Build Shit - DIY - What's On Your Bench?

[crochambeau]

Say Curtis, off the back of that wiring dilemma I mentioned in the previous post, what wires did you use for this build? They look like a really good balance of size and flexibility while still being sturdy enough to not flail like wet noodles.

3M 3811/9. https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/3M ... RbCA%3D%3D

Trimming down ribbon cable can get tedious, but in the end I do like the look of the connected runs.

[crochambeau]

Here's what's presently on my bench, a rehash of an older design (which is why it has connections at every edge of the PCB ). More of that wire at work..

[FAP]

More info to follow:

[FAP]

This function generator kit I got from American Science & Surplus made for a fun morning:

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The project didn't include a power jack: I added it in myself for the sake of convenience. Interestingly, though, there was already a pre-drilled hole in the top half of the enclosure that just so happens to fit the jack: this hole would've otherwise been covered up by the faceplate sticker, which makes me think they either re-used the enclosure from an earlier revision of the project, or they mass-produced a "one-size-fits-all" enclosure for multiple different projects, or both.

[FAP]

Not bad for a three-day affair:

Note: sound is a bit muffled in this video because the phone I was recording it with was in a waterproof case at the time.

If it weren't obvious, this is a circuit bent Behringer BEQ700 Bass Graphic Equalizer.
There was a point recently where I honestly thought about throwing this one away (mostly because the "hinge' mechanism, now rectified with a blunt brass bolt, was trashed at the time) and I'm glad I didn't.

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The two switches are both center-off dual-position; the left one toggles between two different distortion options while the right one toggles between two different feedback (self-oscillation) options. Of course, you can leave either or both off as well, leaving only the stock EQ effect.

These mods were largely inspired by [but not copied wholesale from] Simon The Magpie's modded BEQ700. You generally can't find photos of his older bends anymore, not even on the internet archive, however I was lucky enough to squirrel away a lot of his documentation from years back: reach out if interested and I'll share them here.

I also implemented another mod that allegedly provides a "more transarent[sic] bypass and effect" which I came across here. I don't really hear it but, hey, it's there.

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Thanks to Crochambeau for recommending the Molex ribbon wires: they worked out great, especially for a mostly SMD-based PCB!

The fit of the switches was tight, though the primary effect on/off mechanism still works as intended; if I were to do this again, I would've spaced the drill holes further from the edge(s) of the pedal door so they would fit in the battery compartment easier.

Speaking of the battery compartment, I unfortunately had to nix it to fit the switches. Not a big loss for me personally, though when I do mods I generally like to leave as much of the original circuitry and features in tact as possible.

One thing that's kind of neat about the BEQ700 is it's a near-exact replica of the much more expensive (albeit more rugged) Boss GEB-7, so mods for this pedal should work for that one, too. I'd say if you have the BEQ700, try these mods out: even if you screw it up somehow, the BEQ700 is super cheap so it's easy to replace!

[FAP]

More info to follow:

Oh yeah, I suppose I should give a little more context:

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This was a birthday present for a friend of mine in the local noise scene; it combines the SicBox (a.k.a. Noise567) circuit by Christian Hemmo with a Simple Dual Op Amp circuit from Experimentalists Anonymous.
It's basically a ring mod-like effect that's normally controlled with an LDR (photoresistor), but I added the option to swap out the LDR with a relatively simple LFO, giving the user far greater control over the effect.

I do want to [re]make this again some day; I definitely want to improve upon the LFO by adding some sort of "presence" control that sets the minimum/baseline brightness of the LED inside the vactrol. As it stands, only the maximum brightness is set, which means the LFO fluctuates harshly between effect and no effect: I'd love to have righter control over what would essentially be the effect level.

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Initially, I wanted to paint the enclosure with a similar splatter effect as seen in the final product, but that would've taken way too much time. I'm always on the lookout for faster alternatives to painting enclosures and so far Sticker Mule has been the fastest and most consistently high quality alternative (thanks for the recommendation, xdugef!). I'm quite pleased with the results; the top sticker layout was the product of weeks of work in Photoshop, including building a template for the enclosure I used from scratch via trial and error. At some point I want to create custom photoshop templates for all the major Hammond enclosures just so I don't have to screw around with it anymore; I'm sure there's some Illustrator templates out there I could use, but the time and energy it'd take me to learn Illustrator at this point is about on par with the time it's take me to create new templates in Photoshop.

Anyways, here's the perf layout if you want to try it yourself:

[crochambeau]

Nice work and presentation! I was scrolling down the BEQ700 post and said "I recognize that wire!", super tidy.

[FAP]

True bypass mod for the TS7. This was a pain in the ass, both in terms of research and wire routing; the inside is a bunch of modular PCBs which makes it a little easier I guess, but fitting them in the right order can be a project in itself. It was still worth it for the functionality: the stock JFET/buffered bypass circuit on this thing is temperamental and not worth saving. There's a bunch of other well-documented mods for this pedal but I've had enough for now. Maybe later... also the original foot pedal still swings along with the new foot switch: this doesn't damage the wiring or internals due to how I set it up, though I might bolt it at a later date so it stays stationary regardless.

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[FAP]

This one took a lot longer than I'd expected, but now that it's done, I'm glad I did it:

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I won't go into specifics with this one since I'm thinking of selling a small batch of them in the future... what I will say for now is it's a drone box, and a deceptively primitive one at that.
This thing really shines when both outputs are used; each output is the same circuit, but utilizing both at the same time leads to some awesome stereo phasing effects.

Truthfully, half of the reason I posted this thing at all was to show off how tidy my wiring has gotten, even though I used vastly inferior wires this time:

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I also wanted to use up more of what I had in stock (vs. buying new parts); I have a ton of these stiff, shitty vero/perf boards and after finally getting to use one of them for a project, I'm glad I never bought more:

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[crochambeau]

Nice use of the cable management tie points.

Good luck on future sales!

( I dislike cheap pad per hole as well, complete PITA to use)