How do you feel about 1590A builds?

How do you feel about 1590A builds?

  • Yay! I love 1590A builds!

    Votes: 18 41.9%
  • Whatevs...I'll just put it in a larger enclosure.

    Votes: 17 39.5%
  • Ugh. I hate 3PDT mounted PCBs and off-board potentiometers!

    Votes: 7 16.3%
  • I require more features—give me more knobs!

    Votes: 10 23.3%

  • Total voters
    43
Mostly, I just hate the naming conventions of Hammond-style enclosures. They convey no apparent objective information about the size or shape of a box, and they don’t even follow any internal logic that I can discern.

I have to look at this almost every time:

IMG_0126.jpeg

Re: the 1590A in particular? I’ve used them for a standalone buffer and a standalone voltage sag. They’re fine for little utilities, but I wouldn’t want to cram a full-on effect into one.
 
I built a bunch of Schutone stuff quite some time ago. Great stuff and cramming it in a small chassis was always challenging. Not at all opposed.
 
I do like this boneyard blues driver in a 1590A

 
 
1590B is perfect, make it fit. 125B is too tall and long.
I agree - I looked at 1590A and by the time you add jack plugs it's as wide as a 1590B. - The M45 is better as top jacks means I can get 3 in the space of 2 1590B with top jacks .... but it's such a pain it's not worth it!
 
Mostly, I just hate the naming conventions of Hammond-style enclosures. They convey no apparent objective information about the size or shape of a box, and they don’t even follow any internal logic that I can discern.

I have to look at this almost every time:

View attachment 101110

Re: the 1590A in particular? I’ve used them for a standalone buffer and a standalone voltage sag. They’re fine for little utilities, but I wouldn’t want to cram a full-on effect into one.
I've never seen 1590G or 1590G2.
Are these usable for pedals?
 
Every time I've built in a 1590B I've regretted it. I just can't bring myself to do it again.
When I first came back to building I didn't like 1590B at all, it all felt cramped like the slightest drilling error would screw the build. everything was N1 or bust. Then I got really particular and instead of making everyone else change their designs around my preferences, I'd do my own configuration.

Making my own boards, having tighter control over filling with templates, standardizing IO, making everything to some kind of """standard""" for myself, the stuff I've wanted to build fits nicely in B without much issue.

I was hoping that the last batch of PCBs would have been here, but womp.

Some stuff is too complex and needs something bigger like an N1 or BB, but that's fine. If I can work it into a B I'll try it.
 
tempImage34TT1r.jpg



Here's my Filigree Siberian Hamster, way back when, rockin' before boxin'; one of my better attempts at drilling.
Jcpst postin' Hayunart's BluesDriver build above prompted this post, as both are 3-knob w/ 2-sw with the same layout.

The build is nearly 5 years old, but I've found some more pics — is it too late to file a build report?
I've posted pics of the finished build before, but never really filed a proper build-report.
Any interest in my doing that, or is it considered gauche to do so?


I'll definitely put up a report for my current 1590A-build, but there's much cursing to be done before I get to that stage.

Building 1590A is 88% swearing, and just getting it done takes up the rest.
 
@jessenator, I guess I'm in a similar place with 125B (or 1590N1). I've standardized my designs around that enclosure because it's big enough for almost all my designs. There's plenty of space, even for more complex circuits, and it's not so big that I hate playing "pedal board Tetris" once they're built.

Both 1590B and 125B are at the lower limit of the human interface: 1590A is fun, but my foot limits how closely I can place them together. 125B is marginally larger than a 1590B, but it's much more forgiving to build in and the extra space at the back means I don't have to be as particular about jacks when plugging in.

As I said in a previous post, if I were building professionally, or in bulk, the calculus would be different, but I'm making for me and the broader pedal building public. I also think this thread may not be representative of pedal builders as a whole...that may need to be a different thread.

I hope we can still be friends, even though we'll never build in the same size enclosures. 😋
 
I used to hate 125b, but I'm coming around to it. But for me the enclosure size is dictated by the control layout. The knobs are the main interface of the pedal so I want them to be big and front and center, and if they need more room I'll use a bigger enclosure. So I really don't use 125b as there's only one knob layout I like with it.
 
I've seen some examples of these enclosures with EMI shielding, it looks like copper plating internally, possibly a laminate of metals (I highly suspect it's not mu-metal). Any thoughts on these or just using the standard positive guard +9V on the outside.

The other point with the larger pedal enclosures is the ability to get some additional noise filtering in the power side of things. I use a switching isolated power supply (I've looked internally at the circuit - it's fully isolated) but some pedals really kick out digital noise along the power wiring which then couples into the more sensitive pedal power.
 
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