serendipity first fabbed board build

[eniacmike]

I took advantage of the new pcbs with room for bigger caps and used some panasonic ecq-? in those slots. I also used the plated through hole construction to wire up my led from the top side and I really like the clean look.

The only substitution I made was in the opamp. Hermida uses AD712 which I couldn't find so I ended up using opa2134 which is very hi-fi op amp from brown-burr. The opamp is socketed so I can swap it in and out with jrc4558 or any other opamps I wish to try.

I have to say this is a great sounding od. One of my favorites and easily the best mods to a son of screamer/tubescreamer type circuit. The voice control increases the gain while increasing the treble and as you lower it it decreases the gain but increases bass. It is a very useful control to voice the circuit to different guitar/amp setups.

The artwork is a picture of ODIN over brushed aluminum. I went with a cliff125b enclosure for a little more space which is how I prefer 4 knob pedals. White knobs and a water clear blue led finished the project off.

hopefully tomorrow I can make a demo video. i

[jkokura]

Great job! Thanks for sharing. I would love to see/hear a demo.

Jacob

[gtr2]

Cool, i'd be interested in hearing a demo as my serendipidy doesn't seem to have as much gain that I've heard from other zendrives.  I should do some troubleeshooting on it but lack the time right now

[pigyboy]

Whoa, man you are the pedal makin' fool!

[eniacmike]

Whoa, man you are the pedal makin' fool!

I am addicted. I pretty much work on pedals anytime I am awake and not gigging.

[pigyboy]

What band are you in?

[jkokura]

You're gonna run out of money - or pedal board space!

When I started into this, I started selling my 'commercial' pedals to be able to afford the DIY pedals I wanted! Then I started into custom orders for friends... now I'm up to custom orders for strangers.

Jacob

[madbean]

Cool, i'd be interested in hearing a demo as my serendipidy doesn't seem to have as much gain that I've heard from other zendrives.  I should do some troubleeshooting on it but lack the time right now

Maybe try a 1MA pot for the gain. That should give that bit of extra. Or, you could lower R3 to 470R, but then you would need to increase C3 to 120n or 150n to keep approximately the same frequency roll-off.

[eniacmike]

You're gonna run out of money - or pedal board space!

When I started into this, I started selling my 'commercial' pedals to be able to afford the DIY pedals I wanted! Then I started into custom orders for friends... now I'm up to custom orders for strangers.

Jacob

This is much cheaper than buying commercial pedals though. I am planning on selling my ocd and my zvex mastortron as soon as I finish my clones. The other stuff I have I plan on keeping because most of them can't be cloned for less than what I would get for them. I have a carbon copy, phase 90, stereo pulsar, soul-bender, dynacomp, soul preacher, and a modded crybaby. 

I have a bunch of friends who play so I have no problem unloading my pedals or trading them for stuff. One of my friends let me borrow a carmen ghia in exchange for a trotsky. lol.

[eniacmike]

What band are you in?

I am a professional drummer. mainly gig with blaggards http://blaggards.com/ about 150 nights a year. I do some other gigs when I can everything from hip hop to indie rock stuff.

[jkokura]

You're gonna run out of money - or pedal board space!

When I started into this, I started selling my 'commercial' pedals to be able to afford the DIY pedals I wanted! Then I started into custom orders for friends... now I'm up to custom orders for strangers.

Jacob

This is much cheaper than buying commercial pedals though. I am planning on selling my ocd and my zvex mastortron as soon as I finish my clones. The other stuff I have I plan on keeping because most of them can't be cloned for less than what I would get for them. I have a carbon copy, phase 90, stereo pulsar, soul-bender, dynacomp, soul preacher, and a modded crybaby. 

I have a bunch of friends who play so I have no problem unloading my pedals or trading them for stuff. One of my friends let me borrow a carmen ghia in exchange for a trotsky. lol.

Well, it only gets cheaper when you either build the ridiculously overpriced stuff for yourself (Klon, ZVex) or you build many pedals. When you factor in the price of finishing pedals (drilling, paint, labelling, clear coating) you can't compete with the big boys like Boss.

We can make pedals that look good in their own individual ways, but the cost for me in time, finishing and general tools that is by far the more expensive part in comparison to the parts to build a pedal.

I guess it depends on whether you add in your time spent, the price of shipping parts, the tools and supplies - when you add in all that I doubt you could say it costs you less until you build lots and lots of pedals.

Jacob

[pigyboy]

What band are you in?

I am a professional drummer. mainly gig with blaggards http://blaggards.com/ about 150 nights a year. I do some other gigs when I can everything from hip hop to indie rock stuff.

Wow, you guys play a lot! I will have to forward the link to the singer in my wife's band. She is an Irish girl and is looking to start a rockabilly band. Maybe the blaggards will be her inspiration!
Cheers

[eniacmike]

You're gonna run out of money - or pedal board space!

When I started into this, I started selling my 'commercial' pedals to be able to afford the DIY pedals I wanted! Then I started into custom orders for friends... now I'm up to custom orders for strangers.

Jacob

This is much cheaper than buying commercial pedals though. I am planning on selling my ocd and my zvex mastortron as soon as I finish my clones. The other stuff I have I plan on keeping because most of them can't be cloned for less than what I would get for them. I have a carbon copy, phase 90, stereo pulsar, soul-bender, dynacomp, soul preacher, and a modded crybaby. 

I have a bunch of friends who play so I have no problem unloading my pedals or trading them for stuff. One of my friends let me borrow a carmen ghia in exchange for a trotsky. lol.

Well, it only gets cheaper when you either build the ridiculously overpriced stuff for yourself (Klon, ZVex) or you build many pedals. When you factor in the price of finishing pedals (drilling, paint, labelling, clear coating) you can't compete with the big boys like Boss.

We can make pedals that look good in their own individual ways, but the cost for me in time, finishing and general tools that is by far the more expensive part in comparison to the parts to build a pedal.

I guess it depends on whether you add in your time spent, the price of shipping parts, the tools and supplies - when you add in all that I doubt you could say it costs you less until you build lots and lots of pedals.

Jacob

I do not count my time, as I am having fun, drilling is really fast and easy my first pedals I drilled with a $10 hand drill and a $15 set of generic unibits I got from northern tool (I have a drill press now), painting is fast I think it might cost $1 in supplies to paint a pedal, decal sheets are $2 but I usually try to put 2 or 3 pedals on a sheet, clear coat might be $1 too. It really doesn't take alot of time to finish a pedal for me becuase I can do other stuff while waiting for paint to dry. The only stuff that really takes alot of time is doing crazy layouts like stuffing stuff into 1290a's or side mounted knobs, etc.

I think the biggest factor in price for me is how many pots/knobs a pedal has, and of course 3pdt switches, if something has 2 it raises the cost.

Some pedals I have found not worth building like the aqua boy is almost $80 in parts and I have a carbon copy (which jeorges tripps also designed but with double the delay time) that i got for $100.

[CRBMoA]

When I build for myself, I don't count time. I enjoy building.

When I build for others, I figure the cost of the parts, postage, etc., and add a number that I am happy with for the complexity of the build and/or whether the 'friend' discount applies.

I specifically DO NOT charge by the hour. I'll take as little or as much time per pedal as the build requires. I do this for recreation and education. Building for others makes this a self funding hobby. I already have a career.

[eniacmike]

this is the 2nd serendipity I build as a birthday present for my luthier friend greg gamble. I think he is going to be really excited. He built my pedal board and builds guitars for all my friends and alot of the red dirt alt country type bands.

I really liked the build in the 1590bb enclosure with the knobs in a line. Not only does it make for a really clean build, but it also makes it easier to tweak the knobs and stuff. great sounding pedal.

paint is testors one coat lacquer diamond dust, water slide decal from lazertran, and 3 coats of spray on polycrylic lacquer. The lacquer came out really well the past couple of pedals I have used it on it came out really orange peel-looking but it finally stopped raining around here and the humidity is down so the lacquer came out glassy smooth. I really like the polycrylic though because it dries alot faster and the fumes are less toxic, and the clean up is really easy (water). It is a bit more expensive than the regular stuff but it does the job.