Getting Started with Building Pedals

[Bakersdozen]

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.

Managed to fluke that on the MXR boost, got the led bevel close to the switch and covered the legs in heat shrink. As it was a bi-colour led, straight to the switch really helped. Resistor straight on the middle lug to power and happy days.

[DarkMark]

Thanks for a beginner thread. Although I’m a guitar straight into an amp kind of guy, I’ll run out of arguments to have more guitars and I’d like to put my newly purchased soldering Station to use on other projects.

[Bakersdozen]

Another tip is to keep your resistor and capacitor leg off cuts - they make good handy links if your doing Vero/strip board layouts.

[Bakersdozen]

Question about earthing and pcb circuits...I know there has been talk about this before regarding ground loops etc. My questions is do you need to run these points out of the pcb that go to the sleeve of each jack if you already have earth going through the enclosure? If not, i'd presume you have to either run at least one of them or run the earth of the dc jack to the enclosure or one of the sleeves ??

[jugglindan]

If you want to reduce wiring, then you just need a single wire to ground the enclosure. On the Buffer I wired ground to just one jack. The other jack is grounded via the enclosure. The pedal works fine. Just need to make sure you have a good mechanical contact and that there isn't paint or powdercoating preventing a good ground connection.

On other builds that are full of wires anyway (3 pots, 2 switch sort of things) I just run ground wires to all jacks in a line (input, DC, output, footswitch (and LED), board. Not grounding one jack only saves me one short wire from the DC jack to the jack right next to it.

[Bakersdozen]

So on a PCB like this, you could safely ignore those earth's coming from the PCB to the sleeves each Jack? Pending earth is covered elsewhere from the DC Jack to ground and board.

[jugglindan]

So on a PCB like this, you could safely ignore those earth's coming from the PCB to the sleeves each Jack? Pending earth is covered elsewhere from the DC Jack to ground and board.

So long as all ground points are connected at least once then you should be OK. Running a ground to a 6.5mm jack is the easiest way to ground the enclosure. As you know, the DC jacks and switches are insulated from the enclosure.

[Bakersdozen]

So long as all ground points are connected at least once then you should be OK. Running a ground to a 6.5mm jack is the easiest way to ground the enclosure. As you know, the DC jacks and switches are insulated from the enclosure.

So if the board has a dedicated earth point elsewhere, you can ignore those earth points to each Jack (like in the picture I linked earlier)? Sorry for being pedantic, just trying to be clear in my head.

[jugglindan]

I would think you could ignore the ground wires to both the input and output jacks only if the enclosure is getting grounded some other way. But unless the board has a direct connection to the enclosure, such as a metal mount that connects to a ground pad on the PCB, you will need at least one ground wire to the enclosure. Otherwise the jacks won't have a complete circuit. I find the easiest way to ground the enclosure is via one of the jacks, since they typically have metal threads that are connected to the ground terminal.

If you send me a link I can have a look at the build instructions.

Another way to check is with a multimeter set to continuity test. Wire up the bare minimum wires you think you need, then make sure you have a connection between every point that needs to be grounded and the ground terminal on the DC jack. The main points are typically the input and output jacks, the ground terminals on the footswitch, and the ground terminal on the PCB. You need to fit the jacks into the enclosure to complete the circuit if you are not running ground wires to all of them. The pot casing will typically get grounded via the enclosure which might help with noise but is not usually required in the same way as wiring a guitar.

[Bakersdozen]

Perfect thanks DC. I'm good with checking earth and continuity etc. Appreciate the logic check.

It was more the relevance of those extra earthing points on the PCB as I'm contemplating a few next projects which are bubbling away in my brain. And I'm yet to complete a PCB project, so was unclear on this and their function/necessity.

I guess if you planned to build it in something not conductive, it would be a good way to earth everything neatly.