Byzantium rebuild

[mybud]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

My first Byzantium build (report here) had some issues with popping and the LED staying half lit in bypass. Since the pop makes it basically unusable for live work, I decided to rebuild it and correct the upside-down footswitch wiring mistake of the first build.



I carefully disassembled the original...



to compare the new boards with the old...



and used the first build as an assembly guide.

First order of business, to clean the gunk off the new boards...



so duly cleaned, I let them dry in the sun...



and got to work on the final assembly...



aiming to make sure that the audio board was lying as flat as possible, then soldering the pots in place...



and the two pin header assemblies, which I tack soldered in place after fixing the audio board to the enclosure with the pots.



I managed to bork a film cap on the way despite my best efforts. I also used one of Barry's ribbon cables to secure the footswitch assembly, right way up this time to the board. Gives one some wiggle room in case of need.



Before final touches...



and the finished article. Fab-sounding flanger, but now no popping and half-lit LEDs.

Thanks for reading and wishing you all joy in your projects.

 

[Erik S]

Looks great!

Did you figure out why the first one was popping? I've never really understood why that happens. I've also had a few pedals pop when I first built them, then heal themselves later by magic, so I usually just hope for that.

So... I purchased a crate of random cassette tapes recently, including a copy of Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus by Spirit. I'd never heard of them, but I liked that album which led to some googling. When I was looking through their discography I was very surprised to see they used your photo on one of their album covers!!

 

[mybud]

Looks great!

Did you figure out why the first one was popping? I've never really understood why that happens. I've also had a few pedals pop when I first built them, then heal themselves later by magic, so I usually just hope for that.

So... I purchased a crate of random cassette tapes recently, including a copy of Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus by Spirit. I'd never heard of them, but I liked that album which led to some googling. When I was looking through their discography I was very surprised to see they used your photo on one of their album covers!!

View attachment 101547

Yes, they could have asked me, I suppose .

The hirsute bloke in the picture is Spirit’s drummer Ed Cassidy, who was a jazz drummer and worked with Monk, among others and also happened to be stepdad to the guitarist Randy California, hence perhaps their album title ‘The family that plays together.’

In the first build, I painstakingly assembled all the special low profile caps and other parts and then managed to solder the foot switch board upside down. This defines the term ‘failing at the last hurdle,’ you might say

 

[Erik S]

I know that feeling. I once managed to solder all 18 lugs of a double footswitch board on a PPCB Paragon before I absorbed the meaning of "switch goes here".

 

[mybud]

I know that feeling. I once managed to solder all 18 lugs of a double footswitch board on a PPCB Paragon before I absorbed the meaning of "switch goes here".

Yes, all the more galling in my case because the auxiliary board marking couldn’t be clearer