What I did in my holidays - homebuild pedals

peterleroux

Here are a few pedals I've bashed together over the last few weeks. Nothing special but I have enjoyed doing them myself. I'm well on my way to a decent (small) pedalboard for bass, and a good minimal pedalboard for guitar.

A bazz fuss in a fuzzy enclosure: synthy, gatey messy fuzz from five components

Orange squeezer compressor:

EHX Mole clone:

Ruby battery powered amp:

Up next are a Sansamp GT2 Clone and a Rebote 2.5 delay, as soon as I pick up some pots to replace ones I ruined by overheating them.

mtmattan

It's not loading the pics. Is it just me??

psyx

Must be a mistake!! No thread like this is complete without pix!

peterleroux

That's odd, they load for me. I'll look into it...

EDIT - are they visible now?

mtmattan

Ya working now!
Good stuff!
Furry fuzz lol.

psyx

Mattocaster wrote Furry fuzz lol.

+1 Awesome touch! ?

Norman86

nice work ?

bottledtone

Haha Shagadelic!! I'm sure ZZ top would use that in a music vid

peterleroux

Happy new year everyone, and thanks for the positive comments.

I finished the Rebote delay yesterday - this thing is fantastic, great early 80's delay sound. It knocks a bit of highs of the repeats to give an analogue sound. The PT2399 delay chip worked straight out the box for me, which is good luck because they're supposedly unreliable.

Next up is the Sansamp GT2, which should be boxed up by the end of the day, although it's pretty noisy.

Psean

Cool stuff!
I built a Bazz Fuss (with a few extra components and pots) after I saw your post and was pretty happy with it too.
The Ruby's also on my to-build list; probably a mini combo though. What speaker are you using and how have you found the sound?

peterleroux

Psean wrote The Ruby's also on my to-build list; probably a mini combo though. What speaker are you using and how have you found the sound?

I had a little 3 inch speaker from a 70s clock radio, but it sounded terrible. I've been playing through my bass cab (a Hartke 12" paper cone speaker) and it's loud enough, too loud for late night playing at home. It is rather bassy through that cabinet, and the distortion is not very 'creamy', there's no mistake that this is a solid state amp. But for R20 in parts, it's worth having around, especially when you see what Vox and Marshall charge for their versions (most one watt 'novelty' micro-amps are running the LM386)

Psean

peterleroux wrote But for R20 in parts, it's worth having around, especially when you see what Vox and Marshall charge for their versions (most one watt 'novelty' micro-amps are running the LM386)

That's pretty much what I though. Will have a look around for a speaker when I get 'round to it.

peterleroux

...and here's the Sansamp. There is a lot of hiss on this one, and a big volume difference between the tweed and the other two amp models, but it sounds pretty good.

MattAttack

Those look great!

Where did you get those enclosures? I'm always struggling to find descent enclosures. The nice-looking ones at Yebo are like R250 or something stupid so I always settled for plastic ones that where too big.

The pedal I made last was the rebote delay which never worked and I could never figure out why, so reading that the IC is unreliable makes me think I should try swop it out. Everything else seems okay on the pcb.
Now just to remember where that thing could be after 5 years and 2 moves =/

Chocklit_Thunda

Where do you get the parts for all of these? I'm looking to start building some pedals too

peterleroux

I get most of my components from Mantech, they have a good online shop where I place my orders, then collect them from their office in Selby. For a few obscure parts that they don't have (like the op amps for the Sansamp), as well as the enclosures, I use RS Electronics. The smaller pedals (that are MXR/1590B sized) use their part number 517-3276 and the Sansamp is in a 517-3529. The finish of these enclosures can be rough, but a few minutes with some sandpaper preps them for spraypaint pretty well, and they cost about R30-R40

mtmattan

Dude, awesome stuff with the Sansamp build! ?
You nailed those switches - makes me wanna try them now. Are they screw in?

Also, excellent job with the graphic. It's classy and professional.
I know it's the sound that ultimately matters, but presentation still ranks high for me - and you nailed it!

peterleroux

Mattocaster wrote Dude, awesome stuff with the Sansamp build! ?
You nailed those switches - makes me wanna try them now. Are they screw in?

Also, excellent job with the graphic. It's classy and professional.
I know it's the sound that ultimately matters, but presentation still ranks high for me - and you nailed it!

Thanks Matt ? I am rather happy with how it came out visually. I decided that I'm going to finish everything guitar-specific in black and white to match my blonde blackguard Tele.
The switches are not screw in, they are actually PCB mount. I added a little stripboard 'extension' onto the pins to give myself an easier terminal. There is quite a bit of noise in the circuit, I think I will need to re-wire these switches with a shielded cable at some point. There is also oscillation on the Brit and Cali models if I turn the volume and gain up too far, and they are both louder than the tweed model. Not sure if this is expected behaviour, having never played a real GT2. The circuit is worth building, and I like how my bass sounds through the tweed model, which makes sense.

mtmattan

Hmmm strange that it's noisy.
It's not high gain is it?
Check if there are any power wires crossing audio wires - that'll create the most noise.
In my experience, I have never had the need for shielded wire.
Best debugging tool ever - Wiggle the wires around to see if it changes the sound.
Perhaps also check you're getting the right voltage on all the opamps.
On a TL072 pin 2 and pin 6 should read 4.5V.

peterleroux

Mattocaster wrote Hmmm strange that it's noisy.
It's not high gain is it?
Check if there are any power wires crossing audio wires - that'll create the most noise.
In my experience, I have never had the need for shielded wire.
Best debugging tool ever - Wiggle the wires around to see if it changes the sound.
Perhaps also check you're getting the right voltage on all the opamps.
On a TL072 pin 2 and pin 6 should read 4.5V.

My father-in-law is an electronics engineer, when I get a chance we'll sit down with his oscilloscope and try figure it out. It might be the lead dress that is an issue, I know that on Tonepad a lot of people have complained about noise on this circuit. It's mostly loud on the high-gain Marshall and Mesa settings. I'll check the voltage on the opamps too, I might need to re-bias them because the tonepad circuit specifies TL072s but I'm using 2262s (like Tech21 do) instead