Actual functioning pedal day - StewMac Screamer

[mbenigni]

I finished my first pedal kit build the other day, and I'm really happy with the results. I'd arrived at, "If this even passes a signal I'll call it a win, and if it doesn't... it all goes in the bin and we'll never speak of this again."

Out of the gates, I plugged it in with a reverse polarity PS, and got nothing. Luckily I realized my mistake before I tore it all apart again, and it fired right up. Sounds great, too! A friend stopped by to shoot out a few OD pedals, and this was actually our favorite.

Soldering was much easier than I expected. Desoldering, significantly less fun - especially if you're trying to recover and reuse the part. (I'd like to have words with the person who chose that shade of brown and that shade of red as some kind of godforsaken standard for coding resistors. Aargh.) But the "building a ship in a bottle" finger gymnastics you get into at final assembly are worse than either. Who knew?

Here's a meaningless photo of a white box (no gut shot.)

And here's how I'd like it to look after I fashion some kind of decal and clearcoat the thing. Which I may or may not ever actually get around to LOL.

I think I've got just about enough room to wedge a high capacity 9V in here, and never have to worry about a PSU again. :)

 

[Warmart]

That's awesome man, huge congrats! Sounds like a ton of fun. Any gut shots incoming?

 

[hemmelight]

Very cool!

I’ve built a tube screamer from a kit before and found it pretty enjoyable. Although I didn’t have to do much de-soldering.

I don’t think I kept it though? I wasn’t in love with the sound of the thing. These days I’m more into the idea of a fuzz face instead.

 

[mbenigni]

P.S. A "fun thing" that happened while I was putting this together: I dropped a white capacitor onto my desk from a height about 2" above, and it did some kind of crazy death-defying triple backflip to the opposite corner of said desk, landing precisely on the white part of a decal on a roll of copper braid. In other words: It *&%$#&! vanished in an instant. I searched the room for over an hour, conducted bizarre drop tests with other capacitors to try to determine how far it could have gotten... my wife even visited my dungeon (unheard of!) to try and help.

And finally...

 

[mbenigni]

That's awesome man, huge congrats! Sounds like a ton of fun. Any gut shots incoming?

Thanks! Yeah, gut shots would probably make more sense than a picture of a generic white enclosure. When I add the battery (if it fits) I'll take some pictures. It's not the prettiest board... you can see some TLC went into it LOL.

Very cool!

I’ve built a tube screamer from a kit before and found it pretty enjoyable. Although I didn’t have to do much de-soldering.

I don’t think I kept it though? I wasn’t in love with the sound of the thing. These days I’m more into the idea of a fuzz face instead.

Yeah, the desoldering sucked (literally?)

Fuzz Face is next! I don't actually need any pedals, but I've got the DIY bug. My next venture is going to be this one, I think:

The Fuzz Face Explorer Board Kit - a learning rig for this popular fuzz circuit and a great way to demo new and unexplored transistors for Fuzz

Here's a tool I designed to help you explore the classic Fuzz Face circuit. If you love fuzz this lil thing can help you design your own. A little about it: It can help you explore the original Fuzz Face circuit in a neat and organized way. Jumper wire spaghetti be damned. Use some tried...

thegearforum.com

I think I stand to actually learn something from this, whereas the StewMac PCB plus instructions was basically paint by numbers. From there I can start breadboarding custom circuits and see what happens. ("What's the worst that could happen...")

Fuzz is the one thing digital MFX can't seem to get quite right, so there might be an actual value-add here.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Nice job dude. Welcome to a really addictive hobby. Small parts always disappear as soon as you drop them, wait till you drop a few transistors and don't find them for 6 months

You're much better off with a cheap multimeter or component tester to check parts values. Also Search amazon for Engineer Ss-02, it's less than $20 but will save you a lot of effort if you need to clear pcb holes of solder

Also like @Warmart said no guts no glory

 

[Devin]

Nice job kimg


I've done one in the past (Alembic Stratoblaster) and it was fun and satisfying af

 

[mbenigni]

Nice job dude. Welcome to a really addictive hobby. Small parts always disappear as soon as you drop them, wait till you drop a few transistors and don't find them for 6 months

You're much better off with a cheap multimeter or component tester to check parts values. Also Search amazon for Engineer Ss-02, it's less than $20 but will save you a lot of effort if you need to clear pcb holes of solder

View attachment 24299

Also like @Warmart said no guts no glory

That does look more effective than the cheap one I was limping along with:

And the braid did almost nothing. (Though to be fair, I completely forgot about using flux...)

Aside: I once dropped a guitar pick - the only one I had at the time - and turned the entire room upside down. A few hours later I found it in the cuff of my pants.

 

[JiveTurkey]

You are a brave man! Good work! It looks nice \m/

 

[mbenigni]

Small parts always disappear as soon as you drop them, wait till you drop a few transistors and don't find them for 6 months

My wife's "solution" was to buy me this massive magnetic metal chip collector. I didn't have the heart to tell her that half the stuff I'll drop isn't attracted to magnets - nor that I'm terrified of what this thing might do to the various computing devices I have scattered all over the place. God bless her, but I hid it in the closet LOL.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

That does look more effective than the cheap one I was limping along with:

View attachment 24310

And the braid did almost nothing. (Though to be fair, I completely forgot about using flux...)

Aside: I once dropped a guitar pick - the only one I had at the time - and turned the entire room upside down. A few hours later I found it in the cuff of my pants.

Braid has its uses but I prefer the solder sucker for most things. I tend to heat the pad and use some tweezers to pull a component out one side at a time. Then I use the solder sucker to clean out the hole. It's much harder to get the solder out if the hole of the component leg is still in there.

 

[Warmart]

Braid has its uses but I prefer the solder sucker for most things. I tend to heat the pad and use some tweezers to pull a component out one side at a time. Then I use the solder sucker to clean out the hole. It's much harder to get the solder out if the hole of the component leg is still in there.

@SillyOctpuss sucker looks primo! I needs one of those no joke!

I've had one like @mbenigni for decades, and it sorta kinda works, at times? I hate to use flux in a guitar so the braid is virtually useless, unless it always can magically collect fallen components??

 

[mbenigni]

Braid has its uses but I prefer the solder sucker for most things. I tend to heat the pad and use some tweezers to pull a component out one side at a time. Then I use the solder sucker to clean out the hole. It's much harder to get the solder out if the hole of the component leg is still in there.

Great advice - thank you!

 

[SillyOctpuss]

@SillyOctpuss sucker looks primo! I needs one of those no joke!

I've had one like @mbenigni for decades, and it sorta kinda works, at times? I hate to use flux in a guitar so the braid is virtually useless, unless it always can magically collect fallen components??

It's one of the best things I've bought since I started pedal building. It's less than $20, I bought mine 8 years ago and it's still works the same as it did when I got it. Absolute bargain.

 

[Los-D]

I finished my first pedal kit build the other day, and I'm really happy with the results. I'd arrived at, "If this even passes a signal I'll call it a win, and if it doesn't... it all goes in the bin and we'll never speak of this again."

Out of the gates, I plugged it in with a reverse polarity PS, and got nothing. Luckily I realized my mistake before I tore it all apart again, and it fired right up. Sounds great, too! A friend stopped by to shoot out a bunch of OD pedals, and this was actually our favorite.

Soldering was much easier than I expected. Desoldering, significantly less fun - especially if you're trying to recover and reuse the part. (I'd like to have words with the person who chose that shade of brown and that shade of red as some kind of godforsaken standard for coding resistors. Aargh.) But the "building a ship in a bottle" finger gymnastics you get into at final assembly are worse than either. Who knew?

Here's a meaningless photo of a white box (no gut shot.)

View attachment 24302

And here's how I'd like it to look after I fashion some kind of decal and clearcoat the thing. Which I may or may not ever actually get around to LOL.

View attachment 24301

I think I've got just about enough room to wedge a high capacity 9V in here, and never have to worry about a PSU again. :)

Very nice!!

No QC capture yet…?

[EDIT] Just saw @FuzzyAce ’s profile GIF

 

[mbenigni]

Very nice!!

No QC capture yet…?

Gimme a second to exhale the solder fumes.

 

[mbenigni]

Guts as promised. I probably should have paid attention to simple things, like putting the insulating pads on the backs of the pots at right angles - things that could have made the build look less sloppy for zero effort. (Actually, I suspected then, and can clearly see now, that the visible pads are completely unnecessary. I was just following the instructions to the letter at that point.)

I’m a little bummed that the enclosure, with the main board positioned as it is, is just a hair’s breadth too small to add a 9V battery. Silly design flaw IMO.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Guts as promised. I probably should have paid attention to simple things, like putting the insulating pads on the backs of the pots at right angles - things that could have made the build look less sloppy for zero effort.

I’m a little bummed that the enclosure, with the main board positioned as it is, is just a hair’s breadth too small to add a 9V battery. Silly design flaw IMO.

View attachment 24346

Why did you put insulating pads on the back of the pots? They've already got plastic cases on them.

Can you not fit a battery to the right or left of the footswitch running up the enclosure or horizontally under your wires between the pcb and footswitch? You might get some extra noise under the wires though I suppose.

Was it a pre drilled enclosure?

 

[mbenigni]

Why did you put insulating pads on the back of the pots? They've already got plastic cases on them.

Can you not fit a battery to the right or left of the footswitch running up the enclosure or horizontally under your wires between the pcb and footswitch? You might get some extra noise under the wires though I suppose.

Was it a pre drilled enclosure?

Ha - I was literally editing my post to the effect of those pads being unnecessary while you were posting.

That’s exactly where I intended to put the battery, but I’m shy about a mm. The enclosure was pre-drilled, and the pots dictate the position of the main board. :/

 

[Sleezy E]

#solutions