First attempts at self built pedal kits

[vroomery]

Well guys. I have officially caught the bug. I went to radio shack today and bought one of those little alligator clip stands, some flux, and some practice materials so that I could figure out this soldering thing before I mess anything else up. I first must say that flux is quite possibly one of the most amazing things ever invented haha. It has made soldering so much easier and really even made it enjoyable. Once I figured it out I went back and started to re-solder every joint. I must say it looks wayyyy better than it did before. All of the joints are nice and shiny and have that desired volcano shape. Using a little flux even mended that cold eyelet that I thought was useless earlier. I haven't finished putting all the wiring yet, but I am much more confident that it will work this time. At least if it doesn't it should be easier to diagnose the problem without all those horrible looking solder joints all over the board. I'll do my best to find a good camera to take some pictures so you guys can tell me what you think! All in all. I'm pretty excited to do some more of this stuff.

A few quick questions that I didn't find in the manual on ggg's site or elsewhere.
1) How do I know how to orientate the switch? Is there some sort of sign or notch that I'm missing or does it just not matter as long as the sockets are running horizontal?
2) What do you guys use to clean the soldering tip? I looked at a good few tutorials online, but they all said just to tin the tip, wipe it off on a wet sponge, and then tin the tip again before use or storage. For whatever reason I can seem to get the tip to tin very well and the sponge does little to clean off the charred residue.

[Suhnton]

I'm assuming you have a 3-way DPDT switch (9 pins in total), which means there are 3 individual circuits/switches inside. With the pins facing horizontally, each vertical set of pins makes one circuit/switch. For arguments sake let's call them 1,2,3 from top to bottom.
Pin 2 is the common connector, and pressing the switch button will make a connection between 1&2, or 2&3. As you said, as long as the pins are facing horizontal, then you should be ok.

As far as cleaning the soldering tip, I just use a damp cloth.

[Kazz]

The soldering stations i used to to use always had a compartment with a little sponge in it that you keep wet...and when you need to clean your tip you dip it into the wet sponge.....as Suhn says...a wet cloth will work too.

[duhvoodooman***]

If you use the cheap soldering irons without temp. control (which are the only find I've ever used for pedal work), resign yourself to replacing the tips often. They run hot, and the high temps just chew up the tips in a hurry. I keep a healthy supply of tips on hand, because I rarely get more than a couple of builds out of a tip. I prefer the chisel-style tips, and they invariably develop a groove right in the middle of the chisel edge that gets deeper and deeper, until they're Y-shaped. The conical tips seem to last longer, but I don't find them as easy to use. Just personal preference--YMMV.

BTW, you should tin them immediately upon first use, because once they develop an oxide coating, getting them to tin up is very difficult. THIS STUFF helps in that regard. I usually treat the tip with this cleaner at the beginning and end of each session of use.

Waitin' patiently for those pix....

[vroomery]

IT IS ALIVEEEEE!!!

So i finished it up last night and low and behold, it actually works! Here are some pics. Some are a little blurry b/c they are so close up, but you can still see the solder job alright. I can't describe how happy I was when I first heard this thing do the wobble with my guitar haha.

[Suhnton]

Congrats on your first build. Let's have a listen then...
Your next project should come together a lot easier. Is the Tube Screamer kit you purchased the standard kit or did you order "options" as well?

[duhvoodooman***]

That soldering looks a LOT better than your first attempt. Congrats on your first working build! :

[oldguy]

Glad to hear you got it going. The solder job looks much better.

(I seem to remember "It's alive!" being posted by Vood somewhere in the past also.......)

Nice job.:

[vroomery]

I'll put some clips up sometime in the next few days. I got finals comin so we'll see what that means for free time haha.

Also, I ordered the options kit with it. I figured it was only like 8 bucks or something so why not. Do you have any listening experience with this pedal and/or some of the extra mods you can do with this kit? I was probably just going to do all the mods but I would love to know if there is a particular one I should stay away from.

[vroomery]

Here's a little taste of the goods. Playing an american tele through fulldrive 2 and the tremelo into a hot rod deluxe. There's a few funky chords but you get the idea.

http://myspace.com/justinstonezone

[Suhnton]

Very tasty, nice playing there man.
You also look like you've been hitting the weights in your photo.

[vroomery]

Thanks man. The apparent weight lifting is residual from working in construction over the summer. I don't have much time to lift weights between guitar, church, and school haha. And for the record, I don't actually wear shirts like that on a regular basis. That pic is from a concert at my school where we covered don't stop believing and were all dressed up like journey haha.

[duhvoodooman***]

IAlso, I ordered the options kit with it. I figured it was only like 8 bucks or something so why not. Do you have any listening experience with this pedal and/or some of the extra mods you can do with this kit? I was probably just going to do all the mods but I would love to know if there is a particular one I should stay away from.

The MOSFET conversion kit allows you to install MOSFET components in 5 places in the circuit: the input and output buffers, the clipping stage, the opamp, and the boost stage. I initially installed them everywhere but the output buffer, based upon some advice I read on Jack Orman's website (next to last paragraph). Jack has forgotten more about effects than I will ever learn in my lifetime. Plus MOSFETs in the buffers are the main contributor to noise in the circuit, and who wants that? The MOSFET input buffer does tend to preserve highs coming into the circuit, so that seemed worth doing. I'm pleased with the results. I'd definitely recommend the MOSFET's in the clipping section. Leave out the LED's, because the diode-lift middle toggle position sounds very nearly the same as the LED's anyway.

I ended up taking the MOSFET-based opamp out because it didn't sound like anything special to me, and the Burr Brown chip gave somewhat better clarity and note definition. AAMOF, I liked the MOSFET opamp least of the three, preferring the JRC4558D to it also.

If you want to get fancy with the switch wiring, you can rig up a 3PDT toggle switch that will allow you to put the boost in front of the OD portion of the cirrcuit, as well as behind it, which is the default configuration.

[Suhnton]

Are you referring to the Screamer clone with regard to mods?
I know DVM will probably groan ( ), but I would do the Landgraff mod. It's known as the "Expensive Boutique Mod" in the GGG instruction PDF.
Or the Bob Keeley Mod, which is what I did. Either way, these mods sound much better than a stock TS-808. I wouldn't bother with the Jack Orman FAT mod, I think it adds too much bass end into the pedal and the OD becomes quite muddy.

[vroomery]

So I finished the screamer clone pedal up a week or so ago. I might get some pictures up here in a little bit. I basically did the langraff mod but without the diode lift mod. When I first plugged it in it seemed really gritty. My OD up to this point has been a fulldrive 2 in vintage position which is much more smooth sounding. I've been looking for an OD that could get a little dirtier than my fulldrive to use for those screaming solos so this was a good result for me. Then a few days ago I got back to playing with it and was playing a little blues so I pulled back on the drive knob a little bit. Man am I glad I did. There's a certain subtlty about it that has a bit more flavor than just running clean, but when I want to dig into it I can switch to the bridge pup and get a little more breakup. I was planning on doing the giving the keeley mod a run too, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got now.