# NPPD



## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

So, I was made an offer i couldn't refuse. I probably should have.... but what fun would life be with common sense.

I give you the pedal builders ultimate starter kit.... I think?

I dont know what half of it is and I don't know what the other half does but at least I got a staking tool out of it and a bread board!

Wish me luck gentlemen, im on a long and winding road










Step one is going to be to inventory it all.

You really should thank @keto because I probably won't be around much anymore


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Mark Brown said:


> You really should thank @keto because I probably won't be around much anymore


@mhammer has got to see this (especially while you are still around).

I hope you don't mind me asking, but did you get all of this from @keto?


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## amp boy (Apr 23, 2009)

.......the pizza (rug) brought it all together.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

greco said:


> @mhammer has got to see this (especially while you are still around).
> 
> I hope you don't mind me asking, but did you get all of this from @keto?


I did.

That sneaky bastard knew I was in a vulnerable state being all excited about building an amp 🤣



amp boy said:


> .......the pizza (rug) brought it all together.


We just finished dinner. That island countertop is the largest surface in my whole home, man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

This was me gleefully celebrating the recovered space, and relief that I should never again be tempted to create another piece for the failed projects pile. Several are in Mark’s haul, but probably 50 circuit boards of various descriptions will be hitting the ECO center electronics pile 😂

That’s all my resistors, caps, diodes, ICs, pots, switches of many kinds, misc pedal building supplies beyond mention, and a big library of printed layouts, with my notes. Many of which would have been derived from the knowledge of @mhammer , and countless internet contributors.

Pic also taken on a kitchen island


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

I have the same teeth!😜 Youre gunna miss that stuff. Are you being forced to do this in anyway because we are here to help😂


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

keto said:


> This was me gleefully celebrating the recovered space, and relief that I should never again be tempted to create another piece for the failed projects pile. Several are in Mark’s haul, but probably 50 circuit boards of various descriptions will be hitting the ECO center electronics pile 😂
> 
> That’s all my resistors, caps, diodes, ICs, pots, switches of many kinds, misc pedal building supplies beyond mention, and a big library of printed layouts, with my notes. Many of which would have been derived from the knowledge of @mhammer , and countless internet contributors.
> 
> ...


I claim he held onto that cigar for the day some sucker came along and took this off his hands.... he would neither confirm nor deny 

Thanks again mate, I think you just sold me a new hobby.

Funny, Cash didn't write a song "I got all the pieces at once"


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> I claim he held onto that cigar for the day some sucker came along and took this off his hands.... he would neither confirm nor deny
> 
> Thanks again mate, I think you just sold me a new hobby.
> 
> Funny, Cash didn't write a song "I got all the pieces at once"


Cost ya more than a dime tho


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## Okay Player (May 24, 2020)

keto said:


> This was me gleefully celebrating the recovered space, and relief that I should never again be tempted to create another piece for the failed projects pile. Several are in Mark’s haul, but probably 50 circuit boards of various descriptions will be hitting the ECO center electronics pile 😂
> 
> That’s all my resistors, caps, diodes, ICs, pots, switches of many kinds, misc pedal building supplies beyond mention, and a big library of printed layouts, with my notes. Many of which would have been derived from the knowledge of @mhammer , and countless internet contributors.
> 
> ...


It looks like Mike Matthews has really fallen on hard times.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

keto said:


> This was me gleefully celebrating the recovered space, and relief that I should never again be tempted to create another piece for the failed projects pile. Several are in Mark’s haul, but probably 50 circuit boards of various descriptions will be hitting the ECO center electronics pile 😂
> 
> That’s all my resistors, caps, diodes, ICs, pots, switches of many kinds, misc pedal building supplies beyond mention, and a big library of printed layouts, with my notes. Many of which would have been derived from the knowledge of @mhammer , and countless internet contributors.
> 
> ...


I am both jealous (of the other Mark) and dismayed....that Keto gave it up, and that none of it came my way.

But congrats to you both. I expect to be getting plenty of "do you know what the heck this is?" notes from Mark.


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Start the young uns early Mark...they have mini hands and ideal dexterity for pedals.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> I am both jealous (of the other Mark) and dismayed....that Keto gave it up, and that none of it came my way.
> 
> But congrats to you both. I expect to be getting plenty of "do you know what the heck this is?" notes from Mark.


To be fair, the more internet sleuthing I do, the more and more I see your name so it would appear that you have already answered a lot of my questions 



Paul Running said:


> Start the young uns early Mark...they have mini hands and ideal dexterity for pedals.


She can't read and she can't talk, but maybe schematics are where she starts so unlike her dad at just under 40 she will know more than how to drop voltage from a 9v so as not to blow up an LED.


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

This is my entire stock of pedal building supplies:









On their way from Bulgaria right now. No idea that they are a Fuzz pedal.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> I claim he held onto that cigar for the day some sucker came along and took this off his hands.... he would neither confirm nor deny
> 
> Thanks again mate, I think you just sold me a new hobby.
> 
> Funny, Cash didn't write a song "I got all the pieces at once"


I’ll bet he lit that cigar with one of your hundred dollar bills.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Sneaky said:


> I’ll bet he lit that cigar with one of your hundred dollar bills.


Maybe, but that is a lot of work seeing as a fellow would have to drive all the way to the bank and withdraw the money, then drive home, go on Kijiji and try and trade the polymer bills for old paper ones. You, I just don't think that is feasible.

For anyone interested, the ribbing is all in fun. I have been at poor @keto for days about it. That being said, I got an amazing deal (or I think so and that is what matters) and had a super easy time of it and discovered the man has a sense of humor to boot.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> Maybe, but that is a lot of work seeing as a fellow would have to drive all the way to the bank and withdraw the money, then drive home, go on Kijiji and try and trade the polymer bills for old paper ones. You, I just don't think that is feasible.
> 
> For anyone interested, the ribbing is all in fun. I have been at poor @keto for days about it. That being said, I got an amazing deal (or I think so and that is what matters) and had a super easy time of it and discovered the man has a sense of humor to boot.


Kent is good peeps.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mark Brown said:


> To be fair, the more internet sleuthing I do, the more and more I see your name so it would appear that you have already answered a lot of my questions
> 
> 
> She can't read and she can't talk, but maybe schematics are where she starts so unlike her dad at just under 40 she will know more than how to drop voltage from a 9v so as not to blow up an LED.
> View attachment 432980


So, she's interested in making an FY-2, using the General Guitar Gadgets layout? Good taste. You've raised her well. She'll lose her hearing by the time she reaches middle school, but still...

A voice mic and an echo pedal will keep preschoolers amused for half-hours at a time.


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## Verne (Dec 29, 2018)

Just to be helpful, the orange one on the right.........you step on that silver thing and it goes _click_.

oh, I also now assume you are starting to take orders for custom pedals. AWESOME!!!!


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

A trip down memory lane. 


Pic of me, by mrs keto. Yeah, I did have some hair at one point.

































Here's something you didn't need to know! That's an actual pic of my dirty gonch and socks.

















Yes, this was a working fuzz.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

I certainly remember seeing pics of this one! 

Brilliant!


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

keto said:


> A trip down memory lane.
> 
> 
> Pic of me, by mrs keto. Yeah, I did have some hair at one point.
> ...


That spring trap on the rat will always hold a place in my heart!


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## tomee2 (Feb 27, 2017)

“No idea”. Good name for a pedal!

Nice haul!


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## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

Thread crossover… 

Yes, you do indeed have a housing.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Almost got the first thing put together out of it all.

Merciful crap it is too much work doing this!! Thank goodness it is fun or you would have to be a lunatic to sit here and squint for 6 or 7 hours straight. 

Probably should have started with something a little simpler but oh well....


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Nicely done, other Mark! Since it can often be the case that the board gets stuffed long before the pots and enclosure arrive or get purchased, I like to use a colour code for wires. Red and black fr V+ and ground, respectively, white for input and blue for volume pot and output. If there's going to be a tonestack, it's yellow for treble, orange for mids, and brown for bass. If it's a simple gain/tone/volume arrangement, brown is gain, blue volume, and perhaps orange or grey for tone. Modulation pedals tend to use purple for speed, or grey for speed and purple for resonance/feedback.

As you will come to find, eventually, there can be significant intervals between stuffing a board, final wiring, and installation into an enclosure. Colour coding can help to jog memory about what something IS, and what wires go to what. But that's me.

I'm guessing those two pairs of transistors are FETs?


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> Nicely done, other Mark! Since it can often be the case that the board gets stuffed long before the pots and enclosure arrive or get purchased, I like to use a colour code for wires. Red and black fr V+ and ground, respectively, white for input and blue for volume pot and output. If there's going to be a tonestack, it's yellow for treble, orange for mids, and brown for bass. If it's a simple gain/tone/volume arrangement, brown is gain, blue volume, and perhaps orange or grey for tone. Modulation pedals tend to use purple for speed, or grey for speed and purple for resonance/feedback.
> 
> As you will come to find, eventually, there can be significant intervals between stuffing a board, final wiring, and installation into an enclosure. Colour coding can help to jog memory about what something IS, and what wires go to what. But that's me.
> 
> I'm guessing those two pairs of transistors are FETs?


They are 2N5457 and lucky for me I have a whole whack of them lol

If I play my cards right, someday I might even know why they are there. There is so much to learn and I just wanted to make something so I dove right in. Unfortunately that is not really the best way to learn anything however I will say, having the circuit in my hand I can trace the path of the signal and see the interaction with the voltage so eventually when I learn what and how and why all the capacitors and resistors interact with the everything else I should be able to comprehend it.

Right now all I have for wire is Blue because I have come to the well drawn conclusion that I hate all wire that is not the coated multi stranded wire that NextGen sells and I have vowed to never again use anything that is not it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

My favorite was always the prebonded 24 gauge stranded that Small Bear sold. I don't know if Synthcube - who bought out the Small Bear stock and name - still carries it. #24, for me, had the right combination of bendability and sturdiness. It turned corners nicely. Of course, these days, so many boards assume use of those PCB-mount pots with solder lugs at right angles, making maleable connecting wire a thing of the past.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

PCB is cheating 

Or at the very least, until I find a cost effective and efficient way to make it myself it is off the table. Acid etching copper really doesn't sound like my kind of jam and unless I purchase a small fiber laser which I would have to be much more involved than I am.... well you get the idea.

I will eventually come up with something if I feel the need arise however for now I am satisfied with strip board even though I can see the benefits to a printed circuit.

EDIT

I lied, I just looked at a video that demonstrated printing on copper utilizing a laser to "print" the circuit by cutting spray paint off the coated copper. 

Next on my list for things to get around to.... 

Never satisfied


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When I compare it to what I was doing 30 and 40 years ago, making PCBs these days is child's play. Toner transfer is dead easy. The hardest part is keeping your damn fingers off the boards, so that "finger juice" doesn't get on them and ruin the etch (you can't see the finger juice but it forms a thin layer between the copper and etchant, impeding the etchant). One can etch with either ferric chloride OR ammonium persulfate. The former is cheaper and doesn't require heating, while the latter etches nicely without any risk of disgusting stains anywhere, but requires heat to activate it. Get a ferric chloride stain on a piece of clothing and you may as well throw it out, because that stain will transfer to everything else in the washing machine like a virus. I don't know about ammonium persulfate, but ferric chloride can etch plumbing as well, and is a hazardous chemical in its unused and used state. One disables it with baking soda, although you can get a batch of etchant to last a very long time if used strategically. If one does need to dispose of a container of used ferric chloride, make sure that it is in a large plastic container, and add the baking soda in a bit at a time. It will foam up BIG!!, which is why I offer those two suggestions. But once deactivated by the baking soda, it forms a crumbly mess that you can put in a plastic bag with the garbage.

The trick to getting a good etch is to make sure the copper side of the board is scrupulously clean. Superfine steel wool and a quick scrub with alcohol, using a clean paper towel does the trick (making sure to _keep your damn fingers off the board_!!!).

Toner transfer works like this. The toner from a laser printer or photocopier is laid down on an emulsion layer on the sheet of material that serves as its "vehicle". That can be Press-N-Peel Blue, or photo paper, or glossy magazine stock (National Geographic works great). These days I'm using this yellow paper I buy from a Chinese source that is MUCH cheaper than PnP, and much better than either glossy mags or photo paper. When the copper provides a nice shiny and smooth surface, and heat is applied, the toner "wants" to adhere to the copper more than the emulsion wants to adhere to whatever surface it comes on (whether that's paper or the plastic sheets of PnP, that are identical to overhead transparencies). So, once the heat-produced transfer is complete, and the board has cooled down fully, you peel off the sheet and the resist pattern stays on the board. Put the board face down, floating on the etchant, and etch away. A little heat on the board from a hair dryer of heat gun expedites the process. Commercial etchers warm the entire bath, but for hobbyists it is sufficient to have the board, and whatever etchant is in direct contact with it, be warm.

In the "good old days", PCB layouts in magazines were oriented as you would see the completed board when the copper side was etched. For toner transfer, the image has to be reversed. Back then, I'd Xerox the pattern (assuming it was to scale), tape it to the copper side of the board, and use my spring-loaded center-punch to pop a little dimple in the middle of each pad. Then I'd use a waterproof marker (Staedtler Lumocolor Black was my preferred weapon) to draw a circle at each pad, and join the pads, either freehand or using rub-on transfers. Radio Shack would sell rub-on transfers of IC pads, transistor pads, as well as straight and curved lines. It could easily take me a few days to draw the resist pattern onto the board. But, it worked...if I kept my damn fingers off the board. These days, with toner transfer, I can etch, drill and tin a board within an hour.

Drilling is best done with those little carbide drill bits that have a wide shank, like these ones.








I prefer to give a freshly-etched board a little scrub of steel wool or scotch-brite pad, followed by a quick swipe of alcohol to clean it. I have a little bottle of liquid flux, and wipe some of it on the copper side of the board with a Q-tip. That allows a tiny bit of solder to cover a surprisingly big area if I swish it around with my iron tip. I prefer to tin the whole board, and do so before drilling. I find the manner in which the solder pools around the holes in the middle of the pads makes it easier to centre the drill bit, as well as visually spot the pads which are and are not drilled.

Unless the pads and traces are spaced far apart, it is all too easy to NOT see unwanted solder bridges or unetched "webs" between traces and/or pads. Flux residue is shiny, and gathered around the solder joint, making it more difficult to spot such problems. I prefer to make the copper side of the board as clean as possible. Methyl Hydrate (paint thinner) does a great job of dissolving flux. I keep a small bottle of it, and an old toothbrush, handy to give finished boards a quick scrub to dissolve and remove any excess flux.

There. You're smarter now by a few percentage points.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Winning!!

Bring on the ICs 

From this....









To This










To be fair, the resistors were already done.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I'm jealous.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> I'm jealous.


I can only imagine the lifetime of pieces and parts you have my man. Nothing to be jealous of here.

Unless you are jealous of pieces compartments, I can make you some. Some assembly required


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Oh I have plenty of exotic pieces, Mark. But you'd be surprised by how many things can be held up because you thought you had three of something (pots, cap value, toggle, etc.) and only had two.

I have multiple parts drawers, but a drawer for all resistors under 200R, or all caps between 2u2 and 10u, doesn't tell you how many of each value are IN those nicely marked drawers.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> Oh I have plenty of exotic pieces, Mark. But you'd be surprised by how many things can be held up because you thought you had three of something (pots, cap value, toggle, etc.) and only had two.
> 
> I have multiple parts drawers, but a drawer for all resistors under 200R, or all caps between 2u2 and 10u, doesn't tell you how many of each value are IN those nicely marked drawers.


My man, if I end up with a whole drawer for resistors under 200 Ohm, then I will know I have arrived!

You see i suffer from a profound sense of chaos in my daily life, it is completely of my own making. For this reason I try and overcome it the only way I know how and that is meticulous organization. If I dont stay on top, well sir I just let the chaos bury me and then I just embrace the anarchy that follows. It is a vicious cycle. This gives me the best chance to stay ahead.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

That's a good habit.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

So I thought this was going to be a good idea....










Because you know, burning them onto the actual container seemed brilliant. Until you realize that then they have to always stay like this forever and ever amen. So that wasn't the answer. Then I remembered.... COMPUTERS.

So did you know.... they make this program that is just rows and columns. It is kind of like boxes of rows and columns. You probably haven't heard of it, I think it is rather new. They call it Excel.....










That Makes more sense!!

Now All I need is a 10 column X 4 Row table to represent every tray and the best part is it is searchable. Dumbass.....


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You got all of that from Keto? Keto, pal, where have you been all my life?


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> You got all of that from Keto? Keto, pal, where have you been all my life?


There is more.... I will eventually have it all inventoried. Right now I am trying to sort out how to change the 110V DC from my bridge rectifier from 4 IN4005s to 18V. I made a voltage divider but then my resistors smoked. I have lots to learn LOL

I will say, for that brief period in time, I got 18V DC


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Whoever said it was right.... I need a different multi-meter. This was fine, until I needed to measure milliamps in DC which I need to to know my calculations are right.

I got it to light!!! And work.

So to anyone who played with this stuff as a kid or is simply smarter than I am, hats off to you. @mhammer and @Paul Running I am looking straight at you guys 

But!!!!

I took 120v Line mains ran it through my bridge rectifier, this part would make you proud Mark (other mark, I mean I am proud of me but that is besides the point) which I made from IN4005 not the IN4001 because I pulled up a DATASHEET. That's right folks, learning and shit!! After seeing the 50v max on the 4001, I upgraded to "other things I had".

So the first time I did this I took some rather low value resistors which smokeshowed because the power rating was overcome. I failed to think of that. This time I thought of that!!

Popped a 5K2 and a 1K resistor in the path of that 110DC and calculated a voltage of 2.07v DC. No load and that worked great. Oh yeah, I should mention I switched my plan to a 2.2v LED. I have a lot of those and if I explode some, so be it  Now the current is tiny, that is the part I neglected to count for last time that and the power.

So that worked great, lets try the light!!

In it went and it lit up!!! WOOOO

The voltage measures a paltry 1.34v but I neglected to account for the current and resistance of the led. I'll go try again!

As an aside, sorry to anyone who is annoyed with my less than elementary understanding of any of this. I didn't play with old radios and receivers when I was a kid. Video games had been invented. Can you really blame me?? Sure, I regret it now as I have to start at 38 to learn concepts most of you were familiar with before I was even born but what I hope to convey and to anyone that is brave enough to follow along what I hope to share with you is my excitement and wonder at a whole new world to discover.










Listen, plugs are just bare leads ok, get over it. I have a thing with plug ends. Half my tools don't have them because they broke and never got fixed. Saves me from having to buy a lot of power splitters.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I’m always amazed when I wire up a speaker or pickup and it works.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Sneaky said:


> I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I’m always amazed when I wire up a speaker or pickup and it works.


Neither do I


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mark Brown said:


> Whoever said it was right.... I need a different multi-meter. This was fine, until I needed to measure milliamps in DC which I need to to know my calculations are right.
> 
> I got it to light!!! And work.
> 
> ...


It is all too easy to end up with a drawer or bag full of LEDs of unknown specs. As indicators, you want them to be as visible as they need to be, but not "blinding" (and some of those recent blue ones can be the sort you want to avert your eyes from). I made myself a little LED tester, using an 11-position rotary switch. (rotary switches tend to come in combinations of 12 contacts: so 2-pole/6 position, 3-pole/4-position, etc.). Each position is a different resistor, starting from 1k, going up to 18k. I insert an LED into the socket, set the switch to 18k, attach a 9V battery to the battery snap, and work my way down from 18k to whatever value seems to yield the desired brightness level. The resistor values chosen are not magical, but provide a reasonable spread from the min to max value. If value X is too bright and the next one down too dim, you simply use a standard-value in between those two resistances.

Where this_ really_ comes in handy is with pedals using two or more LEDs to indicate something. That could be a two-circuit pedal with individual stompswitches, a modulation pedal with an "on" LED and another to indicate modulation speed, etc. Ideally, one wants two different colours for optimum informativeness. Their respective brightnesses should not only be easily visible, but matched for brightness. Their respective brightness/visibility is not only a function of their efficiency - the old Boss pedals used red ones rated at 300millicandles and currently available blue can easily be 6000millicandles - but their colour (our eyes being more sensitive to some colours than others), as well as the surrounding background. For instance, using a yellow LED against a light-coloured background (beige, white, light pink) is contraindicated, but the same LED may be easily visible against a black or dark green enclosure, or simply installed in a black plastic bezel. My little tester unit allows one to easily experiment and find a pleasing illumination level.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> It is all too easy to end up with a drawer or bag full of LEDs of unknown specs. As indicators, you want them to be as visible as they need to be, but not "blinding" (and some of those recent blue ones can be the sort you want to avert your eyes from). I made myself a little LED tester, using an 11-position rotary switch. (rotary switches tend to come in combinations of 12 contacts: so 2-pole/6 position, 3-pole/4-position, etc.). Each position is a different resistor, starting from 1k, going up to 18k. I insert an LED into the socket, set the switch to 18k, attach a 9V battery to the battery snap, and work my way down from 18k to whatever value seems to yield the desired brightness level. The resistor values chosen are not magical, but provide a reasonable spread from the min to max value. If value X is too bright and the next one down too dim, you simply use a standard-value in between those two resistances.
> 
> Where this_ really_ comes in handy is with pedals using two or more LEDs to indicate something. That could be a two-circuit pedal with individual stompswitches, a modulation pedal with an "on" LED and another to indicate modulation speed, etc. Ideally, one wants two different colours for optimum informativeness. Their respective brightnesses should not only be easily visible, but matched for brightness. Their respective brightness/visibility is not only a function of their efficiency - the old Boss pedals used red ones rated at 300millicandles and currently available blue can easily be 6000millicandles - but their colour (our eyes being more sensitive to some colours than others), as well as the surrounding background. For instance, using a yellow LED against a light-coloured background (beige, white, light pink) is contraindicated, but the same LED may be easily visible against a black or dark green enclosure, or simply installed in a black plastic bezel. My little tester unit allows one to easily experiment and find a pleasing illumination level.


That is a rather ingenious idea Mr. Hammer, probably beats guessing all the time 

I am in the middle of fundamental concept exploration. The idea of making tools to verify conceptual resistance in relation to application is fantastic!

I am finding that the more I play with stuff, the information I have tried to stuff into my brain starts to sink in as there is an application for it. I can read until I am blue in the face and nothing truly sinks in. There are too many concepts to understand and too much information to try and process. Application starts to force a person to really comprehend all the information that exists as you are forced to demonstrate an understanding of it... lest your poor resistors light on fire. 

I have a 120v to 35v transformer on the way so I can build a variable bench power supply for putzing. Figured there wasn't much harm in playing with this for now. 

For anyone that must know, I do know the risks of playing around with those mains. That is not lost on me.


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Mark Brown said:


> So to anyone who played with this stuff as a kid or is simply smarter than I am, hats off to you. @mhammer and @Paul Running I am looking straight at you guys


My mother told me that I stuck a metallic object in an AC receptacle when I was young...and I believe that started it all for me.


Mark Brown said:


> I took 120v Line mains ran it through my bridge rectifier


To be safe you should isolate the mains power with an isolation transformer.
18VDC can be supplied by most laptop chargers.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mark Brown said:


> That is a rather ingenious idea Mr. Hammer, probably beats guessing all the time
> 
> I am in the middle of fundamental concept exploration. The idea of making tools to verify conceptual resistance in relation to application is fantastic!


Thanks. Yeah, the idea that futzing around with a pot, tweaking the resistance until a satisfactory brightness was achieved, and then measuring the pot value, seemed way too much work. Far better to know _*a priori*_ what the resistance value of the closest decent brightness was, and skip the measurement part completely. Being able to test the LED out of circuit was also handy. I've got two parts drawers full of varios colours, sizes, and strengths of LEDs; simply too many to have categorized and labelled. I do tend to reuse the little resealable plastic bags that parts come in, to organize things as much as possible in a parts drawer, but the bags themselves take up room. So I have a bag of yellow/orange LEDs, another of red, another of green, white, blue, and bicolour, and that's as much as I'm going to subdivide them. So measuring and adjusting brightness via current limiting resistors is ultimately called for,

There's a ton of little simple "tools" and shortcuts for measuring or verifying things you'll come up with or have others recommend as time goes by. You're already ahead of where I was in acquiring this hobby by a decade or two.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Paul Running said:


> To be safe you should isolate the mains power with an isolation transformer.
> 18VDC can be supplied by most laptop chargers.


You were saying 










The only problem is now I have to try and figure out how this thing works 

So far I can seem to sort out how 120v AC comes out of that rectifier as 170v DC. Needless to say I haven't gotten very far


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

The PCB may be labelled with power locations, typically "L" for live mains in and "N" for mains neutral and usually at the other side of the board a "+" or DC Voltage and "-" or GND.
Part of the board will be "LIVE", meaning the tracks on the PCB are at mains potential (125VAC where I am located).


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

I am seeing 122v at the main here. At all times I just assume anything connected to power carries 10000V and enough current to send me to the moon. This is incorrect, however it keeps me from doing stupid things in light of the fact that my little brain thinks it is "safe"


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Yeah, that 10000+VAC usually isn't to far down the line. It reminds me of watching some online videos of people who use a 12000 to 240VAC pole pig to make a Tesla coil, using it for the primary stage...awesome man.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

Paul Running said:


> My mother told me that I stuck a metallic object in an AC receptacle when I was young...and I believe that started it all for me.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Anyone up for another round of "climbing that mountain" ? Well after a 2 day hiatus to build a room, I got back at it tonight..... somehow after I spent the day organizing the wife's shit.... hmmm.

I give you, the platter of pots 










Ok so it is pots, switches, jacks, turrets and some other odds and sods. I built this one a lot deeper as you can see in this photo.










It is the one on top.

I have one tray left to sort diodes into, whatever the hell those are and then one tray to gleefully dump a whole bag of knobs into and then voila. Everything is sorted and maybe I can get back to building pedals


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Did you use a woodburning tool to write all those values? Yeesh.

I don't know how many of those pots are reverse log (C taper). C taper pots are used in a variety of situations where you want the change in resistance value to be initially fast/substantial and "slow down" as you hit the midpoint and beyond. That makes them especially appropriate for adjusting LFO speed in modulation pedals.

HOWEVER, they can always be substituted for with _*regula*_r log-taper pots (anti-log is just log going in the other direction), if you simply wire the pot "backwards" (i.e., resistance gets larger as you rotate clockwise). That would mean that modulation rate/speed gets slower as you go clockwise, or that perhaps drive is reduced going clockwise. It can be a little tricky to wrap one's head around, but you get used to it easily.

One of the most difficult things for me is figuring out how to space control legending from the hole where the pot goes in (I'd call them "potholes" but that is too bitter a pill to swallow). You THINK you've provided enough space, but it often ends up that the knob you chose overlaps with the legending. Dammit!!


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Mark Brown said:


> I have one tray left to sort diodes into, whatever the hell those are


There are quite a few categories for diodes:


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> Did you use a woodburning tool to write all those values? Yeesh.


Oh hell no, I typed them in and the laser did the rest. Still a stupid thing to do as the permeance is not ideal but it was a fun exercise.


mhammer said:


> I don't know how many of those pots are reverse log (C taper). C taper pots are used in a variety of situations where you want the change in resistance value to be initially fast/substantial and "slow down" as you hit the midpoint and beyond. That makes them especially appropriate for adjusting LFO speed in modulation pedals.


Top right corner is all C pots. I didn't even know C pots existed until yesterday so they all got dumped into a box together as I had no idea wtf they do 
As for wiring shit backwards, that won't be a problem. That is my natural order of thinking lol



Paul Running said:


> There are quite a few categories for diodes:


I have one category of diodes right now and it is unsorted. There are so many and I have no idea what any of them are supposed to do. The next monumental task at hand after I have catalogued everything is to gain an understanding of the basic function of about half of it. Oddly enough, that picture I believe will come in handy in the tracking of a lot of them. At least I have a starting point so thank you.


mhammer said:


> One of the most difficult things for me is figuring out how to space control legending from the hole where the pot goes in (I'd call them "potholes" but that is too bitter a pill to swallow). You THINK you've provided enough space, but it often ends up that the knob you chose overlaps with the legending. Dammit!!


Digital design is my forte. Ok, that isn't true. Spatial relation is and the ability to design it all digitally are huge factors in success for me. Nothing I cannot do with a set of calipers and Inkscape. 


mhammer said:


> HOWEVER, they can always be substituted for with _*regula*_r log-taper pots (anti-log is just log going in the other direction), if you simply wire the pot "backwards"


I presume you just mean invert 123 as 321 ?? That sounds like what you mean but I am always unsure of myself where this is concerned.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mark Brown said:


> I presume you just mean invert 123 as 321 ?? That sounds like what you mean but I am always unsure of myself where this is concerned.


In this instance, you are correct. The thing to always consider, when "reading" a schematic or layout, and translating it into what connects to where, is "If I go clockwise, looking at the pot, what resistance am I making larger, and what resistance am I making smaller?".

So, to use log-vs-antilog pots controlling speed as an example, if you were using an *anti-log* pot to control speed, connecting lugs *2 *and *3* to the board would result in progressively smaller/lower resistances as you go clockwise. To the circuit's advantage, the pot would quickly skip through the largest resistances, and distribute smaller resistances across more degrees of rotation, allowing you to dial in small-but-meaningful differences in modulation speed. If you used a *log *pot, the broader distribution of smaller resistance values would be found to the left of the midpoint (i.e., counterclockwise), so you'd use lugs *1* and *2* instead, and speed would get slower as you go _clockwise_ and increase the resistance.

As a little tidbit, oscillators, whether low or audio frequency, often rely on how fast a capacitor gets charged up. The bigger the resistance ahead of the cap, the less current is allowed to flow to the cap, and the slower it charges up. That's why smaller resistances are associated with faster speeds.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Now we are cooking!!

Transistors and Diodes, the last bastion of resistance to my sanity. Well it has been conquered! I don't have a flying fig as to what any of them do, other than LED's and those 7805s. I know I can make a bridge rectifier with the 1n4001/1n4005 but I don't know how. Now I can get back to learning and doing. Thank goodness.

















One more tray for knobs and then I think I will make a tray for wire/shrink tube/odds and sods screws and the like. Maybe throw solder supplies in there. Might even get so far as to make a tray for all my tools and such. Being committed to this box storage thing might be a good thing.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

(((I don't think he realizes that about half of that box is vintage transistors. Don't tell him, let's see how long he takes to figure it out tee hee)))


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

keto said:


> (((I don't think he realizes that about half of that box is vintage transistors. Don't tell him, let's see how long he takes to figure it out tee hee)))


I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY DO KETO!!!!
LOL

Worrying about how old they are is not high on my list right now. I am fairly sure half of them are labelled in Cyrillic 🤣 

I do know that a whole bunch of stuff I try and source datasheets for says "obsolete" and "discontinued" so I will assume that is a good indication


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Don't forget these diodes.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Well I suppose, the natural ending for this thread is "finished my first build"

CatalinaBread Formula 5 clone, whatever that is LOL.

it does some stuff, so far I really like it as a boost and tone on the 5f1. It does add some nifty grit to life and sure makes the volume knob responsive. Now that is the good, the unfortunate thing is all the pots seem to be backwards even though they are wired correctly, so either it was written wrong or im an idiot. Ill lean heavily into option number two. Oh well, time for that later. It sure was fun!

For anyone that suggested trying my hand at building a pedal before an amp, let me say this, that is a terrible suggestion! If this is what I had have started on I would have been so frustrated that I never would have continued. There are a billion connections and they are all tiny


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

That looks almost exactly like Jack Orman's Minibooster, although the wiring of the Tone control in this drawing looks a little off to me. I actually sold a Minibooster to forum member Marcos a couple of years back, although I seem to recall him selling it off on Kijiji some time later. But it's a decent booster, with a bit of grit when the gain is dimed. Has lots of boost so the possibilities for more involved and sophisticated tonestacks are considerable.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

mhammer said:


> That looks almost exactly like Jack Orman's Minibooster, although the wiring of the Tone control in this drawing looks a little off to me. I actually sold a Minibooster to forum member Marcos a couple of years back, although I seem to recall him selling it off on Kijiji some time later. But it's a decent booster, with a bit of grit when the gain is dimed. Has lots of boost so the possibilities for more involved and sophisticated tonestacks are considerable.


No! Pedal builders using other people's design's uncredited? UNHEARD OF (not).


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

I wired the pots all backwards because I am an idiot. I never had the need to reference them 1/2/3 before and just went off the pictures. Oopsies

They do look identical, I think. I would have to go over the schem and the build a lot more, but it looks the same to me. 

Well there you have it, now I stole it from the people that stole it from the guy....so by proxy, that just makes me, uh, I don't rightly know


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> That looks almost exactly like Jack Orman's Minibooster, although the wiring of the Tone control in this drawing looks a little off to me. I actually sold a Minibooster to forum member Marcos a couple of years back, although I seem to recall him selling it off on Kijiji some time later. But it's a decent booster, with a bit of grit when the gain is dimed. Has lots of boost so the possibilities for more involved and sophisticated tonestacks are considerable.


I really like that schematic. I can actually follow how it is written. That is a first


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

@Mark Brown CONGRATS!! 
A very impressive build!


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

greco said:


> @Mark Brown CONGRATS!!
> A very impressive build!


It was silly!! But thank you very much, once again, I am not ashamed to admit I am proud of me 

Trying to turn tag board into strip board is NOT a good idea. It worked, but it sure added a lot of time and effort and failure points. That being said, the only mistake I really made was wiring the pots backwards so I am going to call that a win. It does seem to work, there is some funky chicken going on with the tone pot and the gain pot but I can only assume when I get them flopped around it will sort itself out. The 2M2 resistor switch has a mean squealing thing to it when it is plugged into my interface, but is not there when I plug into my amp so there is something wrong. I am assuming as it is that it has some strange grounding issues between it and the 1M pots, but wiring it correctly is the first thing to work on to sort it. 

I was most impressed with the fact that it actually worked. It doesn't have to work right to be a success this time, as it is the first attempt. I will get the "right" sorted out soon enough. 

I completely forgot to wire a ground to the TPDT switch so the LED was non-responsive on the first go around, but that was easy to troubleshoot.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

How many times did I wire pots backwards, because looking down at the layout it's reverse of when you look down on a built pedal. A few, a few. Got smart  and started labelling the back of pots with a Sharpie prior to welding things in place. I repeat,


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

I was so sure I had it right too!!

The thing I did do, like an idiot, was wire the board and THEN the components in the enclosure. Next time, I will go the other way around. Mistakes were made. 

The one good thing about getting things wrong is that I learn from my mistakes and will forever and ever know that it is 3/2/1 from the back at a 6:00 direction.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> I was so sure I had it right too!!
> 
> The thing I did do, like an idiot, was wire the board and THEN the components in the enclosure. Next time, I will go the other way around. Mistakes were made.
> 
> The one good thing about getting things wrong is that I learn from my mistakes and will forever and ever know that it is 3/2/1 from the back at a 6:00 direction.


I used to treat it as 2 different operations.
1. The board, with wires trailing off for the inputs/outputs, with masking tape tag labels flying everywhere off the loose wire ends so I didn't have to start over figuring out which wire goes where.
2. The enclosure. Drill it all up and test fit, drill a new one to fix the mistakes of not measuring first. Paint/stickers/engraving/labels. Pots (label 3-2-1 in the correct order), jacks, power input, stomp switch (pre-wired most of the stomp if possible so as not to have to be in there trying to make space for fingers and iron SHIT.THAT'S.HOT) + any other switches.

So many facepalms to be had, just ignore this and figure it all out on your own time


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Here's what it should look like IMHO. The Tone control is wired up just like those on many tweed Fenders. I've upped the value of C3 to correspond to what Fender used. In one direction it bleeds treble to ground, and in the other it provides "brite" bypassing of the Gain pot. And just for accuracy's sake, the Gain pot does not alter gain. It simply provides some attenuation between the two fixed gain stages formed by each pair of JFETs. If you wanted to add more grit to its tone, you could stick a pair of silicon diodes to ground, in parallel with C10 or C11.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Upped my game today. Tag board sucked, so I can only assume stripboard sucks too (even though I ordered a bunch of it) so tonight I made this.

This is the pre-etch, I made a negative of the PDF file available from the interwebs, then bitmapped the image. Then I cut it on the laser. Coat of matte black spray paint as a shield for the etch and the laser burnt off the outlines of the traces. It is the same idea as transfer, but it just traces the outline of a negative image. 










I would say that worked really well. Now, let us not bother to mention that the text is mirrored. I neglected to invert it before I finalized the design so, meh, whatever. 

This is what it looks like after it is etched. 










So in all fairness, that is what it looks like held to the light. I think it looks pretty decent. 

Then we have the actual copper image. Obviously without backlighting.










Off I go to check for continuity where it should be.... and more importantly that it is not where it should not be!!!

Turns out this is the way.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Holy Hot Hell it works like magic!!!!

That top left trace looked a little "fuzzy" on the etch, but it tests good. Not a single thing bleeds and everything has continuity where it should.

First try is a resounding success. Now I just need to drill a whole lot of holes!


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

EXCELLENT! So impressive! 

Congrats


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

greco said:


> EXCELLENT! So impressive!
> 
> Congrats


I cannot really take any credit, other than coaxing my wife into not killing me while playing with acetone and ferric chloride in the kitchen in her Tupperware. The design was from an internet archive and all I did was translate it to a medium I could use.

This was the original.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> Upped my game today. Tag board sucked, so I can only assume stripboard sucks too (even though I ordered a bunch of it) so tonight I made this.
> 
> This is the pre-etch, I made a negative of the PDF file available from the interwebs, then bitmapped the image. Then I cut it on the laser. Coat of matte black spray paint as a shield for the etch and the laser burnt off the outlines of the traces. It is the same idea as transfer, but it just traces the outline of a negative image.
> 
> ...


Holy shit. If I could do that, I never would have stopped lol. NICE.



Mark Brown said:


> Holy Hot Hell it works like magic!!!!
> 
> That top left trace looked a little "fuzzy" on the etch, but it tests good. Not a single thing bleeds and everything has continuity where it should.
> 
> First try is a resounding success. Now I just need to drill a whole lot of holes!


You can still run an Xacto box cutter whatever down a ruler down either a)all or b) the fuzzy, traces, just as a measure of insurance.



greco said:


> EXCELLENT! So impressive!
> 
> Congrats


It truly is. He's had my pedal supplies for a week and a half, has them all name sorted, has built a pedal, said fuck that and taught himself to do something I tried after a couple years at it, just for giggles, and made a moderate mess of, and came out with pretty close to a pro product. Great stuff, Mark


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

keto said:


> It truly is. He's had my pedal supplies for a week and a half, has them all name sorted, has built a pedal, said fuck that and taught himself to do something I tried after a couple years at it, just for giggles, and made a moderate mess of, and came out with pretty close to a pro product. Great stuff, Mark


To be fair, what prompted this is that the Formula 5 I made ceased to work properly after I rewired the pots. I was a little aggressive on one of the solders to the pots from the board and it let go. This required me to have to try and resolder the silly "chase" of solder I made. I said it before and I will say it again, I knew it was stupid when I did it but I didn't have a choice other than waiting and we know how I feel about that. Anyhow, on the resolder, I managed to melt two of the chases together and never could manage to get it undone. I tried wick, knife, chisel, soldering iron, solder sucker.... then I got bloody mad and said never again.

I knew this was a thing but a lot of the DIY ones I have seen on the net looked like complete garbage to be honest and I didn't really want to go down a road where the people showing me how it is supposed to be done are doing a shitty job which means I would do an even worse job because that is generally how that goes. Then this idea was floated my way thanks to the internet. Well, this is my jam. That is literally my "prototype" board. You know, the project you expect to fail and have no hope of it ever turning out right.... well that is it. 

Now I am going to design one for that Formula 5 I was working on, no cheating and stealing the file from the net and we will see how that goes. I think I could have it soldered up in an hour or so with a proper board and then it wouldn't be at the mercy of failing on me. I did like it, it had some solid colour and a bit of grit and when it was dimed it went right straight to "in your face"

Thank you for the kind words Mr. Keto, and as always Greco. I appreciate it. I know I can be a wee bit on the chatty side, but I am just enjoying this so much and am in a state of wonder and amazement and there are very few people I can actually share it with. Those people only being accessible here 

Wait until I actually start learning about it


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> To be fair, what prompted this is that the Formula 5 I made ceased to work properly after I rewired the pots. I was a little aggressive on one of the solders to the pots from the board and it let go. This required me to have to try and resolder the silly "chase" of solder I made. I said it before and I will say it again, I knew it was stupid when I did it but I didn't have a choice other than waiting and we know how I feel about that. Anyhow, on the resolder, I managed to melt two of the chases together and never could manage to get it undone. I tried wick, knife, chisel, soldering iron, solder sucker.... then I got bloody mad and said never again.
> 
> I knew this was a thing but a lot of the DIY ones I have seen on the net looked like complete garbage to be honest and I didn't really want to go down a road where the people showing me how it is supposed to be done are doing a shitty job which means I would do an even worse job because that is generally how that goes. Then this idea was floated my way thanks to the internet. Well, this is my jam. That is literally my "prototype" board. You know, the project you expect to fail and have no hope of it ever turning out right.... well that is it.
> 
> ...


I don’t quite remember what exactly you have for an iron, but, if you don’t have one, a temp adjustable station is very handy for this stuff, should find areal nice one under $200


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

keto said:


> I don’t quite remember what exactly you have for an iron, but, if you don’t have one, a temp adjustable station is very handy for this stuff, should find areal nice one under $200


I bought a Hakko but what I asked of it was too much LOL

I got it right the first time but once I had to go back and ask for more, it cut me off. It was hokey to say the least, but I wanted to get going. 

I have the Formula 5 board etching right now, so we will be back in the saddle in no time. I did cheat after all and just downloaded one. I got the program for making pcbs but it has a learning curve and right now I just want to get back to farting around.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Well, drill holes tomorrow but I got it ready.

Pay no mind to the weird box around it. I though if I etched some copper off I could cut through the board. Nope, apparently it is UV resistant. Now I know.










Full continuity check was complete and passed with flying colors. I did another one but there was some weird artifact leftover from bitmapping it that I missed and it turned a route into ground  I found it and corrected it.

Oh and just in case you thought for a minute I might be on to something, get a load of this.










Somebody forgot to scale their PCB. I knew there wasn't a chance I did it right the first time 

Sure the Box of Hall board is supposed to be bigger... but only by about 10%. If it didn't have the Belton mounted to it, which I can't change pinout easily on, I would use it in spite of myself. 

Now I guess I'll just have to hold on to it to sell as memorabilia when I am famous


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Smokey the pedal-builder Bear sez "Only you can prevent non-working circuits. Don't give solder bridges a place to start!"


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When I etch my boards, I will digitally erase ground planes that snake along the board and fill up space unnecessarily, before printing them to any toner-transfer media. My iron is not any sort of snub-nose behemoth only suitable for soldering plumbing, but it is not a surgically-precise fine tip either. So, I like as much "open space" on a board as I can achieve, in order to lighten the trouble-shooting load. Far easier to let the etchant create that space than to try and scrape away unwanted bridges post-etch.

And if I haven't said it enough times already, I like to keep an old toothbrush and some methyl hydrate around, to scrub the solder/copper side once all parts are installed. Flux has a way of hiding solder bridges underneath. Removing that shiny crap between pads and traces helps to make any such issues more visible. There may be equally good, and less environmentally dangerous things than methyl hydrate for dissolving flux, but it's available and cheap and works. And if the board is a wonderfully clean etch and the soldering is spot on, at the very least you can look at the copper side and say "Well, I know it's not _that_", when it comes to troubleshooting something that didn't fire up right away.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> Smokey the pedal-builder Bear sez "Only you can prevent non-working circuits. Don't give solder bridges a place to start!"


Smokey had a talk with me the other day don't you know. Working on the tag board version all I had was my 2.2mm blade tip and a roll of 1.5mm solder. Not really ideal for the itsy bitsy bits. On my family trip to Vancouver, we just conveniently happened to drive right by Lee's Electronics! Funny how that happens. I ran in and picked up a 0.5mm conical tip and some 0.6mm 60/40. I have a strange feeling that might just make a whole world of difference.

Methyl Hydrate is part of my daily life, I use it a lot at work since it is wonderful as evaporating and leaves nothing behind. 

Looking at this circuit, I don't suspect there will be much trouble. If I could manage to solder the tag board (first time) using my club like tools, I think the much neater and organized board will play very nice with me using my much finer tips.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I strongly dislike tagboard/stripboard, largely because it tends to oblige much bigger layouts, and also tends to require parts to be placed in a way that does not lend itself to following the signal path. So, for me, if it ain't a PCB, it's perfboard, where I can put things in a spot where I can understand them. Second choice would be pad-per-hole, which is a compromise between perfboard and the wiggle-proof aspect that people like tagbard for.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> I strongly dislike tagboard/stripboard, largely because it tends to oblige much bigger layouts, and also tends to require parts to be placed in a way that does not lend itself to following the signal path. So, for me, if it ain't a PCB, it's perfboard, where I can put things in a spot where I can understand them.


I can second that. Seeing as I have the tagboard done and now a PCB, looking at the two it is clearly a superior method to design PCB. Not only can you trace the path a whole lot better, it lends to a much more logical layout. I did not like having wires off both sides of the tagboard, now they are all neatly packed on an edge, in line as they appear on pots. The device connections are easy to see and understand how they interact a lot better and following it back to a schematic makes it look logical. Still cannot "visualize" schematics, but I am getting better. 

I discovered KiCad last night and it looks extremely in-depth (complicated) and should lend itself to design very well. I have quite a bit of CAD experience, so the fundamentals are there, although the program I am unfamiliar with. Now I just need to learn to incorporate the design inside the program and I can really get cooking. 

I can see this taking over a large portion of my free time.


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Maybe etch a Mark Brown symbol on the board...a Mark Brown signature production...well done, you are evolving quickly with your talents.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Paul Running said:


> Maybe etch a Mark Brown symbol on the board...a Mark Brown signature production...well done, you are evolving quickly with your talents.


Thank you for the compliment, but at the moment seeing as I am just copying ideas, I don't know that personalizing them is appropriate. I do like the idea though and if I ever get to the point that I can design some things, I will most definitely keep it in mind. 

Right now, I am looking at a King of Tone and trying to sort out what IC I can replace the 4558 with from my arsenal. Suppose the best way to sort it out would be to just solder pin sockets on and swap a few in and out.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Believe it or not, 1458 can sound good in that circuit. Sometimes a "lesser" op-amp can serve to smooth out the rough edges in drive circuits.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

mhammer said:


> Believe it or not, 1458 can sound good in that circuit. Sometimes a "lesser" op-amp can serve to smooth out the rough edges in drive circuits.


I dont have any of those either... im gonna plug in some NM4558 and see what happens. I have a lot of 8 pin op amps so I'm sure some combination or another will work!


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

The LT1490 is slower and may be better for rolling-off the higher harmonics, depending on the circuit configuration.. Check the slew-rates on the data sheets, low rates like the LT1490 (typically 60mv/µsec) may be the ticket.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Paul Running said:


> The LT1490 is slower and may be better for rolling-off the higher harmonics, depending on the circuit configuration.. Check the slew-rates on the data sheets, low rates like the LT1490 (typically 60mv/µsec) may be the ticket.


I dont have any of those either.....

Something tells me there are going to be a lot of projects that get started, slotted with whatever random bits and bobs I have and an endless stream of Canada Post deliveries to my door 

Maybe this is how one discovers some amazing combination. Sure you could use math and engineering but they are no substitute for dumb luck


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Mark Brown said:


> Sure you could use math and engineering but they are no substitute for dumb luck


Mostly imagination, I believe.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

You woudn't ever use that Tupperware for anything else?


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

I saw Nextgen has a couple of coil-winders.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Well folks, we have a new problem. One that I anticipated but did not expect to meet such resistance over. 

I knew drilling was going to suck, I don't have access to a 1mm drill bit, or preferably a 0.8mm and I cannot buy one tonight. So we are back to the drawing board.

I took a 1/8 inch drill bit I have here and ran it over a piece of sand paper inside my Dremel until it was measuring 0.94mm at a depth of 3.0mm which is more than enough to get through the board. Ok. So, in my haste and inability to think about the problem, I neglected to etch the copper on the actual holes. I did not anticipate having to drill through them with a hokey home made drill bit. Needless to say I tried. Now what you have to realize is that I do not have a press style holder for the Dremel so that was all hand work. Luckily I have extreme dexterity in my hands as I use them for very focused work to earn a living so that wasn't going to be an issue. What was an issue is my gimpy drill bit and the copper. GRRRRRRRRRR

I got about 4 holes in before I nuked the board. Ok, so this is where we went back to the drawing board. I know the Copper Clad has a photoresist layer so getting through it on the laser is all but impossible, however, I altered the design file to remove the copper from the connection holes, then built a jig so I can cut the back of the board and although I will not make it through the Photoresist I will get deep enough that all I will need to do is touch it with the drill to break through. 

I am just about to start etching it and have very high hopes. 



Hammerhands said:


> You woudn't ever use that Tupperware for anything else?


I mean, I probably will. It is only acetone and ferric chloride.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

Mark Brown said:


> Well folks, we have a new problem. One that I anticipated but did not expect to meet such resistance over.
> 
> I knew drilling was going to suck, I don't have access to a 1mm drill bit, or preferably a 0.8mm and I cannot buy one tonight. So we are back to the drawing board.
> 
> ...


Did you remember to re-scale it?


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

keto said:


> Did you remember to re-scale it?


We can no longer be friends......


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

For anyone that likes a good news story, well I have one right now. 

So while I still don't have a single functional pedal to my name what I do have is two vehicle repairs that were undertaken with my gluttony of pedal parts. 

The first was the dash lights in my 92 Civic, the PCB that controls the dash light voltage was inoperable. I had just assumed it was due to some frankewireing that I did because well... I didn't know what I was doing. The case however was that with my new knowledge of being able to read a schematic, diagnose voltages due to being able to read said schematic and familiarity with electronic circuitry I could determine that the only possible cause was within the actual module that houses the PCB. I removed it from the shroud and diagnosed the traces for continuity and would you look at that a blown capacitor just waiting to be swapped out from my pile of parts. 

On to the second, my Mercedes Sprinter has had a "refill washer fluid" indicator light up on my dash every time I start the vehicle. While this does not sound like a huge ordeal it is rather annoying as it populates the digital display screen where fun things like you mileage, speed and other indicators are. They are not visible until you "ok" the warning and carry on with your day. This process has to be repeated every time that the truck opens. Turns out, the sensor uses probes that read capacitance. Apparently the capacitance of washer fluid is somewhere in the vicinity of 1 micro farad so I put a 1uF capacitor across the two wires that should lead to the sensor and voila, warning message all gone. At first I thought perhaps it would be a function of resistance, so I tried a couple of those, but that was not the case. Sometimes even a blind monkey finds a banana!

I know this has nothing to do with anything but I am over joyed that the knowledge and experience I have garnered recently in regards to amp and pedal construction is now having other real world implications in my daily life. My wife cannot say it was a bad idea any longer!!


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

Before you know it you will be reprogramming your vehicles' ECMs for improved performance.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

I am going to go out on a limb and say maybe I will finally get the dome light to work first


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Pretty much any hobby can earn spousal approval if you can demonstrate a household benefit to it.


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