My newest "thing"....stompboxes

[Geezer]

Hey guys, I thought I'd share my newest obsession with you good folks, as I've not been too active on the forum lately, but have kept the soldering iron HOT, just the same.

I've pretty much got my ultimate amp(s) built, and sort'a went at this thing backwards (as most people START with stompbox-type projects & work up to amps....I did just the opposite).

The following are my builds (so far), and I am today working on a Klon Centauer-type pedal, and also a Marshall JCM800-type thing in a box.

.....too much fun!

Also, these are NOT "kits"....The only thing pre-made is the PCB (Blank/etched only, I load & solder all the parts). The boxes are blank/un-drilled, I design the layout/features & faceplates, all the channel switching & such. Using alot of what I've learned from this forum & tube-amp building in general, while learning about SS stuff @ the same time.


They include (in order of appearance):
**ZenDrive type ("RenDrive")
**Compressor ("The Squeeze")
**Trem ("JitterBug")
**Dual Analog Delay ("KickBack"),

Thanks for lookin'!

Geezer

[John]

Dang Geezer, cool stuff!

[HotBluePlates]

Now that's pretty awesome!

[LooseChange]

I really like your box designs. Very cool.
The PC boards are purchased from where?

[Boots Deville]

Looks great Geez!

Are you doing your artwork on waterslide decal paper and an inkjet printer?

If so, could you please share your methods?

Those are real close-up shots and I can't see any visible boarder.  I'm having trouble achieving those same results consistently.

How do you smooth the decal out?  Paper towel? Sponge? Wet Paintbrush?
Do you use any "setting" solution after the decal is applied?

[Geezer]

Hey guys! Thanks for the comments.....I'll answer all the questions ASAP.

In the meantime, here's my newest....a Klon Centaur-type ($350 IF you can find one), and mine has 2x channels, plus a Bass/Fat Boost.

In staying with the mythical creature theme, I called it the "Gryphon" (If you look close, you can see him in the background).

BTW, it's tough to stuff all that into a tiny little box!  

Geezer

[Geezer]

I really like your box designs. Very cool.
The PC boards are purchased from where?

Thanks Dan! All the control panels are my original designs....I'm getting a little better as I go along.
Actually, that's a large part of the fun.....exercising my artistic side a bit to create stuff that I enjoy looking at & is also functional.

The website is here> http://www.guitarpcb.com/

You have to be a member to see most of the forum stuff (I'm "J Allen Shaw" over there.....look for my posts!)

The guy who runs it (Barry) is very much like Doug & does a great job. He has a "team" of guys who help him with new/original designs & to reverse engineer desireable pedals, making tweaks & improvements to them along the way.
He actually etches all the boards himself & will do custom boards to your designs if you want.

He doesn't sell many parts, and unfortunately the size/type of parts doen't cross-over much from tube amp stuff to pedals. Lots of IC's, FET's, transistors, 0.25w resistors (or smaller), 16v/25v/35v caps (with leads spaced for PCB's), 16mm pots, etc.

I get my parts from either Mammoth Electronics (my 1st choice), Small Bear, PedalPartsPlus, or off of eBay. Sorry to say, but Doug's stuff is mostly too big for this tiny crap....

I can usually build pretty much any pedal for between $50-75 tops.

I had to laugh the other day....I use lots of the 4PDT footswitches to do my channel switching, & one of the guys made a comment about how expensive those are (~$5 or less). I had to laugh & told him I was accustomed to paying $100+ just for a PT or OT for a tube amp, so $5 was a pretty good investment considering all I could accomplish with that "expensive" little switch! 

Thanks for the interest!

Geezer

[Geezer]

Looks great Geez!

Are you doing your artwork on waterslide decal paper and an inkjet printer?

If so, could you please share your methods?

Those are real close-up shots and I can't see any visible boarder.  I'm having trouble achieving those same results consistently.

How do you smooth the decal out?  Paper towel? Sponge? Wet Paintbrush?
Do you use any "setting" solution after the decal is applied?

Hey Boots!

You may not believe it, but I actually use inkjet photo paper to do all my plates! Thru alot of trial & error, I have developed a pretty easy (to me) system to create the faceplates, seal them, drill the enclosures.

Heres a few things I do:

*I use FrontPanelDesigner (free program, google search) to do the "templates", as it allows you to know exact measurements for placement of holes.

*I then print the template to PrimoPDF (another free program, which is a PDF creator that acts like a "printer") which converts/saves the file as a PDF

*I then open the pdf template in GIMP2 (yet another free program), as it will open pdf files & convert then into editable photo-type files.

There is a bit of a learning curve with gimp, but the ability to create "layers" in a great asset, as you can layer different templates & files, making changes to them without disturbing the other stuff you've already worked on.
I will usually create a "Knobs" template with the correct size & placement of knobs, so I can see if any of my labels or artwork are going to be covered up by the knobs once they are on the finished pedal. I then delete this template from the finished print file.

Once I get a final product that I like, I print out 2x copies on my injet printer, onto glossy hi-quality photo paper....one copy is the "final" that will go onto the finished pedal, and the other copy is "sacrificial", it will be used as a drill guide for the blank enclosure, destroyed by drilling thru it.
I tape this sacrificial print onto the enclosure & drill the holes right thru it, using the hole markers I've designed into the faceplate as a guide.

Once I have the enclosure drilled out & all the holes are the correct size, I then paint the enclosure. I use gloss black on all my enclosures, but that is personal pref. While the paint is drying (several days) I spray the sealer on the printed "final" copy of the faceplate. I use Clear Modgepodge sealer (available at walmart in the crafts dept) and it doesn't discolor the print or make the colors run/splotch....works perfectly. I put on a couple of coats, just to protect the print while I work with it while installing it on the box.

Once the painted box is dry, I cut the print to size, and spray the back of the print with 3M spray adhesive. Let the adhesive dry several minutes to become tacky, then carefully align the faceplate with the top of the enclosure, press in place.
Then spray more clear sealer on the top of the pedal (thin coats, allowing to dry between coats) until the edges of the photopaper are smooth/even & blended-in with the edge of the enclosure.

I then use an exacto knife to cut out the holes for all the controls (easy to do, since the holes are already drilled underneath the print), install all the pots/switches & I'm ready to start soldering!
Oh, I also always lay down a soft towel on the workbench surface at this point, because the finished side of the pedal will be facing down for a long time while I finish soldering the circuit & I don't want the face & knobs to get damaged.

Hope that helps.......Geezer

[HotBluePlates]

... I use Clear Modgepodge sealer (available at walmart in the crafts dept) and it doesn't discolor the print or make the colors run/splotch....works perfectly. I put on a couple of coats, just to protect the print while I work with it while installing it on the box. ...

I'm sure no one was expecting to use scrapbooking supplies in a pedal project! 

[zendragon63]

Geez Geezer, these look fantastic. Nice work under the hood but very cool art on top.

Like you, I am about done building amps as I have pretty much found how to get the tone and response I have always wanted all these years--especially with the lower wattage power tubes. And I haven't been a pedal fan for my own 'purist' reasons but coincidentally am starting to monkey around with FETs and MOSFETs in the buffering and treble boost stuff. Thanks for sharing--kind 'o gives me the inspiration to keep learning and building. Regards

dennis

[tubenit]

Absolutely stellar!  Magnificent job, Geezer.

Thanks for sharing your creativity. I sure love the graphics you used.

With respect, Tubenit

[Boots Deville]

Hey Geezer, thanks for the in-depth description of your faceplate method! I'll give it a shot on my next pedal.

[simonallaway]

Very, very cool designs indeed. Nice work!

I'm going down a similar path. It seems building an amp was the gateway drug to effects-pedal addiction...who knew?

[Geezer]

Here's one more, based on a unit called the "King Of The Britons", I call mine "His Royal Majesty", or HRM for short.

If you saw the schematic (you have to be a member over @ GuitarPCB.com to access it) you'd have a chuckle like I did......it's basically a Marshall JCM800 in a pedal! The JFET transistors are used like triodes, and it even has a cathode follower (or "source" follower, as it's called when using JFETs).

I was able to "tweak" it just like a tube amp, adjusting the source (cathode) resistor values to re-bias the gain stages & get a bit more usable tone. It was very Fuzz-like at 1st, but now is much more tube sounding. Very nice for a heavy rock sound on some tunes......

This will be the last pedal for a while. I have a Phase Shifter on the drawing board, but will be too busy during the summer months to do much soldering 

Geezer

[TIMBO]

Hi guys, Geezer,great work and even better work on being able to tweak the circuit to get it to your liking  I've tried my hand at these little monsters and they are a lot of fun.
I had a go at doing a similar build to the Ibanez Tube Screamer Amp by putting a GM Arts overdrive pedal in front of T's SoLow Watt amp but with my limited electronics knowledge i was unable to get it to interact well (lots of oscillation and squealing). I see that you have used sockets on the interchangeable parts, this is a good idea.

I have shelved this project for awhile till i can get the amp part working and then i can consintrate on the SS stuff. Any chance of some schems  .Thanks

[tubenit]

Any chance of some schems

 

If you saw the schematic (you have to be a member over @ GuitarPCB.com to access it)

[tubenit]

Geezer,

I will assume the delay pedal as a given ............................

What other two pedals do you like the most and would take to a gig?

Also what amps are you running the pedals thru?  I presume at least one of the amps is a HoSo56 variation of some sort?

With respect, Tubenit

[Geezer]

Yes, the delay is a must, and I am really liking the compressor, too. It can be very transparent with the controls low.

The RenDrive is killer (a must have), and I haven't been able to test the Gryphon in a live situation yet, but it has a bit more "growl" to it (a bit "harder" OD than the "softer" D-style breakup of the RenDrive), so it will be a staple, too, I'm sure.

Still tweaking the HRM.....I think I may have gone about it backwards.....it seems on transistors, the best place to adjust bias is at the plate (drain) resistor, so I'm still tweaking. The 1st try (cathode/source resistor adjustments) was ok, but seems a bit "choked" to me. I'm going to do more tests & see if I can get better results......

G

[tubenit]

Thanks for the reply, it is appreciated!

The thing I like about compressor pedals is they work great for slide guitar and for fast riffs where they allow every note to sound out well. Plus you can get pretty clean sustain from them, IMO. Although the one I used to own (Boss) had quite a bit of white noise & even more than my current OD pedal.

Q1) Any chance that the RenDrive can somewhat get that compression and   
      clean sustain also?  I'm looking for a somewhat clean & transparent 
      tone where fast riffs will sound out all the notes well. If so, maybe that
      would be a better choice for me than building the compressor?

Q2) I've got a homebrew type TubeScreamer with mods that I love. Is the
      Rendrive much different than a TS or Bad Monkey?  If so, how?

Thanks,  Tubenit

[dpm309]

Geezer, great work!  I have been building pedals for a while but yours put mine to shame.  I like the various designs etc you can get out of GIMP2.  I am using Front Panel Designer also but when I convert the design to a PDF using PrimoPDF, the PDF printout is about 6% smaller than the actual printout from the Front Panel program.  For my previous pedals, I just printed directly from FPD to clear mailing label stock, applied to the box, and applied several coats of clear coat.  FPD is very limited in colors and fonts so I downloaded GIMP2 and am in the process of learning how to use it.  Have you experienced any problems with your dimensions when you converted them from FPD?  Does the final sticker measure exactly as you laid it out in FPD?

Dan

[tubenit]

The thing I like about compressor pedals is they work great for slide guitar and for fast riffs where they allow every note to sound out well. Plus you can get pretty clean sustain from them, IMO. Although the one I used to own (Boss) had quite a bit of white noise & even more than my current OD pedal.

Q1) Any chance that the RenDrive can somewhat get that compression and   
      clean sustain also?  I'm looking for a somewhat clean & transparent 
      tone where fast riffs will sound out all the notes well. If so, maybe that
      would be a better choice for me than building the compressor?

I found enough sound clips to definitely point me towards the compressor instead of the Renddrive.  I liked the Rendrive but not anymore than I like my current homebrew TS pedal. I used an LM833 in my TS instead of the 4558 chip. It is more transparent and a softer OD, IMO.

With respect, Tubenit

[Ritchie200]

'Nit, I'd say the last thing YOU want is anything transparent!!!  My goodness man, you need a chain of effects several yards long to try and add something worth listening to and mask that anemic tele tone(?).  I'm just sayin'...


Geezer, that is AWESOME work!

Jim

[tubenit]

I followed Geezer's Reply #7 directions in this thread and it works GREAT!!!!

I'll add one additional comment. I use regular automotive spray on my amp chassis and my effects boxes. Then I clear coat it with the same kind of auto clear acrylic lacquer spray. This gives the color some depth.

So, I found that after using the ModgePodge sealer  with  about 4-5 coats sprayed on,  ................ I then sprayed over it with the acrylic auto clear lacquer. I got the ModgePodge sealer at WalMart in a flat or low luster matte finish. It worked perfectly for me.  No issues at all. The auto clear lacquer did not lift or wrinkle the ModgePodge sealer and it did not make the colors in the decal bleed either.

I use either Dupli-color or Plastikote spray cans of auto lacquer.

With respect, Tubenit

[tubenit]

Following in Geezer's foot steps and his help, ................ this is what I've done now to my compressor pedal and my tube screamerish OD pedals.  The compressor pedal has actually not been built. I plan to do that this coming wkend.

With respect, Tubenit

[Ed_Chambley]

Geezer, great work!  I have been building pedals for a while but yours put mine to shame.  I like the various designs etc you can get out of GIMP2.  I am using Front Panel Designer also but when I convert the design to a PDF using PrimoPDF, the PDF printout is about 6% smaller than the actual printout from the Front Panel program.  For my previous pedals, I just printed directly from FPD to clear mailing label stock, applied to the box, and applied several coats of clear coat.  FPD is very limited in colors and fonts so I downloaded GIMP2 and am in the process of learning how to use it.  Have you experienced any problems with your dimensions when you converted them from FPD?  Does the final sticker measure exactly as you laid it out in FPD?

Dan

Dan, if you are printing from Adobe Acrobat, change the page scaling to none.  The default is fit to printer margins which will reduce your output.  If not, just ignore.

[Ed_Chambley]

Great looking pedals.  I have been interested in the Klon for some time now.  It is about the only one I have never had a chance to listen to.  I did check out a very nice pedal this weekend.  THC chorus pedal.  Great analog pedal.  Smooth and breaks up when you dig the strings.

I have built a couple and modded a couple, but my hats off to anyone who can work in those little spaces.

Really great work.  Thanks you for the info and the link to the forum.

BTW, many ask about compressor pedals.  I always have one running, either a keeley for tele and Analogman comprosser for humbuckers.  They are both very quite.  Pedals might be where it is at as some of them are getting rather $$$$$.

[guitardude57]

Real nice work Geezer!

[tubenit]

Finished my compressor pedal based on Geezer's innovative approach of dual sets of controls. 

This is a VERY transparent pedal.  Using my Tweed BlueMeister,  I can get almost infinite sustain on the OD & it seems to increase the
"blooming" effect.  Kind of hard to describe, but it seems to make the clean more "clean" and the OD more "OD".

With respect, Tubenit

[Willabe]

Man you guys, very nice!       


                         Brad     

[tubenit]

I did all these with "Paint".     I'd describe these as sort of George Jetson meets the Wild West

 

[simonallaway]

I have to admit to having a ton of fun with pedals too. Here's my booster...

[cbass]

man all my stuff is crap compared to yalls.I mount my pedals in steel electrical boxes and they look awful

[tubenit]

I typed in background patterns on the internet and found these for my new pedal

Tubenit

[jojokeo]

Dammit, I gotta venture away from the amp threads more often on this site. I've also been taking a "tube break" for a bit. I've been playing out more and enjoying the fruits of my labor so to speak. My pedals had been bothering me so I started modding 5 or 6 of them then just said to myself, "what you doing, Just go back to making some pedals like you used to." As usual, you guys always seem a step or three ahead  

Once I found vero board, it was refreshing and like making our amp boards, and it made troubleshooting & changing things as easy too. Much better than when I laid out and etched my own boards, drilled, etc...what a pain in the ass that use to be. Anyway, My crazy method is to put the circuit together first, get it running, tweak things and then box it up after everything's done.

*Geezer, thanks for the info on faceplate making. I've been waffling on several techniques and using waterslide decal, inkscape vs gimp etc... OH Yeah - where does the battery go in your boxes??? LOL  

Here's a couple of recently finished overdrive pedals ready for boxing up w/out the on/off switch, power plug, etc...that all gets done on final assy.

[Madison]

>>Dammit, I gotta venture away from the amp threads more often on this site.

Same here!
Wow!
These are amazing looking pedals.
Makes me want to build some too!!!

[simonallaway]

Jojokeo....I'm in the same boat in that I tinker with the circuits (as much as my knowledge allows me) well before I consider the enclosure. In the spirit of the Beavis website I built a crude, but useful prototype board (see image). Here's a post all about it:

http://hotbottles.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/breadboards-and-prototyping-pedals/

[jojokeo]

Is that your site? I like the breadboard set-up. But I used to that too and it was always disheartening to take it all apart then have to re-create it again to be able to use it again. For that reason circuits had a tendancy to stay breadboarded, lol.

[simonallaway]

Haha, I understand. Perhaps build them on a smaller breadboard, get it working, and then seal it with some kind of epoxy. Then jam it into an enclosure and go on your way ;)

And yes, that's my site. I use it for documenting my amp/pedal efforts.