Home made guitar pedals

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   The kits cost about £30 - 45 each, the enclosures are about £10. So, compared to the £150+ some of these pedals cost, it sounds like a commercial venture *but* you couldn't charge commercial rates, probably only about £40 on top of the price of the kit for labour. 

This equates to "less than £10 an hour" and then you have picky guitarists saying "it doesn't quite sound like an original / don't like the LED colour / sky's wrong shade of blue today" so, basically, there is more money to be made elsewhere with a soldering iron for less headaches. 

Edited by Davesax1965 - August 29 2017 at 06:37

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Davesax1965 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2839	Posted: August 29 2017 at 06:08
	The kits cost about £30 - 45 each, the enclosures are about £10. So, compared to the £150+ some of these pedals cost, it sounds like a commercial venture but you couldn't charge commercial rates, probably only about £40 on top of the price of the kit for labour. This equates to "less than £10 an hour" and then you have picky guitarists saying "it doesn't quite sound like an original / don't like the LED colour / sky's wrong shade of blue today" so, basically, there is more money to be made elsewhere with a soldering iron for less headaches. Edited by Davesax1965 - August 29 2017 at 06:37


Davesax1965 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2839	Posted: August 29 2017 at 06:04
	Vox delay clone.... These are are all from Fuzz Dog, by the way. Recommended. This took - what ? Three hours to build ??? Not for amateurs as there is NO technical support. Edited by Davesax1965 - August 29 2017 at 06:19


Davesax1965 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2839	Posted: August 29 2017 at 06:03
	Deep Blue clone internals.... simple stuff, it's basically a PT2399 delay chip and op amp. The electrolytic capacitors are all laid flat to save room in the case. There's a nice daughterboard for the 3PDT switch which makes internal wiring easy - not shown in the photo. Documentation is good, but not perfect. You can get pre-drilled enclosures if you like or drill and paint your own. Most of the kits are external power only but you can get some 9v battery ones.... depending on how full the case is. Once you've built one, the wiring becomes pretty self explanatory. The potentiometers are thankfully plastic backed, so you don't get any shorts on the solder side of the PCB. Well thought out kits. And nothing very much out of the ordinary: if you can use a soldering iron and follow a BOM and schematic, these are pretty simple to do. Component density is pretty high, so you have to be accurate and take care. Edited by Davesax1965 - August 29 2017 at 06:18


Davesax1965 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Forum Senior Member Joined: May 23 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 2839	Posted: August 29 2017 at 06:00
	Just started making my own guitar pedals, more for a break from doing Eurorack kits and to save a bit of money. MXR 100 clone below, duh, drilled one hole a couple of millimetres off and the knobs look a bit goofy. However, works, hurrah !!! And cost a whole lot less than an MXR. The switch is a feedback kill switch, incidentally. So far I've made one flanger, two delays, two A <>B switch boxes. A step drill is pretty much essential, as is hem hem accurate measurement. The only fly in the ointment is that it's very difficult to do any form of graphics on the pedals, so I'm looking into that. The black box / white knobs at the back is a Mad Professor Deep Blue clone delay, waiting to be sprayed up a more interesting colour. Easy builds.... compared to Eurorack, of course. About 30 resistors, tops. Some Eurorack stuff I do has six times the amount of components. Before anyone asks, sorry, not doing these commercially. No money in it. ;-) Edited by Davesax1965 - August 29 2017 at 06:39