Pandora's Box (Bixonic Expandora)

MichaelW

Well-known member
Build Rating
5.00 star(s)
Working through my backlog of drilled & painted enclosures that I just haven't had time to build in the last couple of weeks with my work load.
(That and all the NGD related stuff.... :p)

Another pedal I had never heard of.

I got in on a group buy of some NOS metal can LM308's with @K Pedals. Never one to back away from a good deal even if I don't know what it's for hahaha. Thanks for including me John! As I recall I got one of each Motorola and National Semi.

When I asked what these could be used for the Expandora got recommended by @Betty Won't. So of course I had to build it!
I've never regretted building anything that Betty recommends.

I dug around a little on the history of this pedal and it sounded pretty interesting for a high gain Rat-ish distortion.
Smooth build, no issues. I didn't snip the legs of the 308's just to make sure I had the orientation correct first, but turns out I didn't need to, there's just enough clearance for the back lid to go on without touching the cans. (Btw, the tab indicates pin #8, not #1 on these...many thanks to @benny_profane ....I'm glad I asked!)

Sounds a lot like the demo's I've heard. There's definitely the Rat thing going on in the Distortion setting but with the dual toggles it also has what's called a "Crunch" setting as well as an "Overdrive setting" that have some more usable sounds for my tastes. Then there's a setting called "Forbidden" that pushes it into fuzz territory with a super saturated gated kind of distortion. It's cool even though I'm not sure how I would use the sound...(yet)..:)

Really cool and surprisingly flexible pedal, although I find that there's not a lot of nuance in the Gain or Level controls. It's kind of "on or off". But then I wouldn't say this is a nuanced pedal. It's pretty "in-your-face". I also agree with some of the comments I've read on the original iteration of this pedal that it can sound a little thin. But I can compensate for that with a few amp setting tweaks or boosting with something like the Mercurial or Celsius.

This another rattle can enclosure and boy, I didn't notice all the flaws in the paint job until I looked at the picture below. I've got about a 1/2 dozen or so raw enclosures left of different sizes and I think once I get through these, it will conclude my "home enclosure painting" experimentation. My driveway just isn't really conducive to getting a decent paint job without a bug or two winding being part of my pedal....😛.
It just doesn't look as good or is as durable as powder coating and it certainly doesn't save any money, enclosures being fairly inexpensive from Tayda. I'll be going back to powder coated enclosures.

It also answered the real question I was asking, whether or not I can pull off doing a rattle can nitro paint job on a guitar body. I think that without setting up a ventilated spray booth it's going to be tough.

Second thing I noticed AFTER taking the pictures, I failed to go back and clean off all the flux. So my apologies to those that are offended by flux...:ROFLMAO:.
I was excited to fire it up I guess!
I may go back and address both the enclosure paint job as well as clean the board a bit better. Or....not.....:)

IMG_4111.JPG

IMG_4110.JPG
 
I quite like the texture of the box coming through the paint.

Don't forget there is an easy mod you can do to add a bass pot. I would highly recommend it - really makes the pedal more useful IMO. You can easily put the extra knob between the switches. I'm sure you would do an impeccable job. :cool: It wouldn't take long to add to this circuit - and it works on the Rat too. The white wire shown goes to the positive side of C9. You can add it on the underside of the board.

Expandora bass pot.png
 
I quite like the texture of the box coming through the paint.

Don't forget there is an easy mod you can do to add a bass pot. I would highly recommend it - really makes the pedal more useful IMO. You can easily put the extra knob between the switches. I'm sure you would do an impeccable job. :cool: It wouldn't take long to add to this circuit - and it works on the Rat too. The white wire shown goes to the positive side of C9. You can add it on the underside of the board.

View attachment 38475
I don't know how to do Vero, but would one of @Robert 's TonePad thingy's work?
 
Last edited:
I dunno. In this case the Vero is particularly easy because you don't even need to cut any traces. All you need is a 4x4 piece (tiny-weeny!) of Vero. And really you probably don't even need that. Once the pot is installed you can solder a 47µF cap (or a 100µF if you want even more bass) to pin 3 of the C5K pot, pin 2 goes to ground. The positive lead of the cap goes to a 22K resistor which connects to the little blob of solder at the positive terminal of C9.
 
You don't even need Vero, I always just lay the cap and resistor on the back of the board.
If I get a chance tonight, I'll whip one up to demonstrate.

This mod is awesome, though. Especially in this version of the Rat circuit
 
Heres how I do it

EDIT- the leads are backward in these pics :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 

Attachments

  • a921689e-3225-42b3-aef4-ce850e69278dphoto.jpeg
    a921689e-3225-42b3-aef4-ce850e69278dphoto.jpeg
    253.4 KB · Views: 28
  • 65a0d104-86a6-4628-883e-b4c29cd25c26photo.jpeg
    65a0d104-86a6-4628-883e-b4c29cd25c26photo.jpeg
    243.7 KB · Views: 30
  • e2ebd214-c43b-411b-af3f-f3b6ed6c04e4photo.jpeg
    e2ebd214-c43b-411b-af3f-f3b6ed6c04e4photo.jpeg
    248.8 KB · Views: 31
  • 05bf61e6-cfb5-4416-bcdb-078b8ecc45b0photo.jpeg
    05bf61e6-cfb5-4416-bcdb-078b8ecc45b0photo.jpeg
    207.1 KB · Views: 27
  • 01677580-1538-416c-9202-9fef29baa56cphoto.jpeg
    01677580-1538-416c-9202-9fef29baa56cphoto.jpeg
    198.9 KB · Views: 29
Last edited:
Back
Top