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I want to have a go at etching a few PCBs, I've never done it before & me being me, probably want to make it more difficult for myself using the equipment I have.

If I were to spray paint a sheet of FR4 and laser engrave the etch artwork (I'll need to invert this so it removes the correct material) that should work right? I might need to try a few different types of paint to see what works best, and then obviously proceed with the normal etching method.

Has anyone with a laser attempted this?

I'm working on a new utility pedal and would like to make the primary buffer removable from the circuit when necessary. 
I'd also like an always on tuner out, I've made a quick diagram to show my intended solution.

Will bufffering the tuner out as shown negate the effect of having a parallel tuner out when the primary buffer is bypassed?



P.S. ignore the opamp pins etc, purely to show signal routing.

I'm looking at methods to switch between 2 different pot values with an LED indicator, simple you may say, however, i have an inherent dislike in 3PDT switches....

I normally use opto bypass and occasionally microcontroller with relay. I could add a 2nd microcontroller & relay but that seems like overkill. Does anyone have any suggestions other than to stop being stubborn and put a 3PDT in there?

I've recently built myself a new Fuzz Face, as a Hendrix fan i thought he'd make a good person to use for artwork.

Here's a picture of the trial run, font needs a tweak but other than that i'm happy.



Generally, with a pedal for myself, anything goes regarding the engraving, I'm not selling it so no issues with licensing blah blah blah.

I've had some interest in this particular pedal and in my country (UK) once a person (celebrity) dies you can use there image freely (I'm led to believe). This makes for interesting reading: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/9056455/Selling-the-dead.html

What are peoples opinions on this? i know shipping to most places out of the EU will be a no no as they have different opinions on licensing the image etc

Does anyone know of any decent suppliers for any of these in Europe?

NEC EA2-5SNJ
Panasonic TQ2-L-5V
Takamisawa AL5WN-K

I would order them from Mouser but don't need £50 worth of them to qualify for free shipping!

My first ever build report!

A K.L.O.N.E. with buffered bypass.
My first PCB with board mounted pots, sooo much easier, i hate offboard wiring!
Issue is in the UK i can only find the dual gang 100k linear pots on Banzai and there service isn't great.

This is one of the first batch of PCBs, next ones will have a few tweaks and will be black.
The main PCB is from iTead and the smaller DPDT board is from OSH Park.
Slowly moving over to Panasonic ECQ-V caps, keep popping them on mouser orders until i qualify for free shipping.
This one has 1n34a diodes, got some D9E's waiting to go in another, I'll measure the FV and A/B between two pedals, not sure if they'll be a massive difference but we'll see.

After trying many different methods applying the artwork, I've gone for the reverse etched acrylic. Really pleased with the look.

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