First order, anything missing?

[croquet hoop]

Hi everyone,

After many hours of reading here and at diystompboxes, I am ready to dive into the depths of DIY pedals. I have checked everything twice, but I would like to be sure I did not overlook anything crucial. I will begin with the following projects :

• Cupcake (madbean pcb)
• Afterlife (madbean pcb)
• Bosstone (vero)
• Transistor tester (perf)

And once I am sure I know what I'm doing:
• Engineer's thumb (jmk pcb)
• Moon Lander (jmk pcb)

Basically, I'll order 40-80 resistors and 20-30 caps of each necessary value, 3 to 5 times the ICs, transistors and diodes needed (to have parts on hand when I decide to make variations, or to have spares in case some parts are faulty). And 3x the pots I need and a number of knobs.

Plus, for each pedal:
- enclosure
- 3PDT switch
- 2.1mm power jack
- LED bezel
- lots of LEDs (cheap and always useful)
- 2x mono jacks

Plus a bunch of sockets, vero board, perf board, and 24 awg stranded wire in different colors. Am I overlooking anything?

[gingataff]

Looking good man.
Seems you like compressors. I really like my Afterlife. The Jon Patton/1776 Bear hug will be my next.
Be sure to let us know how it goes and don't be afraid to ask questions.

[GermanCdn]

Do yourself a favour and pickup some of the 3PDT wiring boards from Josh (1776 effects).  I will make your life so much easier when it comes to most of the off board wiring.

If you're not buying board mounted pots (like for Jacobs boards), I'd suggest picking up some solid wire so you can make your own board mounts (cheaper and pretty easy).

Make sure you pickup some IC and inline sockets, as it's a good idea to socket your transistors and ICs on early (or all builds).  Unsoldering ICs from the board is a pain.

You don't need three times the pots, that's an unnecessary expense if you're just getting into it.  Order one more of each and you'll be fine.  You can ruin pots in builds, but it takes effort.  I've built a 100+ pedals in the last two years, and I think I've ruined four pots, and two were from overtightening them.

With the cap and resistor count, again, if you want to overorder it's not a big deal, but I wouldn't overorder on all of them.  There are values you're going to use hundreds of once you get into throes of addiction of pedal building (1k, 10k, 100k, 1M, 22k, 33k, 47k, etc), but there are a bunch of oddballs that you won't.  Same for caps.  Build up an overall list for all the builds you're planning on, round up all of the counts under 10 to 10 or 15, and round up all counts over 30 to 50.  You'll be covered for long time, and the reality is, until you get a big inventory built up, you're going to be doing parts orders on a fairly regular basis, as there's always going to be something you don't have.


But most of all, have fun.

[gtr2]

Welcome to the forum! 

Josh

[jkokura]

I'll echo the other guys. Don't overbuy too much, but get a couple extras. For example, if you need 5 TL072 ICs for your planned build, you don't need to buy 15-25, you could probably do with 8-10. That will give you enough extras to have a few on hand, and it may be one less part to order with another upcoming build.

Really, stocking up a big stash is only a thing to do if you plan to get into this hobby for the long haul, with lots of builds down the road. If you only plan to build 5-7 pedals, you don't need 20 extra of each value of resistor, 5 extra is plenty.

Also, watch for batch/bulk sales in the 'for sale' section on the forums, like BYOC and DIYstompboxes. Every once in a while there's someone selling a batch of enclosures, knobs, and such. You can get good deals, and get stocked up for building a couple/few pedals.

By far, the most expensive part of any build is the enclosure. After that is the Jacks, Pots and knobs, and switches. For example, here's a breakdown of a typical cost structure for a Moon Lander:
125B Enclosure: 6.50 from PPP
Powder Coat: 2.75 from PPP
Switch: $3-4 from Mammoth
Pots: $6 from Mammoth
Knobs: $5 from Mammoth
Jacks: $3 from Mammoth
Total: $27.25 plus shipping

Resistors: $0.14 from Tayda
Capacitors: $1.40 from Tayda
Diodes: $0.15 from Tadya
Sockets: $0.50 from Tayda
Transistors: $1.14 from Tayda
PCB: $9 from JMK
Total: $12.33 plus shipping

My point is, the cost of the PCB plus the parts is less than half the cost of the hardware and stuff to finish the pedal, even including the PCB. Some PCBs are more expensive, like an Analog Delay or Flanger or something of that nature. Even the Moon Lander is fairly expensive when you consider it has 5 pots - many projects are much less in price. You can also pay a little more for a part like a resistor from Mammoth or Smallbear or PPP rather than getting parts from Tayda to save yourself in shipping.

One thing I'd caution you on is feeling like you have to box every circuit you build. If I were you, I would build the circuits you want to build, and a test rig or a generic enclosure layout that will allow you to 'audition' a circuit. That way, if you want to try a compressor out for a while, all you've shelled out is the 12-15 bucks for the PCB and parts, not 40-50 for a completed pedal you don't like. That's probably the thing I regret the most about how I started in this, feeling like every circuit I built had to be finished. I wish I had bought a few enclosures, drilled them for basic pot layouts I liked, and then tried a bunch of different circuits out for a while. If I liked them, they could have gotten the finish treatment, and if I didn't, I could harvest the parts or even sell the PCB on to someone else to try out for a while.

I'll probably have to do a build report on the run of boxes I have now for trying things out. It's pretty simple, but it allows me to audition circuits to see what I like, and helps me know how modifications sound in a real setting.

Jacob

[GermanCdn]

Further to Jacobs comments, I built a test rig of under $7 from Tayda (a 1590A enclosure, a four terminal clip jack, two 1/4" sockets, a DPDT switch, and a 2.1 mm socket) and it has saved me sooo much money.  Because the reality is, you're going to build circuits you're not going to like, it's a fact of building.  I had the same problem when I started, I boxed everything, just for the sense of accomplishment of finishing a project.  And some of them I haven't used at all since.  Now I'm probably at a 70% box rate.  I don't drill any of my enclosures until after they've passed at lest 10 minutes through a couple of amps to see if they are worthy.

As far as buying a specific enclosure to mount up all the pots and board test the pedal, I wouldn't go out and buy a specific enclosure for that purpose for a simple reason - you are inevitably going to screw up drilling an enclosure, and when you do, use that one as your board tester box.

One least piece of advice for your first couple of builds - you don't have to try and be a hero and build the baby boards in a 1590A.  Yes, it looks cool and can be a lot of fun, but it can also be really frustrating, especially early on (I still don't do it often).  Give yourself a little room to work with in a 1590B.

[aballen]

I wouldn't call this a miss, but its nice if your pedal can run off of battery power.  Especially if you want to show off your builds to your friends.  I still love doing this when a build sounds and looks good.

So you will need a battery snap
http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=98

and a plug
http://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=136

You can wire these two together and have a external battery handy for all of your pedals when you want to take one with, but don't want to lug a board or proper power supply with you.

Alternatively, you can get a stereo jack, and battery snap for the enclosure, if there is room and wire it in to the enclosure.  Looks like you are starting with 1590A builds, so there is not, but if you are putting those circuits in a 125B, or a 1590BB you have plenty of room inside, why waste it?

[croquet hoop]

Thanks alot everyone for your feedback. I'll try to answer your remarks in order:

- compressors: yeah, I love them, and I cannot believe I did not see the pcb for the BearHug on 1776! Another one on the list. I might not like them all, but I'm building pedals for the fun, and some of my guitar-playing relatives may like those I don't, so...

And I'll check those 3PDT wiring boards, thank for pointing them out!

- (not) overordering everything: your remarks sound sensible. I'll probably overorder most from places where shipping costs are high and be more reasonable for the rest. It's no big deal if I have to buy again from Tayda or smallbear after a few builds, but I'd rather avoid another 20€ in shipping fees alone from Mouser. I'll keep an eye on the "for sale" section as well, thanks for the tip!

- boxing every build : you are right, I intended to build and audition one effect at a time, but the generic/test enclosure advice is great.

As for 1590A builds, well, this is actually one of the reason why I want to build pedals — to have a very compact pedalboard. But it's true that it would be good to have alternatives if it turns out to be a hassle — I planned to order several 1590Bs as well.

Regarding the external battery, this is exactly how I power my current "pedalboard" (I'll switch to a standard power supply when I have more pedals) !

[GermanCdn]

Ah, you didn't say you were in the EU, I can help you out with that.

Cheapest shipping rates for parts in the EU are from Musikding, and they have more than enough selection to keep you going.  Pretty sure it's like 5 Euro for a 1 kg package, and you don't get dinged with the VAT when it arrives.  They're good guys, are relatively competitive when it comes to pricing on small orders, and actually have a few PCBs available for purchase as well (and kits) which are reasonably priced, although a little bit on the boring side as they are just of the popular clones (TS, Dist+, Ross comp, SHO, etc).  Banzai has good selection and pricing, although their shipping rates are a bit higher.

If you're in Germany or the CR or in the vicinity, buy your solder from OBI.  They have a 60/40 solder there that flows better than any other solder I've ever used.

Pickup the LTR variable temp soldering iron from Banzai.  It's 10 Euro, and it works almost as well as a Hakko for a tenth of the price.

Tayda's still the cheapest way to go for volume and shipping, but they lack some of the specialty stuff.  Order your CA3080 from POLIDA on ebay, they'll mark them as $1 value, and you avoid VAT and they ship for free.

Buy your Vactrols and reverb tanks (if you go that way) from Banzai, they've got the best price.

Shipping and VAT from SB will be a killer.  Same for PPP.

There are not many good solutions for enclosures within the EU.  The paint jobs on the ones from both Musikding and Banzai suck. are not nearly up to the standard set by PPP, or even the ones from Mammoth.  I think Ben set up a group buy for some locally sourced stuff, but your best bet is to either order from PPP, or order bare enclosures from Tayda on a sale and spray them yourself.  Dr. Tweak's another option, though I've never used them myself.

[croquet hoop]

Once again thanks for your valuable input! Yes, I'm in France so I guess my options are a bit different than most people here, but your experience is really helpful.

I have just seen that shipping from mouser is free for ~80€+ orders, and they take care of custom fees. So I will rework my to-buy-from lists to take advantage of this, and take in account your tips.

I intended to order a few things for smallbear, mainly a few transistors for the fuzzboxes (and other things I couldn't find at mouser or tayda). I like the fact that he (apparently) checks/sorts them, do you think it will be safe to order germs/BC109Cs/other from, say, banzai or any other supplier, or am I better of going with him for this type of parts? It will likely be a sub-30$ order, so I don't think the VAT will be excessive (especially if he mails it with usps).

Since Tayda is out of 1590Bs/125Bs, I think I'll just get hammond boxes from mouser. I don't mind getting bare boxes, painting them will be part of the fun!

[GermanCdn]

Steve (Smallbear) definitely does a good job on testing and matching his components, but Banzai also offers matched and tested sets of germs (AC127/128/87, etc), as well as matched sets for phasers (2N5952).

I lived in Germany for a couple of years, and this was my approach to minimize the shipping/VAT damage:

1. Max out the ordering on pcbs.  Brian (MB), Jacob (JMK), and Josh (1776) all have very reasonable shipping rates on set quantities of boards, so I'd always order up boards to the top of the shipping level I was at.  Some other sites don't have great shipping rates, so if you're going to order from them (and I won't name names), order everything you want at one time ($15 shipping for an $11 board is counterproductice).

2. Since I ended up usually buying enclosures from PPP, I'd always top up the order with pots I couldn't get from Tayda, jacks, and knobs, because they didn't change the size of the box, and PPP will always refund the shipping difference if they charge you too much.

3. All Tayda stuff got ordered from Tayda.

4. All the remaining bits and pieces I ended up buying from either Banzai or Musikding, because while their prices are a little bit higher, once you factor in shipping and currency loss on conversion, it's pretty close on small orders, and you get it within a week, as opposed to possibly 3 - 5 weeks depending on how long customs takes.

When I ordered from Smallbear or Mammoth, I made them bigger orders, because it's cheaper freight for one $100 order than three $33 orders.

I never ordered from Mouser because I found their website to be unfriendly to navigate.

There is a company in France which makes some PCBs as well (myaudiolab.com), although they are all clones, I don't think they have an original circuit out.

Bienvenue aux forum Madbean, et si tu as les questionnes, demande moi, j'essai t'aidez (sorry if my spelling is horrendous, I still speak and read French fluently, but I haven't written anything in French in a couple of decades).

[croquet hoop]

Hé bien, merci pour ton accueil et ces précieux conseils 

I have scoured every major shop, including the European ones you mentioned, but safe for a few things from musikding I think I'll get most parts from mouser, tayda and smallbear. They might take longer to arrive, but I began reading about building pedals back in december, so I can wait a few more weeks.

With quantity discounts, mouser seems to be the way to go for so many parts (jacks, resistors, caps, ICs, trannies, almost everything actually), and thanks to a few threads here it is not that hard to figure out what and how to buy. Surprisingly, Smallbear is cheaper than musikding & banzai on other parts (9mm alpha pots, alu knobs, vactrol), even including shipping. And I'll wait for a coupon and order the enclosures and 3PDTs from Tayda (unless someone warns me against their quality, but I did not find negative feedback on the subject).

So again, thanks everyone for your help.

[Liustucru]

Cool et bienvenue à toi.
Ca fait plaisir de voir que d'autres Français connaissent MADBEAN.
Si je peux t'être utile, n'hésite pas !!!