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One more pickdropper pcb, this one is the mini muff.  Not smd.    I built this one a while back but just now found the pictures on my camera. 

Another great layout by Dave, built to green russian specs, sounds great, not sure I'm a muff guy though.  Everyone should have at least one though.

I really liked the mayan son idea Dave used on his builds, so I used the name but different image.  This was a 1590a blem from mammoth, and the gold seemed to work with the theme.  Laser etched graphics, tweaked a bit by me in paint.net.





Keep up the great work Dave!

Thanks for looking, y'all!

Hi all

me again...  Another pickdropper smd pcb, this is a deep blue delay.  This one has been finished for a while but had trouble capturing the graphics in pictures.

Another great layout by Dave, pretty easy build also, though a bad op amp gave me some trouble. 

I think I'm finally through all the tayda smd op amps so hopefully that's the end of those woes.  (not bad product, I think its packaging that is not great for esd).  If I have any left, I'll probably just toss them.

Incidentally, I actually built two of these, one for a friend, and that one fired up straight away.

Powder coat by me, dormant blue with clear coat.  Laser etched graphics, without going to bare metal.  Playing with tone on tone, and I thought it worked out well on this one.







Thanks for looking, and thanks Dave!

Hi all

This one took a while to get to, I kept forgetting to order the dip switch.  Anyway, here's a 1590a build with pickdropper's timmy pcb, in smd.  Easy build, sounds great!  Awesome job by Dave on the layout, the dip switch is really cool.

The worst part was finding room for the wires to pots, I couldn't (easily) get the pots board mounted in a 1590a since the jacks have nowhere else to go.  PCB mounted pots would be easily doable in a bigger box though.

Powdercoat by me, illusion amber over black.  Fairy graphic is laser etched google clip art, picked primarily because my little girls are into fairies and I thought it worked with the name and color.  Not sure I like the knobs since the color shifts to green with the angle, will probably swap out with aluminum in the near future.







Thanks Dave;  Thanks for looking, everyone else!

Saw the eurobean post for a wah shell and then decided to finally build my weener II.  Went quick.

Have to complete the shell, but just finished the pcb.  It is awesome with Joe's terrible torroid and smooth pot. 

So another vote for weener wah, II and another vote for Joe parts.

Another awesome pcb from chuckbuick!

This one is a triple wreck in smd, which he calls the 3way.  I think he mentioned that he didn't realize what connotations were attached when he picked the name, but regardless it gave me a little creative push to take my graphics in different direction than I normally would.

Really enjoyable build, no issues except one: I had a short that made my power supply shut down.

Not being able to apply power made troubleshooting a little tricky, but after a little while with a mm,  I figured it was a bad op amp.  I have a crapload of smd 4558 chips and decided to just pull all the 4580s. 

And then, wow...  I don't really think I like the 4558 chips after hearing them in a few other circuits but this thing screams and chugs.  I'm going to order some more 4580s and do a swap, this is a keeper!  Love it, can't wait to put it in front of a tube amp.

I'll probably also install a pcb on the switch and clean up the wiring a little bit. (BTW I wire my pedals left to right, just makes more sense to me, not sure why they're usually the other way around.)

As for the finish, its translucent lime green over a sandblasted 1590B.  Pics don't show the sandblasted texture too well, but it looks really cool in person.  Graphics are laser etched and designed from a variety of clip art eyes, then back filled with acrylic paint. 

The astute observer will notice that the pot labels are reversed from the pcb, meaning wrong except for the center pot and switch.  (That's what happens when you do the graphics layout without the box and pcb available and then etch without checking first!)  Learn from my pain.

I think given the name and graphic theme, I'd like to redo anyway but in a translucent hot pink.

When chuckbuick is ready to sell pcbs, he has one customer in line already (me)!

I've long wanted a stuck wah.  I didn't want an autowah, just a schenker/sykes kind of stuck wah tone for leads once in a while.  Its partly one of the things that got me into diy pedals. 

So I did a layout for an smd single CS inductorless wah, and it worked (might post that one sometime too, but still a work in process I think).  Though it worked, it sounded a bit thin with distortion and could probably use a buffer. So I may tweak that layout to include a buffer on the pcb.  But I also thought about tweaking a bunch of values, trannies, first too. 

Anyway,  I went back read the technology of wah pedals, which is priceless.  I got to the end of the article, and saw the part about putting two wahs in series. 

"Sounds cool," said I. 

So I did a copy/paste using the schematic for my single wah layout, dropped nets accordingly, and created a double sided layout.  I have since learned a bunch about layouts, and a lot more to go.  I could probably clean this up a bit, but really I'm stoked that it works and gives me the stuck wah sound I was looking for.

So yeah, this is two inductorless wahs in series, the second one has the tap wired so the pot is split midway.  Why?  I figured it might be cool to put one in a traditional wah housing, and then you have a neat option for which pot gets connected to the treadle.

I used "aqua illusion sparkle" powdercoat over black powdercoat, and laser etched graphics to bare metal.  Pics don't really do the aqua illusion justice.  Looks mostly black until you get it in the sun, then emerald green with metal flakes pops out.

I had a friend ask me to build him a phase 90.   

We go back about 30 years, sounded like fun, no deadline, so I used it as an opportunity to do an SMD layout for 1590a. 







I remembered a post regarding the jfet dual packages and put them to use here. 
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=13182.15

FYI I did no matching, pulled them out of the strip and soldered them in.  A lower trimmer value might be worth trying.  Anyway, it worked out great!  That said, YMMV.

I could probably do a bit more on the layout and route things in a way that is a bit cleaner, but I don't mind vias too much as long as the traces don't get too crazy. 

I could probably come up with a more efficient top/bottom side parts approach too, but hey, I've got things to do and people to see.   

Oh yeah, the other thing is I had a scary moment when I first tried to fire it up.  It didn't work, powered up but no sound unless bypassed, and crazy dim led.  Much head scratching ensued, I started to ohm things out, and then realized my mistake...  I turned the 3PDT 90 deg when I was working on the layout.  Seemed like a good idea at the time, except I completely forgot that I did so when I soldered in the switch.   

Much swearing and sweating later, I turned the switch, soldered it in, and swooshy goodness came out right away.  Yes, I am truly blessed, but I tweaked the trim pot anyway. 

Powdercoat and graphics by me, powder is granny smith dormant green, laser etched and back filled with black acrylic paint.

Building the second one for my friend very soon.

Hi all!

just back from vacation (anyone else on the monsters of rock cruise? great fun!), and finished this up
an hour or so ago.

It's a neg ground oct*via with smd components, and my own layout, part of what I'm calling "phase 5". 

I was originally going to call this "Licorice Whip", as per the pcb silk screen, but then discovered there
are some gross references attached.  Aside from a few minor pcb tweaks I should make at D4, it went
together pretty well.

The xformer is mounted underneath.  Also tried one of the micro switches.  Not sure how I like the
switch yet but can swap it out if I decide I don't like it.  I may build another using only trim pots through
the back cover.

Also may change out the knobs sometime.

Killer effect, I can see why there's so much interest, besides the obvious Hendrix connection.







(Didn't realize things were so lint-covered until I linked to the pix a few mins ago...)



Thanks for looking!

one more, that's all the pix I have for now, but more coming soon

Great little pcb, the baby screamer is.  But for now, aside from some other thru hole pcbs I already have,
I'm in what I call phase 4/5 of building.  Phase 4 is building other people's smd layouts, phase 5 is doing
my own smd layouts, almost exclusively 1590a, (and mostly for me to avoid wires).  Because small.

I love the purple, but wish that there was a way to get a little more contrast without going closer to pink. 
Not that pink is bad, I just like purple better.  I'm also finding monochrome interesting, though there are
challenges to sort out and not always successful.

I decided to go switch free, and just pick the ones I liked best and hardwire with jumpers.

This one is an Echo Base in SMD. Another layout and pcb from chuckbuick, also quite awesome! 

This pcb uses 0402 parts.  I haven't done parts this size in about 12 years, so it took me a few
to get back in the groove. 

Its almost a bit of a zen thing where you let things do what they want with gentle guidance. 
Quite fun actually if you don't get frustrated.  (I've also come to the realization that I
probably need bifocals since I used to be able to see these things without issue.)

Again, the powder coating worked out great, but the laser has recently seen some new
users, and I still haven't learned to double check everything before I hit go. 

So the laser marks are a bit off, and shame on me for not checking.

To put the icing on the cake, I dropped the empty box on the concrete stairs up to my house after doing the marking.

I will probably strip it and redo the box but for now, its a pretty fun pedal.  And I wanted to post before my vacation.

Again, big thanks to Mark, its another keeper!  Highly recommend if he decides to sell some pcbs.


please ignore the lint...  didn't realize it was so dusty until looking at the uploaded pix

This is a build using an smd PCB from chuckbuick based on the tight metal pedal.  He was kind enough to send me a prototype to check out.

And I gotta say, layouts don't get much better than this.  It was a breeze to solder, but didn't work at first. 
Turns out I soldered a diode in backwards.  Once it was turned around, it fired right up.

This is actually the second shot at powder coating this enclosure.  The first time around, the powdercoat came out great, but I had some laser issues. 
So, stripped it down and recoated.  Try to ignore the lint.  ;-)

Still waiting for better knobs to come in, but I wanted to get this posted before I leave for vacation tomorrow. 
(At least I didn't drop this one on the way into the house like a couple of others.)




Didn't screw the back in for the gut shot...



BTW, this is my first build report, but not my first pedal.  I have a few "phases" of building, and this one is part of phase four- smd pcb layouts created by others.

This one is definitely a keeper!  More reports to come!

could be cool

http://123d.circuits.io/

I was thinking of building an egg head without knobs, just internal trim pots.

I tend to set and forget the other OD/boost boxes I've built but wondering if I might be short changing myself with this one if I omit knobs.

Opinions?  Not much in the way of risk since I can switch easily but would have to order pots and wait...