Getting Started with Building Pedals

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Originally Posted by Bakersdozen

I was wondering about this also. Can't you just solder to the pins on the PCB pots as per normal pots?

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Yup, it's just a little more fiddly

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Originally Posted by JohnH

Yup, it's just a little more fiddly

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And this doesn't take up any more space than the pot anyway. Also helps when you have multiple wires to a single pot leg.

Finally, it just helps me feel good about saving all those little bits of board! Who cares if it's actually useful?

Jury is still out on the LED boards. I have used this and point to point wiring, they both work and take about the same amount of time so it's really personal preference in the end.

Some more links, I had a folder of them, couldn't find it til now.
http://stinkfoot.se/
https://www.instructables.com/id/Modify-Your-Wah-Pedal/
https://www.madbeanpedals.com/
https://guitarpcb.com/
https://www.freestompboxes.org/index.php

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Originally Posted by jugglindan

And this doesn't take up any more space than the pot anyway. Also helps when you have multiple wires to a single pot leg.

Finally, it just helps me feel good about saving all those little bits of board! Who cares if it's actually useful?

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It gives a better mechanical join also, and if you're soldering four wires to a pot leg then having something to anchor them to is a huge benefit. I never like soldering to PCB pots

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity gents. All fair calls!

OK, I have made some vector format drilling templates in Inkscape. They let me mock up pedal designs, decals, and produce a drilling template. I can't distribute them publicly since they include the Effect Pedal Builder's Vector Pack by Eric Barao, and it can't be redistributed without permission. But since I had to convert the EPS format to SVG, I wanted to save users of my templates from having to do the same thing.

If anyone would like the templates, just send me a PM with your email address so I can add you to the dropbox share.

So far I just have 125B templates for 1 knob, and 3 knob/2 switches cause that's all I have needed so far. But from those it isn't hard to make new templates by moving and copying elements.

Updated the main post with all the tips. Should also ask the mods about getting this turned into a sticky.

OK, just found this video which is a walkthrough of a complete TS-9 scratch build, using a layout from Guitar FX Layouts. It's not quite how I build things, but it's very close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBPpeqpu5XY

Also this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5FMWtwwYpA

Great tip from the Fuzzlord video:
to solder the LED directly to the footswitch, put the LED hole 0.6" above the centre of the footswitch hole (~15mm).

I will have to do this on my next build, as getting the LED in place has always bugged me. None of the other approaches I have tried are really satisfying. Time to revise my drilling templates.