Dank Links

Here's some resources I've been referencing while working on the pedal.

These two blogs are good to look at just to get inspired.
This guy makes a LOT of pedals and they're all really cool: Woody Laboratories
Similar thing: How Not to Make a Pedal

Soldering Tips:
Tecknick
Care: Inland Craft

Learning Resources:
Guide to Circuit Components
Guitar PCB General Overview of building a pedal
Seymour Duncan Tonefiend I've only looked at the "Project 1" on this website, but it's an all-inclusive tutorial that I really recommend.
Small Bear Tutorial on DIY Stompboxes, Part 1
Small Bear Tutorial on DIY Stompboxes, Part 2These two websites are also really good in terms of explaining stuff.
Small Bear Beginner Do's and Don't's

Premier Guitar Build Your Own Stompbox

The Science of Electric Guitar and Guitar Electronics

Forums and stuff:
Free Stompboxes
DIY Stompboxes
Reddit DIY Pedals
You might need accounts for these sites but you can read other people's questions and ask your own and it's great. There's a community of pedal builders out there that are all really helpful.

This post is the BOM

This post is going to detail the supplies that I bought for this build.

First, because I no longer have access to an electrical engineering lab, I needed to set up a soldering station for myself.

SOLDERING STATION

• AGPtEK Soldering Iron
• Solder
• Desolder Sucker
• Soldering Iron Tip Tinner
• Soldering Iron Tip Cleaner
• Soldering Iron Holder
• Helping Hand with Magnifying Glass
• Lots of Wire

I was unsure about the soldering iron; I read somewhere that the preferred wattage is around 20. But the one I got is a good brand and has adjustable temperature settings so it's probably fine.

Next, I needed to order stuff for this specific build. This includes an enclosure, jacks, the footswitch, and the circuit components.

SHO BUILD

• Veroboard
• 3PDT Footswitch
• 1/4" Input Jack
• DC Power Jack
• Enclosure (I bought this pre-drilled and pre-painted)
• Waterslide Decal Paper (I'm going to use this to hopefully decorate the pedal)
• Pre-wired LED with bezel and resisitor (this is awesome)
• Alpha 16mm Reserve Log 5K (reverse log)
• 1/4" Shaft Knob
• 15mm Diameter Shaft Knob ( I was unsure which size to get so I got two)
• Circuit components
• BS170 Transistor
• 9.1V Zener Diode
• Resistors
• Electrolytic Capacitor
• Tantalum Capacitor
• Polyester Film Capacitor

I choose all of the circuit components based on the schematic from Guitar FX Layouts. There's a section in the comments where Ivlark explains which capacitors to choose:

"For all my layouts I'd tend to use multilayer ceramic for anything up to 1nF (and so for all the pF values), polyester for 1nF to 1uF and anything above 1uF I'd use electrolytic or tantalum. So for these I'd use a polyester cap for the 100nF and electrolytic or tantalums for the 10uF and 47uF. As long as they fit physically into the board, then pretty much any manufacturer will be good."

I ended up getting a 15uF tantalum capacitor instead of 10uF because Mammoth was out, but it'll probably be fine.

Everything should be delivered tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get the opportunity to build the circuit on a breadboard and test it out.

A New Hope

After about a year of no activity, I've decided to start up this hobby again.

This time, I'm going to try to do some things differently:

1. Organize BOM in Excel instead of using paper like a loser
2. Practice soldering way more
3. Prototype circuit on breadboard before soldering
4. Understand circuit
5. Put decal on pedal somehow

This time, I looked around for an easier pedal to build. The OCD had a fairly large circuit board, three pots, and a toggle switch. I think building a simpler pedal, with only one pot, will just be simpler. Plus, I'll have more room for fitting everything into the enclosure.

So, I decided on a clone of the "Super Hard-On", a pedal made by someone named Z.Vex. Apparently there are a lot of different versions of this pedal out there. It's a simple boost pedal, which adds some juice to the signal when activated and gets some nice overdrive when turned all the way up. From here on out, I'll refer to the pedal as the "SHO", because the real name is weird.

Here's a demo video I found: SHO Demo

I found two blogs about building the pedal: Hot Bottles and TDPRI. I'll use them as a guide probably

Again, I'm going to be using a veroboard layout from Guitar FX Layouts.

I'm no longer at school, so I needed to buy myself a soldering station. I got an AGPtEK soldering iron along with a holder, helping hand magnifying stand, tip cleaner, and tinner from Amazon. I also got some velcro for fastening the pedal to my pedal board and some waterslide decal paper for adding a design to the pedal. We'll see how that goes. I found a website called Bitches Love My Switches, which is amazing and also has great prices on things like jacks, switches, and knobs. I got the rest of the supplies I needed for the circuit from Mammoth Electronics.

More updates to come later.

Testing!!

Here is my plan for testing:

Connect the battery to the positive 9v and ground on the board, the input and output on the board to the jacks, and connect the ring of the jacks to ground.

I accomplished this using a breadboard. Also, I added the pots and toggle switch to the circuit, but forgot to take pictures. I just soldered them in place according to the schematic.

Testing the circuit at home, hooked up to my guitar and amp.

My theory for why the board isn't working is that I burned out the transistors. Also, I might be using an incorrect method to test it out? I'm not sure, this will require some more research.

Finishing Up The Board and Taking Stuff Out of the Enclosure

Okay, I ordered a new footswitch and jacks online.

I put the socket and IC on these ridiculous extenders. I wish I had done the double link in a better way so the socket could've actually fit right on top. I'm also a bit worried about how all these wires will fit inside the enclosure.

I desoldered what I had on the jacks when they were in the enclosure and added simple red and black wires: red on the tip and black on the ring.

I took all of the stuff out of the enclosure except for the LED and bezel.

In case you didn't believe me.

I Started Offboard Wiring Too Soon

I got excited and started the offboard wiring too soon. I should've stuck with the circuit board and seen it all the way through. I am full of regret.

I wasn't originally planning on testing the thing before enclosing it all up, which was extremely dumb. That planned has currently changed.

After my last post, I took off the socket spider because it is dumb.

Later, hater.

Blurry picture of something.

Added a bunch of extension wires

Bought a new socket. Big moves.

Here's what I had in the enclosure at this point.

I needed to take the pots out of the enclosure so I could connect them to the board.

Tone wire has lugs 2&3 going to ground, so I bent them with pliers and used one wire.

Gain pot has lugs 2&3 going to the same spot on the board, so I did the same.

The volume pot goes to 3 distinct locations (1&2 to different spots on the board, 3 to the 3PDT switch). I wrote down which wire was what so I wouldn't get confused later.

My next time in the lab, two wires broke off. One was the output wire on the switch, the other was one of the IC extension wires. I put that wire right back, but I had a lot of trouble fixing this wire on the switch.

It took forever to get the soldered piece of wire off of the lug.

I suck at soldering so the lug actually fell off of the switch, which I didn't know could even happen.

I got really frustrated after this, so I took a couple of days off.

Offboard Wiring

Now that the board is done, I started doing some offboard stuff.

Screwed on the input jack, output jack, footswitch, toggle switch, and LED bezel. I just manually fastened them with washers and nuts.

The potentiometers had this little tab on them that I broke off using pliers.

Pot with washer and nut.

Fastened the pots in the enclosure.

The DC jack is in there too.

I kind of got caught up and didn't take too many pictures during this part. I began the necessary offboard wiring, starting with the switch and the input/output jacks. At this point, I realized that the circuit board with the stupid socket spider on top is too tall and it doesn't fit in the enclosure. I'm not sure what my solution for this is, I will probably have to take the socket off and replace it with a new one. Then I'll put the socket underneath the switch and have some wires connect it back to the board. Once I fix that, I need to connect the LED to the switch, hook up the power and ground throughout the pedal, and attach the pots to the board.