My Sonic Screwdriver

[aballen]

I was really intimidated, but I liked the challenge as well, so I figured why not take a shot at it.  This is my first SMT project, and right now I'm just bouncing off the walls cause it worked, the first time I fired it up.  It is a damn versatile pedal too.

I took my time and tried to be methodical.  No where near as clean as the masters work, but I'm still satisfied.

First I did the resistors, they were the smallest components, so I figured if I could do these, the rest would work out.


Then the capacitors


and the rest, here is a pic to give you some scale.


I made some little pot mounts from strip board, like in Brians build doc, very handy.


I really took my time drilling, one hole at a time, eventually I got it wired up, and put in that one last tranny.


I have to decide on which knobs I will use on the sides, big ones or small ones?  Right now I'm leaning towards the smalls.




I have to get it labeled, but it all fits nice... I have a lot of boxes in need of graphics right now.

Thanks Dave for the inspiration and the great board.

[pickdropper]

Hey, great job.  SMT is a different style of build, but it isn't as bad as some people fear and it gets easier as you do it.

As far as the box goes, I prefer smaller knobs on the side (although the big knobs have a Princess Leia vibe to them).

For the side knobs, I always use the small MXR style knobs.  They still stick out too far, so I do two things:

1) take a 1/4 drill bit and drill out the knob a bit.  I don't go through the top if the knob, I just take out the cross-brace on top that prevents the knob from going lower.  I twist the bit with my fingers.  No power needed.

2) I also file down the pot shafts.  I've tried cutting them down on a mill and grinding them down on a grinding wheel, but I've had better success just grabbing a metal file and working them down.  It is a pain, though.

[aballen]

Thanks for the tip Dave.  I bought two small mxr style knobs, no skirt.  I thought they looked just like yours but I had the problem you are describing.  I'll try the technique you described to see if I can get the smaller knobs on.

There is a surprising amount of room in the 1590A when your board is smt and you use the tiny ribbon cables.  I'll bet I could fit 8 pots in there with an smt board.

Definitely have me interested in more smt stuff.

[jimilee]

Wow,those resistors are so tiny. I had to squint to see them on the screen. I like the little knobs too. Big ones are kind of unique,but not practical on a pedal board,they'd just get in the way.

[pickdropper]

Thanks for the tip Dave.  I bought two small mxr style knobs, no skirt.  I thought they looked just like yours but I had the problem you are describing.  I'll try the technique you described to see if I can get the smaller knobs on.

There is a surprising amount of room in the 1590A when your board is smt and you use the tiny ribbon cables.  I'll bet I could fit 8 pots in there with an smt board.

Definitely have me interested in more smt stuff.

Yeah, you could fit 8 knobs in there, although there is a bit less room on the left side due to the the body of the output jack.

[midwayfair]

Great work! You're a brave man.

That picture with the battery in it was a perfect reveal -- everything looks HUGE until that picture.

[aballen]

Thanks Jon, that means a lot coming from you, your one of the 1590A masters!  I've never even considered 0603 sized components before... I think next time I can do even better.

Great work! You're a brave man.

That picture with the battery in it was a perfect reveal -- everything looks HUGE until that picture.

[wgc]

Nice job!

[DutchMF]

You hero!!! It all looks so clean, like you've been doing that for ages.... Congrats dude, that is so f*^&k*n cool! Knob-wise, I prefer the big ones....

Paul

[jubal81]

Very, very slick. Great job! 

[billstein]

Does anybody know a good tutorial on smt?

[DutchMF]

There's a whole lot of good info right here on MB, but I forgot where....  Search, and you will find!

Paul

[billstein]

There's a whole lot of good info right here on MB, but I forgot where....  Search, and you will find!

Paul

Thanks Paul. I'll do some more looking. I have found some tutorials but a lot of them seem to need specialized equipment. I was hoping to find a step-by-step tutorial geared more for folk like us.

[aballen]

I like the smaller knobs on the sides as well, the pedal kind of looked like it had some big dorky ears.  I was able to cut the pot shafts off with a dremel cutting wheel.  Pretty easy actually, I also bored out the knobs a little and switched to a red 3mm led, which I think looks nicer.  I'm pretty happy with the "form" now, just have to figure out graphics... really tiny graphics.

[pickdropper]

That looks good to me.  :-)