Quality of guitarpcbmania pcbs?

[Fuzz Wizard]

Hello again, today I spent some of my bonus on 5 cool new pcbs from guitarpcbmania, specifically ones that I couldn’t find a replacement for anywhere else. I then stupidly proceeded to order all the parts I needed for them. After all this is said and done, I come on here to see people saying to stay the hell away from those pcbs.
What are peoples experiences with these builds?Did I seriously just waste 250 dollars on shit that won’t work? I work a 8-5 job and don’t have time and effort to waste.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Hello again, today I spent some of my bonus on 5 cool new pcbs from guitarpcbmania, specifically ones that I couldn’t find a replacement for anywhere else. I then stupidly proceeded to order all the parts I needed for them. After all this is said and done, I come on here to see people saying to stay the hell away from those pcbs.
What are peoples experiences with these builds?Did I seriously just waste 250 dollars on shit that won’t work? I work a 8-5 job and don’t have time and effort to waste.

They definitely vary. There are some PCBs that work, some that need extensive offboard hacks in order to work correctly, and some are irreparably bad. Which boards did you order? Hopefully someone can verify from their own experience that they’re all ones that work okay

 

[Fuzz Wizard]

They definitely vary. There are some PCBs that work, some that need extensive offboard hacks in order to work correctly, and some are irreparably bad. Which boards did you order? Hopefully someone can verify from their own experience that they’re all ones that work okay

I ordered the Pharaoh clone, Modded black hole clone, Quantum mystic clone, and most importantly the GT120MV clone. I saw that good ol dan posted a video built report of the Pharaoh and it sounded good.

 

[giovanni]

Did you see this thread?

Thread 'I built a bunch of PCBGM pedals so you don’t have to'
https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/i-built-a-bunch-of-pcbgm-pedals-so-you-don’t-have-to.14189/

 

[Dan M]

My Mystic board worked:

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/pcbguitarmania-black-mystic.9712/

I haven’t built their Pharaoh, but double check the build documents for the cap values. A lot of the internet has wrong info. Check my post in this thread regarding 47n, 470n, and 470p

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/big-muff-47-rams-head.11618/post-118436

 

[steviejr92]

The Rata and Eagle Claw i just built just so happens to work very well. I put them together with an order switch and i have no problems at all.

 

[mcluff]

Oops, posted this in @giovanni 's thread but meant to put it here:

Here's the status of all of my PCBGM attempts. It's entirely possible that some of these don't work because I screwed up somehow. (FWIW I have a much higher success rate with PedalPCB and other PCB makers.) But I've heard that others have had trouble with Death by Reverb & Kheiron Klon especially.

[UPDATED 1/21: King Centaur now works. Guitarpcbmania reported mistaken resistor values in the build docs]

DIDN'T WORK
Corruption Device
Death by Reverb
Kheiron Klon
Paolo Gilberto

CURRENTLY TROUBLESHOOTING
King Centaur

EITHER IT DOESN'T WORK AS INTENDED OR I DON'T LIKE IT
Corpulent Bee
Dead Robot
Germanium Percolator
Podcaster

WORKS
Death by Fuzz
Fuzz Maker II
King Centaur
Knight of Tone
LoveCheese
Mr Tea
Shotgun
Uber Bolt

 

[joelorigo]

I had a long journey trying to combine their Soldado pre amp and one of their EQ boards. It didn’t work, and after help from this forum, the PCBGM Facebook group and the DIY stompboxes forum, it was determined it couldn’t be done. The Soldado did work on it’s own after I tried it without the EQ board, and it did sound good. I then combined it with the Tone TwEQ from GuitarPCB.

 

[MichaelW]

I'll add a couple to this list thanks to @DGWVI who gifted me a bunch of GPCBM boards.

Eagle Claw (EQD Talons) - Works great and the build doc is correct
Submarine Device (EQD Depths) - Works great and the build doc is correct
Horn Device (EQD Hoof) - Works great, but it's pretty tight fit to get the Ge transistors in place and they are not marked as to pinout. I had to examine traces and refer to the schematic to figure out the pinout.

Boards I've purchased directly.
Knight of Tone SMD version - Works but doesn't sound quite as good as the Paragon or AionFX Theseus. Documentation has a bunch of errors in it. (This version has most of the components pre-populated as SMD but you choose clippers, and opamp. (If anyone wants to try this board, I have an extra. DM me and I'll pop it in the mail to you.)

Pluma (EDQ Plumes) - I never built this board because I built the PPCB version but the docs and schematic check out. I gifted it to another forum member.

 

[Feral Feline]

I had a long journey trying to combine their Soldado pre amp and one of their EQ boards. It didn’t work, and after help from this forum, the PCBGM Facebook group and the DIY stompboxes forum, it was determined it couldn’t be done. The Soldado did work on it’s own after I tried it without the EQ board, and it did sound good. I then combined it with the Tone TwEQ from GuitarPCB.

Thanks for posting. I've got the Soldado and all those EQ boards. I've also got a few TwEQs, but which of the PCBGM EQ boards were you trying to work with on your Soldado?

 

[joelorigo]

It was the Active EQ.
Here's the first place I turned to for help, this awesome forum:

Soldado / Active EQ from PCB Guitar Mania

I finished the Soldado & Active EQ combo from PCB Guitar Mania. The Treble pot acts more like a volume control with a really loud spot in the rotation. The Level control gets louder then quieter then louder again as it is rotated clockwise. In the attached video I have the Presence & Volume...

forum.pedalpcb.com

Here's the next place I went to:

PCB Guitar Mania Active EQ Problem

PCB Guitar Mania Active EQ Problem

www.diystompboxes.com

Here's the finished pedal:

Soldado and Tone TwEQ

This is a Soldado preamp from PCB Guitar Mania combined with a Tone TwEQ from Guitar PCB. It was the longest project I've had to date with many ups and downs. By the end I was just happy to get something that was working. Does sound cool though.

forum.pedalpcb.com

Maybe this will help. Good luck!

 

[Fuzz Wizard]

UPDATE
I finally got my pcbs in the mail! However, I didn’t not get any of the free breakout boards promised, nor did I recive the pack of 5 that I ordered separately. There is no information on their website on how to wire the footswitch without these boards, so the pcbs I did order are totally useless. DO NOT BUY FROM THESE PEOPLE.

 

[spi]

so the pcbs I did order are totally useless

It's a shame that you didn't get the parts you ordered, and no excuse...

but it doesn't make the pcbs useless--wiring switches is pretty universal across all the PCBs, and can be figured out.

 

[Fuzz Wizard]

It's a shame that you didn't get the parts you ordered, and no excuse...

but it doesn't make the pcbs useless--wiring switches is pretty universal across all the PCBs, and can be figured out.

That’s great! They just don’t have any information on their website on how to do so with their boards, but I will try and find out how to wire it. I’ve been spoiled by PPCB.

 

[spi]

That’s great! They just don’t have any information on their website on how to do so with their boards, but I will try and find out how to wire it. I’ve been spoiled by PPCB.

There's basically 4 wires from the board to the switch, plus 2 wires from the jacks to the switch.

If you look at any PPCB build doc, it shows how. You just need to decipher where those 4 points are on the GPM PCBs you have. Hopefully they are labeled somewhat similarly.

 

[eh là bas ma]

Mesa DR. (dual rectifier) and Pirate Shift are working too. Pirate Shift is really interesting, beautiful sounds.
The Mesa rectifier ampsim sounds good too. I only tried it at home on a blues junior 3, it sounds good with an overdrive or a boost before it, in my experience.

As a diy builder, the pcb was good, nothing to report. As usual, you can't solder and desolder components too much times or the board get damaged.

I have to admit i am a bit suspicious too. Cosmos delay, for exemple, I'd like to build it, but there are many reports about it, saying the pcb is wrong.

 

[mnemonic]

I bought a couple PCB’s from them about a year ago, the orange jfet preamp, the life pedal clone, and the sunn beta preamp.

The orange preamp went off without a hitch, only issue being the 12 position rotary switch only used 6 of the positions so half of them were ‘no sound’. I later found out the washer with a notch that came with the switch is supposed to be used to limit rotation to however many clicks are needed.

The life pedal had issues on the pcb such as ‘input not connected to anything’, but the build doc said where to attach jumper wires to make it work. Also the octave blend pot was wired backwards and the boost footswitch is on the opposite side of the pedal to the boost knob. The build docs also had a list of pcb errors and how to fix them for various other versions of the pcb.

I haven’t got around to building the sunn beta pedal as I forgot I had the pcb until now. I bet I still have most of the parts too.

Overall the physical pcb quality is just fine, layout and design however are touch and go. Build docs are riddled with formatting errors and typos, I’m guessing whoever designs the pcb’s is a “fuck it, we’ll do it live” kinda guy.

Also at least at the time of ordering, there was no way to contact them. The contact form on the website didn’t work and replying to the order confirmation email didn’t work. Couldn’t find any other contact means.

If you don’t mind troubleshooting other people’s errors they’re worth a shot but I always felt a bit negative going into the build, whereas a PPCB build I always felt positive and if it didn’t work it would most likely be something I did.

 

[Mcknib]

That’s great! They just don’t have any information on their website on how to do so with their boards, but I will try and find out how to wire it. I’ve been spoiled by PPCB.

I use this for any PCB I'm not a big fan of 3PDT Pcbs so rarely use them (not that there's anything wrong with them)

It's basically the same as the ppcb method and as @spi says pretty universal I find it easier to remember INs left pole, OUTs right pole, LED middle pole



As for guitarpcbmania I can't really comment I've built around 4 of their pcbs without problem, can't remember which ones though!

 

[Guardians of the analog]

I've built two boards without issue in the past, and I decided to take a gamble and build a third because they are the only option

 

[jjjimi84]

i did the Pharoah clone and you just have to watch the caps i believe. There is also something with the diode selection that was wonky. I have 3 other boards from them that I don't plan on finishing. That level of inconsistency and time suck for people to have to troubleshoot is a no go outta me dog.

Wheres my Frank Reynolds gif?