Show Off Your Board!

I am. I don't think we did.

I've been on the lookout for left handed pedals :)
At one point I thought about swapping all the I/O on my pedals just so the cord doesn’t keep going across the pedals but that wouldn’t end up stupid when I also use commercial pedals..🤣
 
At one point I thought about swapping all the I/O on my pedals just so the cord doesn’t keep going across the pedals but that wouldn’t end up stupid when I also use commercial pedals..🤣
Do you get upset when a new guitar is released and they don’t make it in lefty?
 
I spent some time over the weekend rewiring my whole board... Previously had a lot of "close, but not quite there" cable lengths running under my board and it was just a bit sloppy. And my power supply cables were just kind of flying all over the place too, so while it looked pretty clean on top the underside was basically just a rat's nest.

Previously my board was pretty much all wired with Mogami 2319 and a mix of Squareplug SP400 and some old GLS pancakes (for the record, I really like these - IMO the best value plug you can get). I ordered ~25 feet of Mogami 2314 to re-do it with. It's smaller and lower capacitance, and doesn't have the conductive shield that needs removed*. I really wanted to replace my remaining GLS pancakes with all SP400s just for consistency/organization, but my board has about 28 plugs total and it's about 50/50...to get another 14 SP400s would've cost an extra 50 bucks and just couldn't justify it right now....

So anyways I disassembled and desoldered all my old plugs and started laying each one out custom. The top of my board can be removed which made it a bit easier. I used a TON of zip tie mounts and zip ties and tried to keep things organized pretty tight. Solder and heat shrink one end of the plug, route where you want the wire to go, then cut to length and do the other end. Zip tie it all down nice and tight. And just to keep things ultra-organized, I put a label on the end of every cable with where it's meant to go. I used a Panduit labeler that's designed for label-wraps on ethernet/patch panel/switch wiring which worked really nicely. The labels are honestly stupid expensive (as is the case with many Panduit products, lol) - it's like $70 bucks for a cartridge that prints maybe 100 labels - but admittedly are quite high quality and look pretty sharp. I wouldn't pay for it personally but...work perk. :p So for instance, one end of the cable will say "MOBIUS L OUT" while the other end says "TIMELINE L IN" and so on. It's certainly overkill but it looks pretty pro if I do say so myself. Ultimately the whole board got done up like that and tried to keep my audio lines as short and clean as I could. The 2314 cable is really nice! I do find that it needs a bit of heat shrink to have a good fit with the SP400s, and for the GLS Pancake jacks it needed a double-layer of shrink to feel secure but it's very nice to work with overall. I had been using 2319 for years but think I am a convert now. FWIW, I ended up with probably 5-6 feet to spare.

I also made it a point to organize my power cabling. As before it had just been kind of all over the place and I suspect wasn't helping any with noise. I don't know if it matters in such low voltage situations but I've always heard before to have data/audio and power cross perpendicular and to minimize parallel runs. So I tried to do that as best as I could and kept everything as separated as possible in a small space. Overall it's much cleaner and if nothing else much nicer to look at.

It's at this point that I did run into a weird issue, perhaps some of you may know some more about it. Most of my board (With the exception of the big-box Strymons) is powered off a Truetone CS7. I have a splitter coming out of one of the outputs that feeds two pedals, presently a small veroboard buffer and my compressor. I'm assuming the issue is with my buffer and something with grounding? Here's the splitter I'm using. One side is ground-lifted. When I first plugged in both pedals, neither would get power. If I plugged them in individually directly to the CS7 (bypassing the splitter), both worked fine. I then found if I flipped the "sides" they were plugged into on the splitter it would work just fine for both, but that if I had my buffer plugged into the splitter and didn't have the other end of the splitter plugged in to anything it wouldn't power on the buffer until I had something plugged into the other side of the splitter, too. That was probably a bit confusing to read, sorry, lol.

ANYWAYS, all that being said I am happy to report that for one reason or another (maybe it is double-checking the cables, cleaning up lengths, cleaner power cabling, I dunno) things are definitely less noisy than before so that's ultimately a win in my book. Now on to the bass board...

The first photo is just my audio/signal cabling. Blue tape is marked to show the location of my CS7, I didn't want too many cables in that area to make sure the lid could shut properly. The second photo is with power cabling added back in.

I guess I should probably get a pic of the top too at some point but for now signal chain is:
Input > Buffer (JHS Little Black Buffer on Vero) > Compressor (General Tso) > TC Electronic Sub N Up > Pro-10 Dual > Informant > Katana (running on the 18v tap with charge pump removed) > VP > Mobius (Mono in, stereo out) > Timeline (stereo in/out) > Bigsky (stereo in/out) > Strymon Iridium (stereo in/out) > Board outputs / headphone out. Also a few aux switchers for each of the Strymon big boxes and there's a tuner coming out from the VP as well.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0755.JPEG
    IMG_0755.JPEG
    546.4 KB · Views: 31
  • IMG_0757.JPEG
    IMG_0757.JPEG
    527.4 KB · Views: 31
I spent some time over the weekend rewiring my whole board... Previously had a lot of "close, but not quite there" cable lengths running under my board and it was just a bit sloppy. And my power supply cables were just kind of flying all over the place too, so while it looked pretty clean on top the underside was basically just a rat's nest.

Previously my board was pretty much all wired with Mogami 2319 and a mix of Squareplug SP400 and some old GLS pancakes (for the record, I really like these - IMO the best value plug you can get). I ordered ~25 feet of Mogami 2314 to re-do it with. It's smaller and lower capacitance, and doesn't have the conductive shield that needs removed*. I really wanted to replace my remaining GLS pancakes with all SP400s just for consistency/organization, but my board has about 28 plugs total and it's about 50/50...to get another 14 SP400s would've cost an extra 50 bucks and just couldn't justify it right now....

So anyways I disassembled and desoldered all my old plugs and started laying each one out custom. The top of my board can be removed which made it a bit easier. I used a TON of zip tie mounts and zip ties and tried to keep things organized pretty tight. Solder and heat shrink one end of the plug, route where you want the wire to go, then cut to length and do the other end. Zip tie it all down nice and tight. And just to keep things ultra-organized, I put a label on the end of every cable with where it's meant to go. I used a Panduit labeler that's designed for label-wraps on ethernet/patch panel/switch wiring which worked really nicely. The labels are honestly stupid expensive (as is the case with many Panduit products, lol) - it's like $70 bucks for a cartridge that prints maybe 100 labels - but admittedly are quite high quality and look pretty sharp. I wouldn't pay for it personally but...work perk. :p So for instance, one end of the cable will say "MOBIUS L OUT" while the other end says "TIMELINE L IN" and so on. It's certainly overkill but it looks pretty pro if I do say so myself. Ultimately the whole board got done up like that and tried to keep my audio lines as short and clean as I could. The 2314 cable is really nice! I do find that it needs a bit of heat shrink to have a good fit with the SP400s, and for the GLS Pancake jacks it needed a double-layer of shrink to feel secure but it's very nice to work with overall. I had been using 2319 for years but think I am a convert now. FWIW, I ended up with probably 5-6 feet to spare.

I also made it a point to organize my power cabling. As before it had just been kind of all over the place and I suspect wasn't helping any with noise. I don't know if it matters in such low voltage situations but I've always heard before to have data/audio and power cross perpendicular and to minimize parallel runs. So I tried to do that as best as I could and kept everything as separated as possible in a small space. Overall it's much cleaner and if nothing else much nicer to look at.

It's at this point that I did run into a weird issue, perhaps some of you may know some more about it. Most of my board (With the exception of the big-box Strymons) is powered off a Truetone CS7. I have a splitter coming out of one of the outputs that feeds two pedals, presently a small veroboard buffer and my compressor. I'm assuming the issue is with my buffer and something with grounding? Here's the splitter I'm using. One side is ground-lifted. When I first plugged in both pedals, neither would get power. If I plugged them in individually directly to the CS7 (bypassing the splitter), both worked fine. I then found if I flipped the "sides" they were plugged into on the splitter it would work just fine for both, but that if I had my buffer plugged into the splitter and didn't have the other end of the splitter plugged in to anything it wouldn't power on the buffer until I had something plugged into the other side of the splitter, too. That was probably a bit confusing to read, sorry, lol.

ANYWAYS, all that being said I am happy to report that for one reason or another (maybe it is double-checking the cables, cleaning up lengths, cleaner power cabling, I dunno) things are definitely less noisy than before so that's ultimately a win in my book. Now on to the bass board...

The first photo is just my audio/signal cabling. Blue tape is marked to show the location of my CS7, I didn't want too many cables in that area to make sure the lid could shut properly. The second photo is with power cabling added back in.

I guess I should probably get a pic of the top too at some point but for now signal chain is:
Input > Buffer (JHS Little Black Buffer on Vero) > Compressor (General Tso) > TC Electronic Sub N Up > Pro-10 Dual > Informant > Katana (running on the 18v tap with charge pump removed) > VP > Mobius (Mono in, stereo out) > Timeline (stereo in/out) > Bigsky (stereo in/out) > Strymon Iridium (stereo in/out) > Board outputs / headphone out. Also a few aux switchers for each of the Strymon big boxes and there's a tuner coming out from the VP as well.
What, no topside pic? Very nice organization
 
I spent some time over the weekend rewiring my whole board... Previously had a lot of "close, but not quite there" cable lengths running under my board and it was just a bit sloppy. And my power supply cables were just kind of flying all over the place too, so while it looked pretty clean on top the underside was basically just a rat's nest.

Previously my board was pretty much all wired with Mogami 2319 and a mix of Squareplug SP400 and some old GLS pancakes (for the record, I really like these - IMO the best value plug you can get). I ordered ~25 feet of Mogami 2314 to re-do it with. It's smaller and lower capacitance, and doesn't have the conductive shield that needs removed*. I really wanted to replace my remaining GLS pancakes with all SP400s just for consistency/organization, but my board has about 28 plugs total and it's about 50/50...to get another 14 SP400s would've cost an extra 50 bucks and just couldn't justify it right now....

So anyways I disassembled and desoldered all my old plugs and started laying each one out custom. The top of my board can be removed which made it a bit easier. I used a TON of zip tie mounts and zip ties and tried to keep things organized pretty tight. Solder and heat shrink one end of the plug, route where you want the wire to go, then cut to length and do the other end. Zip tie it all down nice and tight. And just to keep things ultra-organized, I put a label on the end of every cable with where it's meant to go. I used a Panduit labeler that's designed for label-wraps on ethernet/patch panel/switch wiring which worked really nicely. The labels are honestly stupid expensive (as is the case with many Panduit products, lol) - it's like $70 bucks for a cartridge that prints maybe 100 labels - but admittedly are quite high quality and look pretty sharp. I wouldn't pay for it personally but...work perk. :p So for instance, one end of the cable will say "MOBIUS L OUT" while the other end says "TIMELINE L IN" and so on. It's certainly overkill but it looks pretty pro if I do say so myself. Ultimately the whole board got done up like that and tried to keep my audio lines as short and clean as I could. The 2314 cable is really nice! I do find that it needs a bit of heat shrink to have a good fit with the SP400s, and for the GLS Pancake jacks it needed a double-layer of shrink to feel secure but it's very nice to work with overall. I had been using 2319 for years but think I am a convert now. FWIW, I ended up with probably 5-6 feet to spare.

I also made it a point to organize my power cabling. As before it had just been kind of all over the place and I suspect wasn't helping any with noise. I don't know if it matters in such low voltage situations but I've always heard before to have data/audio and power cross perpendicular and to minimize parallel runs. So I tried to do that as best as I could and kept everything as separated as possible in a small space. Overall it's much cleaner and if nothing else much nicer to look at.

It's at this point that I did run into a weird issue, perhaps some of you may know some more about it. Most of my board (With the exception of the big-box Strymons) is powered off a Truetone CS7. I have a splitter coming out of one of the outputs that feeds two pedals, presently a small veroboard buffer and my compressor. I'm assuming the issue is with my buffer and something with grounding? Here's the splitter I'm using. One side is ground-lifted. When I first plugged in both pedals, neither would get power. If I plugged them in individually directly to the CS7 (bypassing the splitter), both worked fine. I then found if I flipped the "sides" they were plugged into on the splitter it would work just fine for both, but that if I had my buffer plugged into the splitter and didn't have the other end of the splitter plugged in to anything it wouldn't power on the buffer until I had something plugged into the other side of the splitter, too. That was probably a bit confusing to read, sorry, lol.

ANYWAYS, all that being said I am happy to report that for one reason or another (maybe it is double-checking the cables, cleaning up lengths, cleaner power cabling, I dunno) things are definitely less noisy than before so that's ultimately a win in my book. Now on to the bass board...

The first photo is just my audio/signal cabling. Blue tape is marked to show the location of my CS7, I didn't want too many cables in that area to make sure the lid could shut properly. The second photo is with power cabling added back in.

I guess I should probably get a pic of the top too at some point but for now signal chain is:
Input > Buffer (JHS Little Black Buffer on Vero) > Compressor (General Tso) > TC Electronic Sub N Up > Pro-10 Dual > Informant > Katana (running on the 18v tap with charge pump removed) > VP > Mobius (Mono in, stereo out) > Timeline (stereo in/out) > Bigsky (stereo in/out) > Strymon Iridium (stereo in/out) > Board outputs / headphone out. Also a few aux switchers for each of the Strymon big boxes and there's a tuner coming out from the VP as well.
I admire your commitment to a specific configuration. Nice routing.
 
Digging this back up. Finally completed my all-DIY board:
PXL_20250221_140920487.jpg
Metallic candy blue: Tactical fuzz
Yellow: General Tso compressor
Metallic candy purple: Fordoble boost + drive
Viola pink: Electric Canary Iridescent delay
Pastel violet: Caesar chorus
Pastel light green: Trembling Loon tremolo

All on a Nano Plus with an Ernie Ball Volt underneath. I'm pretty happy with everything on there (for now...)
 
Digging this back up. Finally completed my all-DIY board:
View attachment 91072
Metallic candy blue: Tactical fuzz
Yellow: General Tso compressor
Metallic candy purple: Fordoble boost + drive
Viola pink: Electric Canary Iridescent delay
Pastel violet: Caesar chorus
Pastel light green: Trembling Loon tremolo

All on a Nano Plus with an Ernie Ball Volt underneath. I'm pretty happy with everything on there (for now...)
I like the choice of knob colors
 
As some may have seen, I just love laying out a new board setup every time I get together to jam with my friends.

I’ve been on a small board kick. I like the limitation of having to pick and choose.

POG -> Ringer -> Mercurial Boost -> two amps

I did a test and the Mercurial seems to have no issues pushing both amp inputs with a passive split. I’m getting such killer overdrive with a clean boost!

Also, a switch to control the spring reverb in both amps.

IMG_2073.jpeg
 
IMG_20250227_154833274.jpg

Started my DIY electronics journey a handful of years ago teaching myself to solder patch cables together. The board itself is a Mono joint, but in addition to the pedals and power supply I also added a dedicated IEC jack with on/off switch, in and stereo out pass through tubes from BTPA, a lil plate with an spare 9v port + expression jack that goes to my H90.

The entire thing is wired for stereo and almost half the pedals have MIDI control as well. The board is half the size of what I hauled around for years and dramatically more flexible!

All pedals are in their own loops in the RJM Mastermind PBC except the Tricerachorus:
Warden > Golden Boy > Zuul Mini (on underside) > Chalumeau > Leprechaun > H90 (with Tricerachorus in its own loop, usually used before the combo of H90 effects).
 
Last edited:
These are my boards, all DIY pedals. I’m about to remove some of the pedals on the main board to make room for stuff I have built recently along with some builds I plan to complete soon.

This is my “main board”, mainly compressors, modulation and delay with an EQ and a preamp at the end. Run off of a GigRig loop switcher. The wah is a Tearjerker housed in an old Mission expression pedal shell.

IMG_2339.jpeg

And this is my sideboard devoted to boosters, drives, and fuzz, with a lone envelop filter squashed there in the middle and a noise gate off to the left. This feeds into loop four of the Gigrig on the main board.. The 7 loop switcher for this side board is self-built (and it looks it).

IMG_2342.jpeg

Mike
 
Back
Top