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looks great man! Glad it worked out for you. Good call with the buffered bypass. There are very few times that it doesn't make my tone sound better, let alone worse than true bypass.

To the OP,

Yes your toggle was broken. I switched it and now it works
   

mine doesnt have a beeping function i dont think (just picked it up recently from harbor freight) I'll check though. Once I detached it, I did try to run it just with resistance and it seemed to be going to 0 pretty reliably but I don't know how much stock I can put in that since I needed like 7 hands to hold the switch, both probes, and toggle the switch. I don't have an extra and my neighborhood electronics store apparently just went out of business makes me feel bad for getting everything from mouser

I was wondering how I could go about diagnosing a broken toggle switch. I have DPDT that I wired up for my true bypass/buffered mod on my Sunking (seen here:

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=3063.0

Basically, it acts like there's a loose connection and i have to tap on the toggle arm to get it in the right position. I thought it might have been one of the solder joints but I re flowed all of them and even replaced some of the wires and it still does it. I did have to bend the solder lugs with pliers at right angles to get them to fit in the build so I was wondering if it might be a mechanical problem with the toggle. I just wanted to know if there was any real way to test the switch to make sure.

Hey Man,
I haven't built the true bypass version of this but it looks like your signal being routed straight to ground when the 3PDT is in the position connecting the top left node with the mid left node.

-Kevin

Merry christmas everyone. Especially you, Brian!

Some more envirotex hints.

Don't mix a small quantity, less than 30ml.  I've found that the measuring cups I used, are probably not quite accurate in the markings, and I've had a few pours than didn't harden properly.  It's not my mixing techniques, as the first few I did, I mix 30-40ml of the stuff, which was way too much for a single pedal, and it hardened perfectly.  Only when using less amounts have I had problems.  I'm now mixing 40ml, and doing a few pedals at once.

It is possible to just pour on the tops which gives a nice look if the enclosure is bare metal, and given a but of the polish.  Check for runs regularly, and wipe them off with alcohol on a rag.  If you notice one after a day, be very careful, and cut vertically through the run using a razor or scalpel.  Try not to touch the top as it hasnt fully cured.   The cut edge will polish up with 1500 wet/dry paper and polish after a week or so.

To avoid flow marks, don't have holes in the top when you pour.  I've noticed this can give a strange finish.  Also, don't drill the enclosure after pouring, as the metal particles can get between the enclosure and the envirotex, and ruin the box.

As the above seems to be a conundrum, its taken a few attempts to get a good finish.

1.  Pre drill the box.
2.  Apply the decals.
3.  Pour envirotex, and let it fully cure.
4.  Using a craft knife, cut off the decal from the inside of the holes. This stops any particles sticking to the decal, and being pushed between metal and envirotex.
5.  Carefully drill using a step bit the envirotex, but leave 1-2mm.  Don't go the the edges of the metal.
6.  Using downstrokes only, cut the remainder of the envirotex from the holes.  It might lift slightly, but don't worry, as there's no particles around, it should press back down, and the washers will squash it anyway.

It takes longer than expected, but give such a good result I'll stick with this method.

Thats strange that you were not getting accurate mixing. I've just been using the little plastic containers you get at salsa bars to mix it all up and havent had any hardening problems at all. Are you talking about 30ml of each bottle or 30 ml combined? For my first pedal, I just filled the little 1oz salsa container half way up with resin and then the rest of the way up with hardener, completely eyeballing it.

As far as flow marks, are you talking about marks within the finish or just drips that form? I've been drilling all my enclosures first and just taking an xacto knife to any hangy drips or the stuff that collects in the holes making the hole too small to fit the component in.

Great idea man! I'm sure he'll love it! I love the artwork too!

My brother and I made one for a friend as well themed for his band!
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=3365.0

Madbean holidays!

This is the board that I got from Danny in his pay it forward a while ago and it has become the ultimate pay-it-forward board! I ended up letting my brother try his hand at building it and then halfway through we decided to give it to a friend of ours once we finished as a thank you for some Bon Iver tickets he gave me. My friend is the lead singer of a great band that I used to play for called Wires in the Walls so I decided to name the pedal after one of their songs, "Big Bad Love" and incorporate some of their album art into the design. You can check them out here www.wiresinthewalls.com. I'm going to give it to him later today.








As for the finish, this is my first "all over decal" job and I also started using the envirotex stuff that some people have mentioned on hear. It does give amazing results but it is suuuuper messy and a bit of work to apply. Because it is made for flat surfaces, you can get some problems with the pooling on the bottom edges as it drips off. I don't mind the lip that forms from it pooling but the big drops don't look that great. 

Here's the method I've found that works the best

1) Tape up the screw holes (Trust me!)
2) Put tapes on the actual edge of the pedal (where it would touch the lid) This will allow the envirotex to flow down something instead of just forming a big drop.
3) Mix the stuff real well but wait a couple minutes before applying. It is recommended to warm the solution and apply immediately to be able to get out bubbles but this only works by making the stuff more fluid which doesn't help us since we have a 3 dimensional object. By waiting, it'll be a little thicker and will stick to the sides a little.
4) Pour it on the top and use a plastic knife to spread to the sides
5) Scrape up the stuff that drips off and re-apply it to the top of the sides, letting it drip down again
6) Get rid of bubbles by blowing on it
REPEAT 5 and 6 until it is thick enough that it's holding its coverage over the whole pedal.
7) Pop any bubbles with the knife since it'll be too thick to blow out. It'll still be liquidy enough to recover from the knife mark though
Let it sit in front of a space heater to speed up the curing.

I'll echo what everyone else has been saying. I've saved quite a few things by setting my drive as an external. I didn't even buy an adapter, just ripped open another external i had laying around. That usually requires access to another computer to hook the external up to though.
A linux live boot disc should work without the extra computer though.

Even if the hard drive is totally wiped, there are a few programs out there that can recover stuff. It's easier for it to work if you don't write anything else to the disc which is usually the exact opposite of what we do as we frantically try everything to fix it. The one I used was called Stellar phoenix recover I think.

From being around computer science people, I always hear "You're not truly safe until you have a backup of your backup" Cloud storage is sounding better and better though since they handle the redundancies for you and I barely remember to backup once let alone twice.

Good luck Brian! I've been in your shoes many times and I know how shit it is.

Wow thanks for all the suggestions guys.

These boards are waaaay bigger than I was expecting though.

I was looking for a reverb board that I could fit in one enclosure along with an RC booster type circuit but these things all look way too big or complex to to be to fit both of them in a BB sized enclosure though. I have someone who loves the RC booster and is currently using a tc electronics reverb but he really just wants one box to plug into. He's a straight ahead jazz guy so he really doesn't care about all the extra options that the FV-1 projects seem to be about.

Basically, he wants the punch from the RC booster and just a simple hall reverb in one box. I'm beginning to think it may not be possible to make this bare bones 2 in 1 box

25/M/Los Angeles

Kind of weird that there are so many Arizona and New Zealand people here since I grew up in Phoenix and Studied in Dunedin

The FV 1 looks interesting but its kind of way overkill for what I was looking for. These boards are a lot bigger than I was expecting. hmmm It might be harder to make this double board build than I thought.

General Guitar Gadgets has one too. I don't know how similar it is to the BYOC but it uses the same Belton brick from what I can tell.

I was hoping to find something without a brick similar to the solid state pedals like tc electronics

I'd love to play the moodring too but I'm being asked to build a custom multiboard thing for someone including a barebones reverb.