Fingolfen
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I'd gotten a request for a Klon + Bluesbreaker pedal... and wondered why the heck I hadn't already done something along those lines. I even had a spiffy new Bluesbreaker board I'd laid out and was in the middle of validating. So... this is what transpired, and in my defense I was left unsupervised!
This is an unusual case as it's the first time I've released a combination pedal using a board I laid out in-house before actually releasing the standalone version of the pedal. I'm still working on the updated enclosure for this board, but it has a lot of fun options. The board itself is a modified version of the board that the Tone Geek used for his tutorial on how to use EasyEDA for layout and PCB manufacturing. I kept his idea of having separate toggle switches for the V1/V2 tone resistors and capacitors, but took it a step further by adding a clipping switch which lets you move from stock soft clipping to hard clipping. Technically you could also set it up for no clipping, but I went with the on / on rather than the on / off / on switch for this build.
For the Bluesbreaker side of the build, I used all new production components. The resistors are all metal film. The nF rated capacitors are all metal film, but the pF capacitors are all siver mica. I'm using Nichicon electrolytic capacitors. The diodes are all new production, and the IC is socketed. As always on my own boards, I threw in a few Easter eggs on both sides of the PCB.
For the Klon side, I decided to go ahead and use the Tone Geek Mini-Taur board. I've always had really great results with this board, and the documentation includes a BOM and placement for both the early and late versions of the Klon Centaur. I decided to go with the "early" version which includes four bipolar electrolytic capacitors rather than all polarized capacitors. The mix of carbon film and metal film resistors is the standard layout referenced by both the Tone Geek and Ceriatone for their builds. All of the pF and nF capacitors are metal film. The diodes are 1N34A with matched voltage drop.
For this version of the build, I'm using a two audio jack layout and a reverse order switch from PedalPCB. To ensure the front of the build looked consistent, I went ahead and used matched 3PDT stomp switches for both the Bluesbreaker and Klon sides. The Bluesbreaker side is connected via my standard 3PDT daughter board which has a connection point for the LED onboard. The switch and LED for the Klon had to be handwired though. I'm using a semi-star ground to the input jack for both main boards and the DC jack, though the output jack is grounded to the Bluesbreaker board. As always, the jack connections are insulated with heat shrink tubing.
The dinosaur art once again comes courtesy of my Ukrainian friend Kate, who is an amazing digital artist!
I have another version of this combo pedal coming in a four jack configuration (rather than using the order switch). I initially thought I'd prefer the four jack version, but after playing around with this one, I'm not entirely sure. I may play around with it a bit more to see if I can combine the four jack version with a reverse switch.
If I ever need to make these in any volume, I'll likely come up with some sort of daughter board that lets me use ribbon cable to wire up the stomp switch on the Tone Geek board. Of course, I may do that anyway as I do really like that board, but find hand-wiring stomp switches to be a real pain in the butt. Alternately I could use a different board that would fit in the 125B form factor, but the Mini-Taur PCB just goes together really well.
Original blog entry (more preamble and some dino facts): https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-new-combo-pedal-brachyceratops.html
This is an unusual case as it's the first time I've released a combination pedal using a board I laid out in-house before actually releasing the standalone version of the pedal. I'm still working on the updated enclosure for this board, but it has a lot of fun options. The board itself is a modified version of the board that the Tone Geek used for his tutorial on how to use EasyEDA for layout and PCB manufacturing. I kept his idea of having separate toggle switches for the V1/V2 tone resistors and capacitors, but took it a step further by adding a clipping switch which lets you move from stock soft clipping to hard clipping. Technically you could also set it up for no clipping, but I went with the on / on rather than the on / off / on switch for this build.
For the Bluesbreaker side of the build, I used all new production components. The resistors are all metal film. The nF rated capacitors are all metal film, but the pF capacitors are all siver mica. I'm using Nichicon electrolytic capacitors. The diodes are all new production, and the IC is socketed. As always on my own boards, I threw in a few Easter eggs on both sides of the PCB.
For the Klon side, I decided to go ahead and use the Tone Geek Mini-Taur board. I've always had really great results with this board, and the documentation includes a BOM and placement for both the early and late versions of the Klon Centaur. I decided to go with the "early" version which includes four bipolar electrolytic capacitors rather than all polarized capacitors. The mix of carbon film and metal film resistors is the standard layout referenced by both the Tone Geek and Ceriatone for their builds. All of the pF and nF capacitors are metal film. The diodes are 1N34A with matched voltage drop.
For this version of the build, I'm using a two audio jack layout and a reverse order switch from PedalPCB. To ensure the front of the build looked consistent, I went ahead and used matched 3PDT stomp switches for both the Bluesbreaker and Klon sides. The Bluesbreaker side is connected via my standard 3PDT daughter board which has a connection point for the LED onboard. The switch and LED for the Klon had to be handwired though. I'm using a semi-star ground to the input jack for both main boards and the DC jack, though the output jack is grounded to the Bluesbreaker board. As always, the jack connections are insulated with heat shrink tubing.
The dinosaur art once again comes courtesy of my Ukrainian friend Kate, who is an amazing digital artist!
I have another version of this combo pedal coming in a four jack configuration (rather than using the order switch). I initially thought I'd prefer the four jack version, but after playing around with this one, I'm not entirely sure. I may play around with it a bit more to see if I can combine the four jack version with a reverse switch.
If I ever need to make these in any volume, I'll likely come up with some sort of daughter board that lets me use ribbon cable to wire up the stomp switch on the Tone Geek board. Of course, I may do that anyway as I do really like that board, but find hand-wiring stomp switches to be a real pain in the butt. Alternately I could use a different board that would fit in the 125B form factor, but the Mini-Taur PCB just goes together really well.
Original blog entry (more preamble and some dino facts): https://steggostudios.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-new-combo-pedal-brachyceratops.html
