The D.I.Y. FX Pedal Building Thread

[DrNomis_44]

nah Doc with your electronics background I have total faith in your work. Plus can the circuit board be pre-tested did you do that before you posted it ?

To be honest, I didn't get a chance to pre-test the circuit before posting it but I am confident that it should work fine because I used the exact same layout as the board that's in my Big Muff when I made the second board, I made sure that I did a thorough check of all the track breaks on the back of the board, so, if it is wired up as per the diagram I sent with it, it should work first time.

If for some reason it doesn't work first time I'll be happy to do whatever it takes to get it working.

[Dedman]

finished wiring this morning, got nothing If I press the switch it will by-pass, and I don't have the led coming on so I'm guessing I have the power socket wired wrong. Will try again tomorrow morning

[wokkaboy]

Hey Dedman yes sounds like there's no power to the pedal. Work on (long term) borrowing Hooligan's 1947 Indian Chief and I'll keep him distracted !

[DrNomis_44]

finished wiring this morning, got nothing If I press the switch it will by-pass, and I don't have the led coming on so I'm guessing I have the power socket wired wrong. Will try again tomorrow morning

Also, check to see if you've got the Led wired up correctly, you can use a multimeter set to Diode Test to work out which lead is positive (A) and which lead is negative (K), you do this by touching the red probe to one lead and the black probe to the other lead, if the Led lights then the lead with the black probe touching it is the negative (K) lead, and the lead with the red probe touching it is the positive (A) lead.

If the Led doesn't light, swap the probes around, if it still doesn't light, it may be that the Led has burnt out and needs replacing, I have had one Led that I bought brand new not work at all.


If your plugpack that you're using to power the pedal is wired up as a centre negative, then check to make sure that the circuit grounds are connected to the centre terminal on the DC socket, hope that helps.


If you want, I can measure the voltages on the transistors in my Big Muff build so you have something to compare with while troubleshooting your build.

[wokkaboy]

good work Doc's troubleshooting service !

[Dedman]

Thanks Doc, will fiddle again tomorrow. If I don't get it working I'll post it off for surgery :P

[DrNomis_44]

I've been thinking of having a go at designing/building a Valve preamp for recording guitar tracks with my bedroom studio, basically, it's going to be something that I can plug directly into one of the Mic/Line inputs of my Audio Interfaces, I want to house it in maybe a 1U or 2U 19 Inch rackmount case, I also want to include some kind of Analogue Speaker Emulation circuitry in the preamp, and also a full preamp section of a Tube Guitar amp, maybe the preamp section of a Soldano SLO 100 complete with an FX Loop and channel switching, and also footswitchable reverb (in case I feel like using a VST reverb plugin), this just the brainstorming phase though.

Furthermore, wouldn't it be cool to have the preamp circuitry built on a turret board point-to-point style?, and then build the other circuitry on circuit boards.

I know I'll probably have to deal with hum noise issues.

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Dedman, just wondering if you've managed to have another crack at your Big Muff build?.

[Dedman]

no haven't had a chance to get back to yet, maybe tomorrow....I hope

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since my last post in this thread, so I thought I would do an update, anyway, I'm in the process of getting some parts together to build a couple more pedals, but this time they are going to be based on older Vacuum Tube, or Valve Technology, one pedal I'm going to be making is called a Matchless Hotbox, and the other is called The Persuader, now since the Matchless Hotbox runs the Valves at about 250V DC, it's not really something I would recommend to those new to building pedals because of the very real danger of electrical shock, if you're unsure about what you're doing even the slightest mistake could have lethal consequences, on the other hand, The Persuader pedal is a lot safer to build because the circuit only runs at about 9V DC or so, I can't see why it can't be modded to run at 12V DC though, so, I will be doing a write-up for the Persuader Pedal, some of the parts needed to build the Persuader Pedal may be hard to source from your local Electronics Parts shop so here's a link to a webpage where you can order a kit of parts online, you can also download the Build Instructions PDF, Schematic, and troubleshooting guide too:

https://www.amplifiedparts.com/products/K-930

Since I already had some of the parts I needed I have chosen to source the rest of the parts myself rather than buy a kit, once I have all the parts I need to build the Persuader Pedal, I will start doing the write up as I'm building it next week so stay tuned.