madbeanpedals::forum

Hello All,

How do you make a SHO even better...

... make a Firebomb. To the Firebomb circuit added a Geofex polarity protection scheme that uses an IRFD9024 MOSFET, added a second/parallel 100Ω/100µF filter so each SHO has it's own PS filter and added a trimmer after the first boost to trim it back if deemed necessary. Used ExpressPCB to do the layout and then Inkscape to dress things up and create a pseudo silkscreen. PCB painted with acrylics to disguise the puky natural colour. Am getting away with 30K resistors for current limiting on the LED's so with everything running i'm looking at only ~2ma.

Shielded cable was used for the long runs between jacks and switches... needed?

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/projects/Firebomb/docs/Firebomb.pdf
http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/mosswitch/mosswitch.htm


Assembly jig used to do all wiring except to the jacks. Do the jacks once the assembled components are mounted in the enclosure.


For painting the enclosure i first use a self-etching primer then over that coat with BIN Primer Sealer Stain-Killer, nice high solids, sands well and is white.

After that, acrylic paints and mediums, India Ink, toner transfers, flakes of rust, paint and dirt. Applied stuff with whatever's handy, paintbrushes, airbrushes, fingers, dip pens and pallet knives/spatulas.  Lots of paint removal in the finishing process, water while paints are wet, sandpaper, files and rifflers, dental picks etc. The play/experiments... to be continued...

Clearcoat is airbrushed Target 7000 waterborne lacquer.


I.R.D., improvised 'riting device, pop-can-pen.

See ya'
dave

F-in awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quote from: Cortexturizer on March 27, 2013, 04:39:25 PM
F-in awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, no kidding.  That's a beauty.

Damn! That is just killer all around! Your attention to detail is astounding.  :o

You are quite the artist! Looks great!

Holy Crap! That is spectacular.

sweet artwork on that one.  and it looks like it's built like a tank!

wow, just wow, your pedals are works of art.  Thanks for sharing the work in progress pics.
For your next pedal, if you did a video showing how you did the art or the texturing on the background, im sure it would go down really well.

2 words....Mad Genius  :o

I'm so impressed by the artistic style. You and Matt in South Africa are doing some pretty rad art on those boxes.

Anyway. kudos man. Get a soundclip up and get this thing in this months contest!

Jacob

Ralph Steadman's got nothin' on you!

Awesome!

Unbelievable.
Go and enter the March contest now!!!

Has to be a March entry. Brilliant detail :)

SO INSPIRING. Thanks so much for posting your process and sharing it with us. I have sat here on the couch for the last 30 minutes staring at your photos and wondering how I can better my process. You have a great process and look to your pedals.

That is the tits! Amazing, a real masterpiece!

brilliant on so many levels

wow!
Awesome on so many levels.

When I saw the pop-can part the first thing to enter my mind was "prison shank"
Anyways, man that art is sick!

I know I already said something to this effect on DIYSB, but, as always: WOW.

Thank you everyone! You made me blush.

As to how the background is done, it's pretty haphazard. I wanted an old, worn looking base like the concrete floor of my basement (that helps limit colour choices). Put some paint on, maybe wipe or rinse some off while still wet... let it dry, sand more off, scrape some off just chew it up. Add more paint, same colour or different, mess it up some more. Repeat...

Anytime i get a layer i want to preserve i airbrush on a coat or two of GAC200/Airbrush Medium (GAC200 is too viscose to spray as is) before moving on to the next painting/abuse. The GAC200 dries surprisingly hard and does a great job of protecting the underpainting from the next round of abuse. GAC200 is also the medium i use for doing toner transfers.

It's all about putting paint on and taking lots off. Sometimes put on with a paint brush, airbrush, dip pens, toothpicks, pallet knives, splattered with toothbrushes/scrub brushes, shot from a syringe, pushed around with compressed air, just grab whatever is handy on the workbench and put it to use applying or taking the paint off.  Playtime in the paint box, anything goes. Scrub with alcohol, throw rock salt onto a very wet thin coat of paint and let that dry before brushing the salt off. Play, play, play... never really know where it's going to go, what i envision when i start and where it all ends up are usually worlds apart.

If there's specific info you're after let me know and i'll do my best to try and fill in the holes!
Take care!
dave

I actually showed this to my wife, and while we were looking at the pictures closely, we both agreed that the base layer looked just like a cement floor. Soooo good.

Jacob

Dude! One of my all time favorites! How did you do the fake silkscreen on the pcb? Love it.

Looks like tore transfer, like the etch mask to me..

Also, I w literally the other day thinking, I'm going to make a wooden jig for wiring up a certain pedal, as I have a batch of stuff to do.. Beat me to it!

George is right it's toner transfer, but i use acrylic medium and not heat to accomplish the transfer, same thing i do to transfer to the enclosure, no more decal.

The tough part was figuring out a way to register the silkscreen art to pcb.

Story so far...

Design a pcb layout in ExpressPCB. Etch a board.

When i do the final sizing/shaping of the etched pcb i get it as close as i can to the border that surrounds the layout, don't want to obliterate the border just touch it

From ExpressPCB open up the Print Box and select Silkscreen layer (component outline), also for printer select pdf printer=> print. I've got Bullzip PDF Printer, freeware, no complaints.

Open the silkscreen pdf in Inkscape then save as an .svg file. I don't like the ExpressPCB font so i relabel the components and add any other legending that's needed using more interesting fonts.

So far you have a silkscreen border that matches perfectly with the etched border on the back of the pcb but no way to see whether they're aligned when you do the transfer.

The simple trick that seems to be working well so far is to draw a new border around the silkscreen leaving a small equadistant gap between the old and new borders. A this point i'll make a copy so i have two images, group one of them set it aside. The second one you delete the original silkscreen, unless you want it to transfer to the pcb, group the new art, mirror the art and (laser) print to regular cheap paper. Photocopy would work too, long as you have toner artwork.)

You now have your silkscreen art and an etched/sized pcb that will lay within the border of the silkscreen art. Because you sized the pcb perfectly, well close, when you lay it on your art you can trust your eye to see that the white gap between the pcb and the art is equadistant and therefore everything is going to line up aces.

I paint the pcb with acrylics and use an acrylic medium called GAC200 (by Golden) for the transfer. Spread a good coat of medium on the top of the pcb board, lay it aligned onto you artwork, there's not much wiggle time here, they grab well. I'll secure the board to paper with a bit of masking tape, flip it over and run a brayer over the paper to squeeze out the excess medium and ensure good contact. Not too hard because the wet paper will stretch over the edges of the board and you might get some minor distorting of the art.

Let it dry, rewet the paper and rub the papre off with your fingers. Never going to get all the papre off in one go so let it dry again, rewet and rub, takes a few goes but it will come off.

I've found it much easier to do all this messing about and then drill the holes. Always drilled the holes first and then with all the paint and medium had to go back and redo them all, live and learn.

Only pictures i have are from the initial efforts with the method, a fail but gives you an idea of the toner transfer bit. Sanded this one off and did it again with better results

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4478_zps076f53b3.jpg)

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4479_zpsfca499ea.jpg)

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4480_zps7396b2b6.jpg)

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4481_zpsb071ca36.jpg)

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4482_zpsd263887d.jpg)

Better... but still a ways to go.
(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4513.jpg)

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_4580.jpg)
dave

That pseudo silk screen Is such a cool touch, kudos!

Wow! Thank you for the detailed answer.

Hey Dave. What kind of wire are you using for your shielded cable?
The amazing thing about this pedal is the quality of every detail. The more I look at it the more impressed I am.

Hi Bill, The wire is a Teflon/Kapton insulated coax i picked up on ebay, very stiff and can only get away with a gradual curve, no 90° bends, very small diameter package. Put 1/8" Techflex over it. Really like the teflon, no worries of creating a short when soldering to shield. To attach a wire to the shield all you need to do is strip of the insulation, wrap a piece of wire around the shield, trim off the excess shield then solder the two together, cover with heatshrink.

He also has longer lengths available.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/10-feet-26-AWG-Shielded-Silver-Kapton-Teflon-Wire-Coax-/230824758424?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item35be3a4c98#ht_500wt_1203

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_0938.jpg)

This one was soldered before trimming off excess shield, try it both ways, never created a short with this wire.

(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc305/davent/IMG_1310.jpg)

dave