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I built one of these years ago on the awesome PCB offered over at JMK PCBs and regrettably sold it to fund another project.  Mr Bean PIF'd me a 5-knob proto iteration, which I modded it back to stock specs in order to use the toner transfer I already had printed up and avoid placing an order for more pots.  I'm a less as more kind of guy anyways so all the knobs would've been overwhelming for me anyhow!  Thanks again Brian for the awesome PIF and to Leevibe for the knobs, which look pretty great IMO.  And thanks to you guys for taking the time to look.

Jon

I pick this one up shortly before the total recall was released. It ended up collecting in the dust in a drawer for a few years but I finally got around to building it. I had a lot of trouble getting this one to work, and probably should've tested it before boxing it. Ha ha. In the end I got it all figured out. I'm too burnt out to calibrate it so I'll probably wait until after Christmas just in case Santa brings me a looper pedal. 

I'm working on a Dirtbag Dx and wanted to use 1uf poly caps in place of electros where possible.  I compared the Dirtbag to the Total Recall which has three 1uf poly caps.  Only problem is that one of these caps is listed as a 4.7uf on the Dirtbag schematic (See pic below for comparison of schematics).  Is it okay to use a 1uf poly in this spot or is the 4.7uf required for the Dirtbag version?

John Patton is a masochist.  There, I said it!  Seriously though, building on pad per hole perf board is one of the most challenging things I've done pedal-wise.  I was absolutely shocked that it actually worked!  Kudos to John for this great project! Still one of my favorite Delays.

I just finished up a Porkbarrel for a buddy of mine and thought I'd share.  I was planning on backfilling the reverse etch with black spray paint but I ended up liking the etch enough to leave it alone. I also left the mix control off but I'm definitely interested to try that sometime down the road.  Unfortunately, my stash if MN3007s just ran dry!

I was hoping to have this one done for the BOTY but I ran out of time waiting on a supplies order.  Hopefully this is the first on many build reports in 2020. Happy new year everyone!

So I pulled the trigger on a 2018 Les Paul Classic body and neck from Stratosphere (no affiliation) after falling in love with the guitar at Guitar Center last month.  I was pretty nervous about potential issues with the guitar but it came as described in mint condition with no issues! The guitar retails at $2,299.00 but I was able to buy all the parts and put it together for $1400.  All the hardware, etc. came off the guitar or another 2018 LP Classic except for the Grover tuners (I'm not a fan of the kidney style tuners that come on the guitar) so it is pretty much stock. I also replaced the truss rod cover with a blank cover for a more I vintage look. I need to get it set up but it plays great and the neck is perfect.  The P90s sound really nice for stock pups.  I was initially going to use a set of P90s that Timbo wound for me but I couldnt find covers that fit the routing AND has the correct pole spacing.  So here are the pics:

So I built the rust bucket a long time ago and based on the notes in the build doc I initially thought it was working as expected. However, after listening to Demos from other members builds I started to think something might be off.  I finally pulled it out the other day and measured voltages and found a bunch of inconsistencies with respect to those included in the build doc.  In particular,  ICs 7 through 10 are off.  Strangely, the voltages on pins 1 and 2 of IC7 are reversed??.  The emitter of Q2 is also way off from the listed voltage.  Voltages are included below. Any help debugging would be greatly appreciated.

Jon

Recently I've been devoting most my personal time to building an amplifier so this is the first pedal I've finished for myself in a while.  It's a Demo Tape Fuzz based on Brian's schematic in the etchers paradise section and it sounds awesome.  Designing for the Bare Box took a bit of extra effort but the build went surprisingly well.  I used Cricut inkjet vinyl sticker paper for the graphic and envirotex for the finish.  The jumpers are a borrowed idea from Leevibe's Phase 45 build (thanks Lee).  The graphic is based off a BASF poster I found on the web, which for copyright reasons I'm guessing used "BASE" in the logo.  Somehow I didn't catch it (face palm) so I guess I unintentionally avoided copyright infringement. 

If anyone for some reason is interested in building one of these, i have the leftover PCBs for sale here:

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=26182.0

And here are the pics:

So this one marks my return to the world of decals.  I pretty much ditched them a few years back due to inconsistent results but after seeing how great envirotex looked over some of my recent etches I decided to give it another go. This is actually a do over for my dad. It's a Madbean smoothie that looked horrid inside and out.  The krylon clear coat never cured and it was embarrassing to look at to say the least. The wiring was pretty bad as well and there were a couple partially melted caps, which I replaced.  IIRC, I actually removed all the components and started fresh but that was a while back. Other than the poor drilling, which I couldn't do a thing about , I'm really happy with the result. The decal is an adhesive vinyl sticker paper made for ink jet printers that I found at JoAnn's Fabrics.  It worked well for the small enclosure but I'm having issues with bubbles on a larger enclosure I'm currently working on so I'm thinking white waterside may he the better option. In order to make the envirotex work with the 9mm Alpha pot I used a plastic drink stirrer to tease a thin layer out to the edges, which left plenty of thread to tighten down the nut. Sorry so long winded here.  Hope you like it!

I finally got this one boxed up and threw it on the pedaltrain nano+ I got for Christmas this year!  This one has been in the works for quite some time.  The effects are op amp buffer (always on) > MXR Micro Amp > Long Block Overdrive (designed by Leevibe) > 2010 aquaboy.  I added a daughter board to the Long Block OD so I could implement the add on's that are available on Lee's  Big Block OD.  There are 6 clipping options, a warm/mid/fat switch and a smooth bite switch. So far I am digging the mosfet clippers with mid and smooth caps in the circuit but I need to put more time into it deciding on what to stick with. I had some issues with noise from the compander so I switched out C7 (C10 equivalent on the 2016 aquaboy) for a 470n as suggested by Brian in this thread:  http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=24783.0
It worked like a charm. Thanks Brian! I also decided to run the Aquaboy at 15v via Road Rage so I had to up the value of R31 (R30 equivalent) to get the self oscillation calibrated.  Now it sounds great and I have to say, the Xvive chips sound REALLY nice IMO.  Arguably quieter/better sounding that the vintage MN3005s I've used, but maybe my ears are playing tricks on me.

I finished a pedal with Envirotex the other day and there are a few bumps in the surface that I'd like sand and buff out. I'm pretty sure it can be done, but I don't know what to do exactly. Has anyone tried this?

Here is a Freakout finished a while back.  Definitely a cool circuit and a nice addition to the collection. Initially I boxed it with a bare etch and after  a few weeks I took it apart and decided to paint, wet sand and give it a grungy look by sanding the enclosure at an angle with a 100 grit sand paper.  I boxed it back up and was happy with it until I started working with envirotex. Long story short, the guts came out again!

Here is my latest version of the EHX Small Clone.  This version is a bit narrower than the last which should make boxing it in a 1590b a bit easier.  I tried to adhere to better design practices and overall in happy with the outcome. The last layout was honestly a bit of a mess. Not much different circuit-wise other than replacing the 1uF caps and polarity protection diode but it sounds really nice. Thanks for looking!

My pops was interested in the tycobrahe octavia circuit so I decided to surprise him and build one for his birthday. Once I started reading up on the circuit I had to have one for myself so I ended up building two of them. I don't regret the decision! This is one mean octave fuzz!

It took many attempts to get the red/blue splatter paint just right.  I must have started over five times!  I initially wanted a red white and blue splatter theme but the white didn't look as good as I hoped.  I even tried white knobs instead of white splatter but it just didn't translate for some reason.

I finished up my total recall a couple weeks back and thought I'd share here.  This is actually my first experience with the DMM circuit and it sounds as good as advertised.  I don't see this coming off my board ever. For the graphics I decided to incorporate the Matsushita "M" logo since I used Panasonic MN3005s and for the background image I used a copy of the DMM schematic (hopefully it's the right sch ) I found on the Google and I added an mn30005 chip over one of the drawn BBDs for fun.  I also envirotex'd over the etch which I've been doing on all my recent builds.  I wish I would've tried this stuff sooner.  Its so easy to work with and looks amazing.  I'm guessing I'll be compelled to build one or two more of these like all circuits I fall in love with. A big thanks to Brian for making the project available. So cool!

A special thanks to Juan for gifting me this awesome OD/boost PCB along with a bunch of his optical bypass PCBs. Little did he know, I love boost circuits nearly as much as delays and was seriously intrigued when I saw his Big Omar build earlier this year.  He actually gave me two of these and the other I plan to build up for my dad later as part of a multi that he can use for small gigs and practice in lieu of his larger pedal board.  This is definitely a great sounding pedal guys! For the artwork and theme I decided to do a shout out to our brothers across the pond and call it the "English Channel." 

A couple of firsts for me as well:

First Envirotex per Juan and Cleggy's spot on tutorial (thanks again); first countersunk LED (thanks to me over drilling the bazel hole); and first 1590G build (I see more in my near future). It took a bit of planning but It fit pretty easily.  I was surprisingly able to keep the nut and lock washer on the dpdt alpha shaft by snipping off the excess PCB pins that stuck out above the opto board.  There is no way this thing will short out which is shocking considering how shallow these enclosures are.  Thanks for checking it out...

Hey guys, I realized that my backlog of build reports was catching up to my backlog of unpopulated PCBs so I though I'd finally put an end to the procrastination and share some of the stuff I've built over the past year. Thanks for looking!


Madbean Sharkfin: I have to give Brian a shout out for PIFing this PCB to me last year.  Thanks again my good sir!  Although you may not need this pedal, you should want one.  It's total awesomeness!



Madbean Moodring: as many have pointed out, this is a very nice reverb pedal and is super versatile.  Definitely going on my board!



Grind Customs Tusk (Klon Centaur): I absolutely love the PCB layout for this one. Super easy to wire up and pro looking! 



Big Muff (Civil War specs): I built this one using one of my Notorious Big PCBs. Graphic is a retread but I regretted selling my original build and had to build another.



CJs Shoot the Moon Tremolo: I built this one with a PCB that I designed years ago.  I saw someone selling it on the forum and ended up buying it back since I already had the enclosure ready to go.  Another shout out here to ThomasH for PIFing me the relay bypass kit!  Graphic on this one is also a retread of one I built for s customer s couple years back. 

Here is an npn tonebender MKII using the stairway to eleven layout I did a while back in collaboration with forum member MichP.  The idea was to design the PCB to fit inside MacWalkers wedge enclosures that he offers here on the forum. It also fits nicely in a 1590bb.  The project can be found here if anyone is interested in etching/fabbing one:

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=10840.msg191335#msg191335

I actually finished this one a long time ago and decided I did not like the wiring and tried to redo it. Unfortunately I botched the whole PCB while desoldering and ended up chucking it against the wall in frustration.  I had to basically start over but at least I was able to salvage the transistors.

I forgot to snap pics of the top and back of the enclosure which are also etched (control labels up top/artwork and build info on back). I will add those too when I get a chance.

So this is my first completed 3-in-1 multi.  It's a univox micro fazer, aquaboy (Aquapuss) and a RAD reverb and it sounds great.  I started this project with the idea of building a standalone pedal I could take to small clubs in place in my board but the enclosure wasn't large enough to comfortably fit another circuit (I wanted a drive or boost in there too).  Instead I settled on this and I'm happy with the result.  Lots of fun sounds to be had with this guy!

And the pics....