$400 spent at Tayda later and I think I am ready to build my first pedal

Fizz

Fizz

Well-known member
This stuff adds up quick... $400 on three separate orders. I left some stuff off the first order I needed and placed a second order. Then with Black Friday sales I bought a few PCBs and needed more parts to complete them. I'm not sure I got everything I needed because I got tired of going through each PCB build list and checking to see if I had all the parts but I know I have enough to do half of them. It is a lot of work keeping up with everything you need and ordering it. It started out at around $30 and ended up at $160 on this last order which was my largest one.

The good thing is I should only have to buy parts per build in the future and it will be way less money up front but hopefully I am stocked up for a while. Tayda's shipping is not bad either so I didn't really have to purchase so many of one thing but I should have enough of everything I need to build 12 pedals now.

I also have another $150-$200 in parts from various PCB builders, Small Bear and Amazon so about $600 to start which is about three store bought pedals on average. Not bad IMO.

I probably should have started with a couple of pedals but I wanted to breadboard everything I was interested in first just to make sure I would like it enough to justify buying the PCB and building it. Then BF came with some great deals on PCBs.

I'm excited to receive my latest Tayda order and get started. It shipped yesterday.
 
Lots of good ideas here I wish I would have done when I jumped into this. Stocking up on parts is a great idea. Shipping $$ sucks and is one of the few areas you can save on just by ordering more at the same time.

The breadboard idea is key. Not only do you get to sample a circuit you really start to understand how things work better and can try out different values to make each circuit perfect for your rig. I have a pile of pedals I probably would have never built if only I BreadBoarded them first. Big savings on hardware there.

Excited to see your future posts dude. Good luck.
 
Dan0h said:
Lots of good ideas here I wish I would have done when I jumped into this. Stocking up on parts is a great idea. Shipping $$ sucks and is one of the few areas you can save on just by ordering more at the same time.

The breadboard idea is key. Not only do you get to sample a circuit you really start to understand how things work better and can try out different values to make each circuit perfect for your rig. I have a pile of pedals I probably would have never built if only I BreadBoarded them first. Big savings on hardware there.

Excited to see your future posts dude. Good luck.
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Thanks.. looking forward to getting some of these done.

Harry Klippton said:
I don't think I could spend $400 at tayda if I tried
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Is that because you are well stocked or just don't keep much on hand.. or another reason?
 
Fizz said:
I don't think I will have to put in much more in the future.
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That’s what you think….I said the same thing now im thousands of dollars deep in components, hardware, etc. I have an extra monthly bill of 100 to 300 bucks now 😆
 
You must have ended up with an arsenal! That's awesome and best of luck- you'll do great.

Along the lines of what @Guardians of the analog mentioned, my last Tayda order was for about 5 pedals not including enclosures and pots, and I was at $45 plus 10 in shipping. The shipping adds up, so ordering in bulk is smart if you don't want to get nickel and dimed by it.
 
homebrewtj said:
You must have ended up with an arsenal! That's awesome and best of luck- you'll do great.

Along the lines of what @Guardians of the analog mentioned, my last Tayda order was for about 5 pedals not including enclosures and pots, and I was at $45 plus 10 in shipping. The shipping adds up, so ordering in bulk is smart if you don't want to get nickel and dimed by it.
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I was figuring it probably costs about $25 per pedal for most builds I was looking at and your statement seems to verify that since I get the $6 enclosures and also my pots at Tayda. Another $10 for a PCB. For my big orders, the shipping was only $7. Wonder why yours is higher? I'm in Florida.
 
Fizz said:
I was figuring it probably costs about $25 per pedal for most builds I was looking at and your statement seems to verify that since I get the $6 enclosures and also my pots at Tayda. Another $10 for a PCB. For my big orders, the shipping was only $7. Wonder why yours is higher? I'm in Florida.
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Looks like the more you buy, the shipping goes down considerably. I just put $300 in the cart and it only costs $3 for express shipping. I'll have to keep that in mind next time!!
 
I keep a very good amount of components on hand so when I get a board there isn't much I have to buy for that project. With that in mind, I generally plan with a minimum of 3 builds, and even with the specific needs for those that I may not have on hand and enclosures I generally always spend no less than 50-60 per order because I don't like to cheap out on components. 25 a pedal is the low end of the spectrum. 6 dollars for a 125b, 12 if you have a UV print, average of 12 dollars a board (more for a complex circuit), 3 dollars a footswitch, 2-4 dollars for knobs(going cheap), a buck for a toggle, ICs keep going up in price (BBD 😭) couple bucks for pots and hardware plus a couple bucks in resistors/caps/transistors (GE 😭). Let us not forget the money we spend in tools💸💸💸. It's fun as hell but as everyone else is saying welcome to the fun world of setting money on fire. Accurate depiction of building pedals:
JoyousFreshCats-max-1mb.gif
 
Guardians of the analog said:
I keep a very good amount of components on hand so when I get a board there isn't much I have to buy for that project. With that in mind, I generally plan with a minimum of 3 builds, and even with the specific needs for those that I may not have on hand and enclosures I generally always spend no less than 50-60 per order because I don't like to cheap out on components. 25 a pedal is the low end of the spectrum. 6 dollars for a 125b, 12 if you have a UV print, average of 12 dollars a board (more for a complex circuit), 3 dollars a footswitch, 2-4 dollars for knobs(going cheap), a buck for a toggle, ICs keep going up in price (BBD 😭) couple bucks for pots and hardware plus a couple bucks in resistors/caps/transistors (GE 😭). Let us not forget the money we spend in tools💸💸💸. It's fun as hell but as everyone else is saying welcome to the fun world of setting money on fire. Accurate depiction of building pedals:
JoyousFreshCats-max-1mb.gif
Click to expand...
Great info! And that reminds me.. I still haven't purchased any knobs :eek: I was waiting to see what they look like when complete to help me pick the perfect one.. especially since they will still work without them. I didn't realize they were so expensive. Also, I'm sure when I get more experience I'll experiment with better quality parts so I am shocked to see your prices on some of the higher quality parts. I did notice when looking at Tayda vs Mouser that Tayda seemed to cost half the price.

My prediction of $25 per pedal is probably $5-$10 too short once I actually complete one but I should have everything I need to build 12 minus the knobs. 12*30 is 360 so I am not far off on what I have spent plus I will have plenty extra parts.
 
Fizz said:
Great info! And that reminds me.. I still haven't purchased any knobs :eek: I was waiting to see what they look like when complete to help me pick the perfect one.. especially since they will still work without them. I didn't realize they were so expensive. Also, I'm sure when I get more experience I'll experiment with better quality parts so I am shocked to see your prices on some of the higher quality parts. I did notice when looking at Tayda vs Mouser that Tayda seemed to cost half the price.

My prediction of $25 per pedal is probably $5-$10 too short once I actually complete one but I should have everything I need to build 12 minus the knobs. 12*30 is 360 so I am not far off on what I have spent plus I will have plenty extra parts.
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I'm glad you're so optimistic 😉 xi88smny0u971.png
 
I get where you're coming from @Fizz . My pedal building career is only about 2 years old and I did not front load the expenses. Over time I've tacked on extra components for each order I do. My Tayda orders were probably $50-60 each month like clockwork. Now they're more in the $20-30 range. So yea, I've spent probably as much as you have but spread out over time. Surprisingly, Amazon came in pretty clutch with a box of regular LEDs, trimmers, breadboard jumper wires, and a box of decently priced enclosures.
 
When It comes to Tayda orders, i got tired of consistently having too much of one thing and coming up short on another. So for this year, I did my annual thing where i buy my pcbs from pedalpcb on Black Friday, But then charted in excel what i already have And what exactly i would need for the rest of the year. Its the Enclosures/Jacks/Footswitches that really add up
 
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