LK155 Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Bought a BYOC (BuildYourOwnClone) Analog Chorus pedal kit, and got going on it last night. Way, way back in my mis-spent youth I built several audio kits: amplifiers, tuners, and one fairly complex EICO stereo receiver. But that was a long time ago. My goodness, things have gotten much smaller now, haven't they? Step one was to identify all the parts. Had to use a magnifying glass to determine the resistor values, and even then, it was a chore. Those stripes are really tiny, and some of the colours look the same to me. And the capacitors! The markings on the actual pieces don't correspond directly to the parts list, so some of it was a process of elimination. But it eventually got done and I was able to start soldering last night. Here's my setup for the build--you'll notice I'm still working under the magnifying glass........ And before you ask, no, the ShopSmith is not playing any part in this build. I'm only spending about an hour a night on this project, as I don't want to stress my eyes too much. There's pretty well no margin for error on this PCB so the soldering must be right the first time. Here it is after the first session.... I discovered one of the parts was missing, and the BYOC folks are going to mail me a replacement. (that shouldn't take more than about six months to get here, I figure.) Anyway, this has been fun so far. The instructions are indeed step-by-step, even though the current step I'm working on is to populate the PCB with 38 resistors! It'll take a while. But vastly better than sitting in front of the tube, and hopefully I'll have a nice chorus pedal at the end of the project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skydog52 Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 You need a pair of these! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Very cool! Be careful though. Can't wait to hear the end result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuz Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Looks like a cool project Lyle. Way to go. Use all that patience that Marg gave you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big bob Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Be careful Lyle, amp building gas can be expensive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundersteel Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 I was going to ask about the Shop Smith, but you already answered my question. Good thing you don't have to solder SMDs! (Surface-Mounted Devices) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrymclark Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Well, if you don't live through, make sure your will benefits me first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Be careful Lyle, amp building gas can be expensive! Yep, and rewarding too Good luck with your build - I hope it leads you into something bigger! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TalismanRich Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 That looks way too much like the days when I would solder 16 kilobyte chips onto motherboards of various computers (TI, Atari, etc) to increase the memory. There's nothing like the smell of burning flux in the morning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidsmoke Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Cool stuff Lyle! You've got a lathe at home? and your shop is that clean? Amazing. I currently employ 3 BYOC kits every time I plug in my guitar. Built NONE of them myself, however. Seem to be well done. i know I've had no trouble with any of mine. Good luck. Looking forward to hearing the results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DetroitBlues Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Cool stuff Lyle! You've got a lathe at home? and your shop is that clean? Amazing. I currently employ 3 BYOC kits every time I plug in my guitar. Built NONE of them myself, however. Seem to be well done. i know I've had no trouble with any of mine. Good luck. Looking forward to hearing the results. Aren't this so pricey, your better off buying a manufactured pedal? I looked into one once and was thrown off by the price... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK155 Posted December 21, 2012 Author Share Posted December 21, 2012 The BYOC analog chorus pedal kit is just under $80. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big bob Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 The BYOC analog chorus pedal kit is just under $80. I thought about that kit when I was having trouble finding my memory man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brentrocks Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Wow Lyle! i can see it now...Cunuck Pedals LTD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidsmoke Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Aren't this so pricey, your better off buying a manufactured pedal? I looked into one once and was thrown off by the price... like anything else.....relative to what? 1000.00 for a VSB 150 with Throbaks is some scratch, but we'd consider it a steal. My Centaur clone cost me 95.00, complete, painted, with a bass boost toggle for single coils. A Centaur would run me 10X that. (actually a guitarpcb/mammoth kit, not BYOC) My Belton reverb was 90.00 complete, painted, with a mod for extra dick dale wetness My Champ is off the hook spectacular hand made tube amp, tweed cab, 10" weber 400.00. 225 less than the components themselves would've cost me, and it was plug n play, no soldering required. BYOC in my mind has given me a boutique rig at sweetwater prices. Me likey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steiner Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Just Over The Border Effects. From the banks of the Mighty Huron. It's got a nice ring to it. Remember, the hot side goes to the solder. The cool side fits in your hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millennium Maestro Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Thats awesome, I really think its cool that your taking on this kind of project! Sorry to hear your missing you 155, they are really great guitars! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gitfiddler Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Wow, that a LOT smaller than the old Heathkit DIY stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK155 Posted December 21, 2012 Author Share Posted December 21, 2012 Wow, that a LOT smaller than the old Heathkit DIY stuff! Yes, and that has caused me a couple of screwups..... I've got to really watch my soldering technique, because last night I found two of the tiny holes on the PCB already filled with solder (from an adjacent component) when I went to use them. Had a bitch of a time trying to get those little holes heated up enough to melt the solder then stick in a pin to keep the hole open. I've seen de-soldering tools but there's simply no room for something like that on this board. Got to use less solder. And I made a different mistake that cost me a half hour or so...soldered the wrong resistor in one of the spots. Pulled a '4K7' out of my parts supply instead of a '47K'. Didn't know about it until I got near the end and had only a 47K left instead of the 4K7 I needed. Bugger! And I'm doublechecking the colour codes on every resistor before it gets soldered, too (apparently not too successfully). Don't really know why these pedals need to be so tiny. After all, I've got big feet.......................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK155 Posted December 28, 2012 Author Share Posted December 28, 2012 Well, to my complete and utter astonishment, and in the words of Baron von Frankenstein............. IT'S ALIVE !!!!! Even without the missing piece (the DC adapter jack), I was able to bring it to life with a battery. And an even bigger surprise is that it works damn near perfectly. Frankly, I had visions of electrical sizzling, smoke rising, and bad smells wafting as soon as I turned it on, but none of those things happened. Some pix: You can see the missing piece here. Ok, actually, you can't. But you can see where it's going to be installed once it gets here. You know what I mean. The arrows I intend to paint white eventually, once I find a small enough brush. One for 'in', one for 'out', one for 'depth', one for 'speed'. Pretty basic user interface. And you will also notice a fair bit of orange peel in the paint (Toyota Red Pearl Metallic). But hey, I'm a programmer, not a painter. And of course, the obligatory gut shot: So let me answer your questions............ Was this build fun? Maybe. Yeah, kinda. Was it stressful? Oh yeah. You can see how crowded the PCB is. I started out with an old 40W soldering pencil that turned out to be too hot, had too big a tip, and caused me some grief that I needed to correct. I bought a 25W pencil with a tip tapering down to a point, and that worked much better. But I had serious misgivings about how badly I had screwed up the soldering of the first dozen or so components. There's just so little room to work. Would I recommend this kind of kit build? Dunno. Not for a first effort, that's for sure. For an experienced builder, it would be a piece of cake. How does it sound? Excellent! This analog chorus, in front of my Carbon Copy delay, sounds great. I think it will help add some much-needed background layers to my homebrew recording efforts. Soundclips to follow later perhaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 ...and bad smells wafting... Didn't know High Flying Bird was helping you with this Looks like a nice, neat job! Well done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidsmoke Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Very neat, and yeah, crowded! Well done Lyle! Looking forward to the studio clips Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TalismanRich Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 Excellent job, Herr Geezer. ... and yes, that thing is pretty tiny, I didn't realize it until the "gut shot" with the 9v battery. I love the cryptic symbology used. You might consider putting a picture of a foot next to the stomp button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigsbytp Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 LK155, I am impressed that in this day of 1 or 2 generations of people .......around us....who cannot screw in a light build....we have the ability to buy BYO kits! I and many friends come from a BYO stock.....my wife hates it...except when I build things that she would never put the money together to buy. Then she melts....and that is when I buy guitars....well, use to buy guitars...now I am heading in the other direction...for now. I guess I am in a minimalist mood. In electronics shop class in High School...I built a distortion pedal. Building kits kept many of us out of trouble ...with a hot soldering iron in our hands....mom loved that.... till we built those mini bike kits. Then the trouble started. BUILD A KIT OF YOUR OWN: Jameco (www.jameco.com), which you might recognize as a mail order parts house, also has a line of small kits for hobbyists and educational institutions. Some of the ham radio companies offer kits as well, like Elecraft (www.elecraft.com) and TenTec (www.tentec.com). Other sources include Elenco Electronics (www.elenco.com) and Kelvin Electronics (www.kelviin.com). Heath kit lives on! http://electronicdesign.com/article/analog-and-mixed-signal/whatever-happened-to-heathkit-20689 What impressed me about Heathkit as a kid? - A "We Will not let you fail" attitude! The only people who did not finish a kit were those who just gave up! We need to find some old Heathkit Execs and get them into the children's education system. On that note, I continue to hire Maintenance techs - Mech, Elect, Piping, etc. nationwide. Contact me if you are looking or underutilized. Always great to salt the ranks with more guitar players....but no playing on company time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigsbytp Posted December 29, 2012 Share Posted December 29, 2012 BUYING VERSUS BUILDING YOUR OWN: The reason these kits showed up was so that like the HOT RODDER WHO BUYS A KIT, THEN ASSEMBLES IT, you end up learning how it all goes together, the engineering, and why it works. Agreed: Buying the kits are not always far off of what a manufactured model would be - but when you buy it off the shelf, you do not learn a thing...you just get to playing. That is good for the person who is not interested in knowing the how and why...I bought most or all of my pedals/effects........ HEATHKIT went into business as an educational teaching company - the products were secondary. I guess you can see it like this: When I tell people, "I just bought this cool guitar" - they are impressed by the guitar... When my kid showed her school teacher the bench we just built them for their outside class room, they were impressed by ...the people who built the bench. Our heros in K-zoo are a bunch of BYO kind of people.................. BYO Lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (That is B-uild - not B-ring!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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