Inline 8 stuffed into a Cool Cat enclosure

[culturejam]

This is a very long build log, so if you are in a hurry, scroll down to the TL;DR just above the photos. 

Chris B sent me a gutted Danelectro Cool Cat enclosure (some kind of drive pedal, but not the Timmy ripoff one) a long time ago. Maybe it was PIFmas 2011. I don't exactly remember.

Anyway, I figured it would be a cool vehicle for a simple dirt circuit, and the Inline 8 board fit the available space (and the control labels are nearly identical). So in April of 2012, I set about figuring out how to make it work. I know that's the date because I checked my Smallbear order history to see when I ordered the little 12mm solder lug pots that were necessary to make it fit. It didn't take long to figure out that everything would fit, but I had a big problem: I'm lazy.

My laziness hit a real snag with the Danelectro-supplied 3PDT switch assembly and the input/output/9v jack board. They are very low-profile and clever, but the routing of everything wasn't marked. So I was faced with trying to figure out how they'd wired everything originally. I couldn't just replace their switch with a typical blue stomper, as they are way too big (see comparison photo below). I also had to keep the I/O board since the 9v jack was square and there wasn't enough room to drill it out and go round.

Then I had the bright idea to just desolder the tiny footswitch and wire it the way I normally would any switch. This was before I had my Hakko 808 gun, so I ended up wrecking the switch. I even tried to replace the guts that I pulled from another 3PDT, but the pieces were too big. So I emailed Danelectro to see if I could buy a replacement, and they were nice enough to send me one for free. Instead of desoldering again (now with my handy gun), I decided to just figure it out. I looked at a diagram of the most common 3PDT wiring methods and quickly figured out which one they used. BAM, now we're in business...well, several months later when I got around to it.   

Anyway, I decided that tonight was the night this sucker was going together. The 12mm pots were the clutch pieces of the puzzle, as nothing else will really fit (9mm would fit, but solder lugs are easier to work with). To keep it neat, I used 3-gang ribbon wire for the pots. The Dano daughterboards also help keep the wiring to a minimum. The big challenge was the battery compartment. It juts into the enclosure right where the circuit PCB needs to sit, so I pulled the compartment out, cut the door flush, and glued it on.  :mrgreen:

TL;DR: I jammed an Inline 8 PCB (Gun'nor with a single tone control) into a Dano Cool Cat enclosure.


Here is a regular 3PDT vs the Dano tiny version (wish we could buy these for our projects):






12mm pots in the box:






Board in place:






All buttoned up:







Exterior:







Glued-up battery door:

[jkokura]

Brilliant CJ. Loove the reuse of that enclosure. That's almost like rehousing Behringer stuff, only backwards.

Jacob

[pickdropper]

Great job, but I think you could've fit at least 3 more PCBs in there.   

[culturejam]

That's almost like rehousing Behringer stuff, only backwards.

Exactly. For once, the original enclosure is actually useful and not a piece of junk. These boxes are very sturdy. and if you want with a really small PCB, it could fit under the I/O board and leave room for the full battery compartment. I don't use batteries, but it's nice to leave the box as intact as possible.

Great job, but I think you could've fit at least 3 more PCBs in there.

With you and Chuck on my team, I'm sure we could easily get 3 more in there.