Project “I”....... For “Insanity”! (New pics added 2013-12-31!!!)

[DutchMF]

Be careful, very long post ahead.......

When I recently decided to take stock of what I had laying around, pcb-wise, I had a bit of a freak-out: a stack of bare pcb's almost 4 inches high, and too much half finished ones to mention...... So I decided to start a ridiculous project to actually turn some of these in working, usable pedals. The past 2 weeks have been about finishing up some pedals that were near completion (JMK's Vibe and Standard Fuzz, RAH/Thunderpuss combo, and some more in the works), but bigger measures are in order, so here it is:

Project "I"....... For "Insanity"!

Project "I" will contain the following basics:
   
   - 14 pcb's (maybe 15...)
   - 4 enclosure
   - 10 3PDT stomps
   - 6 toggles
   - 34 knobs
   - 12 LED's
   - 10 ¼" jacks and 4 9V jacks

It's going to be a four-part stash buster, and I'm going to use this thread to keep you all posted on how I'm doing. I'm suspecting some issues along the road as well, so there might be the occasional cry for help......

Here's the breakdown:

Part 1: AquaTwins



An Aquaboy Deluxe and an Aquaboy 2012 in one enclosure. This will use up my entire stash of MN3005's, and after this I won't buy any more. This box will give me a lot of different analogue delay options, from short slapback to longer, modulated delays. And a lot more....... I'm expecting some pretty serious (clock)noise issues with this, so there's going to be loads of shielded wire and maybe a grounded, metal separator between the two pcb's. But just imagine running one into the other! Maybe I should add a switch to change the order?

Part 2: Űberplex



More delay madness: Multiplex with switchable modulation on both delay lines, and external Ramp and Release controls. I love my standard Multiplex, and now I want more!! I'm not expecting too much problems with this one, but it's the only one in the bunch that needs all pcb's populated.... Fun!!!

Part 3: JamBox



Been planning something like this for ages, but never got around to it: what do you bring to jam sessions when your playing through someone else's amp and want to travel light? In my case, it would be a box with a booster, an overdrive, a distortion and some sort of modulation. So this is going to have a Thunderpuss, an Egghead, a Dist+ and a Smoothie. To make my own life just a bit easier, the Thunderpuss will be switchable between being first or last in the chain, Egghead and Dist+ will get switchable diodes and there's going to be a loop to insert some more Fx. Any tips on where in the order I should place the loop are very much appreciated....

Part 4: GrindBox



This is going to be a gift for one of my best friends, the bass player from my band. First a Faultline, running on 18V via a Roadrage. After that, a 1776 Suckerpunch built to Bass Fuzz specs with a Schoontoon clean blend board added to it. I bet he's going to run it flat out , though...... All the caps are socketed on this, so if he doesn't like it, I can swap 'm and use this monster myself!

As you can see above, the first step was to model all of these in 3D to make sure it would all fit. Here's a family portret of the insides.



Next up is going to be ordering the remaining parts and enclosures, that's going to happen this weekend. I plan to post my progress regularly here, with some nice pics to go with it. Thanks for reading this, it was quite a stretch!!

Paul

[Stomptown]

Wow! This is insanity at its best! Can't wait to see the finished products. I have been meaning to build a travel pedal as well. Your inspiring me to get in it!

BTW how did you generate the 3D models? Brilliant!

[DutchMF]

The 3D models are created with Autocad 2013. It's not the best or easiest program for this kind of work, but it's what I know and have. Normally I do my layouts flat, tape'm to the box and drill, but I've been wanting to do this for some time, and this seemed like the right project to start 

Paul

[rullywowr]

Wow.  This is completely insane (in a great way!).  Great job on the 3D modeling, that is just plain awesome.  It is great that you are finishing up half-built projects as well, I certainly need to do that myself.

I love the idea of all of the pedals but the "grab n' go" box for jam sessions really got my attention.  I think the only thing extra that would make it super awesome would be putting a delay/reverb at the end of the chain that can be switched inline with the rest or switched to act with seperate 1/4" in/out jacks for an amp's FX loop.

[gtr2]

Yikes, you've got some work ahead of you!

Sounds EPIC!!!

Josh

[micromegas]

You HAVE to do a demo of the dual analog delay. Or you could demo all the pedals at once !!

This is something I want to see

[GrindCustoms]

Stoked to see those 2 delay projects, serious badassery ahead.

[jimilee]

Kickass! I built a travel pedal for a friend, and now I have one in the works for myself. It's really a neat idea, and I'm stoked about your delays.

[DutchMF]

Thanks for the encouragement guys! My wife suggested putting a time limit on this to challenge myself, but I don't think that's a very smart thing to do.....  I'll keep you all posted, and when the whole thing is done, demo's will be made. I'm in the process of getting some stuff I borrowed set up to make some better demo's, and that will be done waaaaaaaay before any of these are finished 

Paul

[jprizz]

What a monumental project! I envy your dual Aquaboys, very cool idea.

[DutchMF]

Quick update: drilling templates are done, parts are ordered and should be in before the weekend, as I ordered through a Dutch supplier: http://www.newtone-online.nl/catalog/index.php
Just after I finished payment, I realised I forgot to include the knobs  but that gives me the opportunity to re-think the color/knob choices over the holidays. Still plenty to do before I'm ready for them anyway.....

Paul

[DutchMF]

Came back from my Xmas escape yesterday, and started some long overdue stuff: drilling!!!

Here's the templates:


Cut out and ready to stick on the boxes:


Boxes ready to drill:


And the results!:


The JamBox didn't get drilled today, as both batteries of my DeWalt are dead.... Tomorrow is another day, thanks for watching!

Paul

[DutchMF]

Been quite busy the last couple of days, it's nice to have some time off of work and be able to build a lot!! The JamBox enclosure is now drilled as well, all the pcb's for the Űberplex are populated, both Aquaboy pcb's have the last components added and I started mocking up the Űberplex and AquaTwins, to make sure everything fits and lines out nicely.

Űberplex:




AquaTwins:






While working on it yesterday, I realised I had to reset the jumpers on the ABDX, as I first thought I was going to build it with some 3205's/3208's. That turned out to be a big PITA! I also have my doubts about the location of the toggle switch now it's mounted on the box, I think it is quite vulerable where it is now 

Last, a question for all of you: I was planning on measuring current draw on both AB's, to see if I could run them from one Roadrage. I have enough space between the 3PDT's to fit 2 RR's (and some more RR boards/chargepumps/regulators in my stash), would this be preferable, noise-wise?

Thanks for checking this out again, have a good 2014!!!

Paul

[Rockhorst]

Great to see you'll be ready to start with 'my' pcb's when I get the build docs done, now that all this will soon be out of the way it'll be a joy working on something small and simple after this.

Seriously: great stuff, insane indeed.

[kothoma]

[ABDX] I also have my doubts about the location of the toggle switch now it's mounted on the box, I think it is quite vulerable where it is now 

You could put on a little protective cover/shield.