Bring out yer Diptrace

Big Monk said:
I like this thread as well.

Hobbies tend to go in the same direction for me no matter they entail: I always love the planning, preparation, design, etc. more than the building.

For instance, when I brewed beer, I absolutely loathed the actual brewing part, which many loved. It simply was too messy, too time consuming, etc. I LOVED my home brewed beer and it was absolutely delicious and worth the effort, but brewing it sucked. What I loved was planning the recipe, performing the calculations, putting the order together, checking gravity and fermentation progress, etc.

Building pedals is the same way for me. I love designing boards, verifying dimensions, laying out graphics, etc. playing them when they are finished is awesome as well but the actual building is a lot like driving someplace: The trip sucks, is typically boring and is only redeemed by actually getting to the destination, which is often glorious.
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I hear you there. The cleanup after homebrewing was always an especially huge downer for my GF and me back when we were doing two batches every other week. Right now I'm going to need to step up my game on the metalwork end and really get my CAD chops together, but of course these days we are very lucky to be able to farm out the actual machining work for small money at least.
 
Big Monk said:
I've gladly pawned off all busy work to Tayda. No drilling, no graphics. I'm much happier with less to do after a board is populated.
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I really like the software Front Panel Express provides to facilitate using their services. Protocase provides something similar too, but $$$ for the actual work. I've only tried Tayda for UV printing so far, will try their drilling too eventually for sure though. I'll probably give Amplifyfun a shot next though, I dig their whole vibe a lot and they are within easy driving distance in my case.
 
Big Monk said:
Building pedals is the same way for me. I love designing boards, verifying dimensions, laying out graphics, etc. playing them when they are finished is awesome as well but the actual building is a lot like driving someplace: The trip sucks, is typically boring and is only redeemed by actually getting to the destination, which is often glorious.
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100% this. I love designing pedals, building is just what pays for me to be able to do so :P I generally like verifying new designs the first time, but after that it's just meh.
 
Big Monk said:
It's why I have such a low output. I just don't really like building and wiring, etc. i like designing and playing.
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For extra big fun (NOT) get stuck with doing multiple onboard preamp installs the day before the bus leaves for NAMM. My luthier friend hassled me for years to do builds that took all the work off his shoulders and put it all on mine. Finally did that, now it's "do I really have to solder up five wires?" :cool:

Big Monk said:
Now if I was selling pedals, I'd find something to enjoy about it...;)
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That's my current plan. But I'd still rather work on blender drink recipes.
 
Big Monk said:
I like this thread as well.

Hobbies tend to go in the same direction for me no matter they entail: I always love the planning, preparation, design, etc. more than the building.

For instance, when I brewed beer, I absolutely loathed the actual brewing part, which many loved. It simply was too messy, too time consuming, etc. I LOVED my home brewed beer and it was absolutely delicious and worth the effort, but brewing it sucked. What I loved was planning the recipe, performing the calculations, putting the order together, checking gravity and fermentation progress, etc.

Building pedals is the same way for me. I love designing boards, verifying dimensions, laying out graphics, etc. playing them when they are finished is awesome as well but the actual building is a lot like driving someplace: The trip sucks, is typically boring and is only redeemed by actually getting to the destination, which is often glorious.
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Kind of with you on most of that.

I like planning, preparing my builds (I don't design PCBs), but I do like the soldering itself. I like coming up with graphics ideas but don't like the graphics element execution because I kill them and can never get them to look like how I planned them. One with lenticular printing for example.

When I brewed beer, it was at a U-brew type place, so all the mess is contained by the host. Didn't get to try different recipes because I was sharing the cost with three other people. One guy wasn't in to trying different recipes while the other guy and gal were. We should've kicked the one guy out of our group 'cause he was basically an alcoholic and the rest of us couldn't give away our stash fast enough between brews. Every two weeks we were alternately bottling or brewing and had enough each to last a month or more, barring the alcoholic who'd regularly run out.
Oh, and at least it was a good recipe we could all agree on: Grolsch! I used Grolsch and Alsace Fischer bottles with the popper toppers to bottle with. Had to stop brewing and give up my bottle collection when I moved overseas.


DRIVING, however is where we differ. Driving across town is mostly boring, but driving across country or the Rockies is fantastic and the journey and sights seen along the way are often better than the destination.

As for this thread, I enjoy reading everyones' exploits, but it will be a while before/if I can contribute any Dip Tracey — meanwhile I'll be over here playing in my garbage can with crutches...

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Big Monk said:
Now if I was selling pedals, I'd find something to enjoy about it...;)
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Yeah I've found I actually like interacting with customers, which is weird as an introvert. Obviously being able to afford tools and toys is nice. But it also pushes me in the design aspect as well, I don't just have to think about "does it work?" I start thinking about "how long is it going to take to put together?" That's led to things like changing my pot footprints so I don't have to line things up, mounting 3PDT PCBs on headers so I don't have to run wires, and putting pads where it's most convenient for short wire runs. I'd like to get a turnkey manufacturer to build everything for me, but my designs are still too labor-intensive and the only quote I've gotten was WAY too high.
 
Big Monk said:
Building pedals is the same way for me. I love designing boards, verifying dimensions, laying out graphics, etc. playing them when they are finished is awesome as well but the actual building is a lot like driving someplace: The trip sucks, is typically boring and is only redeemed by actually getting to the destination, which is often glorious.
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6gpdc9.jpg
The creative aspects are more exciting than monotonous assembly for me too. They also cost less money than building a pedal! I do want to be good at the more laborious aspects of the hobby too.

Homebrew is generally like farts. You don't mind your own, but you can't stand someone else's.
 
I haven't posted any of my recent projects, but I've been cooking up some more PCB designs. This one is a higher-gain overdrive based on the Southern Belle/Mach 1 circuit, but with some Timmy features wangled back into the circuit, like the EQ controls and the gain boost.
Badlands.png

I've also tried to improve on the Six String Stinger circuit by replacing the BMP tonestack with an active baxandall EQ and switchable gain via changing the source resistors on the J201s. I haven't breadboarded any of these, which I know is probably some kind of pedal crime, however this is what I can do with what I've got right now.
Stinger Preamp (1).png
 
I think the files for this are on my other computer, but I wanted to share this because I love how nicely the layout came out. A combination of using a large box (1590XX) and a fairly simple circuit meant I was able to keep it nice and tidy, and all the components are more or less grouped by function. This is a tube FX loop with a parallel clean blend.

Also I've decided for anything I'm going to do pick-and-place on, I'm going to start removing the designators. It looks a lot cleaner, and I always have the design files in front of me if I need to debug anyway, so no serious need to keep them on there.

IMG_20220519_224652.jpg
 
@vigilante398 This is too clean, too pro, Mr Manufacturer 😜

But seriously, nice work. I think I would do the same, if I ever did a mostly SMD layout. Just keep designators for any parts I have to solder on myself.

I love what I see on this thread folks 😍😎😁🙏
 
Bio77 said:
Thanks man. V1 had some bugs, but I was able to get a working prototype. I'm going to wait on the V2 boards and do a proper build report. It blows me away that the original was a single sided hand drawn PCB!
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Stoked to see this happening! And always glad to see more chorus. Definitely my favorite mod.

Edit: Did the original also have FET switching? All the more impressive that it was a single-sided board if so!
 
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benny_profane said:
Stoked to see this happening! And always glad to see more chorus. Definitely my favorite mod.

Edit: Did the original also have FET switching? All the more impressive that it was a single-sided board if so!
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Yep, stereo chorus (mine is mono), flip flop, 2 LFOs, and noise gate on a single sided hand drawn PCB smaller than a 125B.
 
vigilante398 said:
I was always a fan of the Rullywow libraries, always had good luck with those. I think I heard that there are Madbean libraries out there somewhere, but I've never tried them.
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I just found an old post of yours on diysb with a link to the rullywow library. I have the Madbean library for kicad but I'm not sure if there's a diptrace one. There is a Madbean eagle library too though
 
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