutely love to be able to build a complete and working ETI 4600 Music Synthesizer, there's this online website that has all the info on the ETI 4600 Music Synthesizer:


http://www.eti4600synthesiser.org.uk/

I used to have a heap of both EA, and ETI magazines, but a change in work took me away from learning more about electronics.

My PCB etching back then was an extra large coffee jar filled with a ferric chloride solution to dip my board into. I think I drilled the holes by hand - nowadays we have dremels and battery drills to make life easy.

The Synthesizer ... my knowledgeable friend built that, and I borrowed it for a few months... didn't know how to capture the sounds that came out of it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Swanny

I used to have a heap of both EA, and ETI magazines, but a change in work took me away from learning more about electronics.

My PCB etching back then was an extra large coffee jar filled with a ferric chloride solution to dip my board into. I think I drilled the holes by hand - nowadays we have dremels and battery drills to make life easy.

The Synthesizer ... my knowledgeable friend built that, and I borrowed it for a few months... didn't know how to capture the sounds that came out of it!

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The last PCB I etched was for my UniVibe pedal, I didn't have a drill at the time so I used a pin vice and a suitably sized drill bit to manually drill all the component holes in the PCB, amazingly I got pretty much all the holes spot on centred after drilling them all by hand, the family I grew up in had a long tradition of doing D.I.Y stuff, my dad built the stereo amp and the speakers for our Hi-Fi because he was into electronics, my mum made her own dresses, my two brothers and I made our own toys out of wood, when my dad retired from work he built a big Reflection Telescope all by himself, he made all the metal and plastic parts too, he had to buy the mirror though, I guess I get my interest in D.I.Y stuff from my dad.

My dad was also into Astronomy which is why he built the Telescope, he even bought a movie camera and shot home movies when my brothers and I were growing up, I think he still has all those movies.

In my family, if something broke down, we replaced it or fixed it ourselves, if we couldn't fix it, or buy it, we made a new one.


I should get back into etching my own PCBs, I want to have a go at making some Turret boards for re-building my SLO 50 Valve Amp Head.


My older brother, George, built himself a Sprint Car and he would go out to the Speedway Race Track just outside of Kununurra, and he would enter himself into races, I went out to the Race Track a few times to watch him, this was before I moved from Kununurra to Darwin.