- Build Rating
The Cattle Driver (based on BuffaloFX TD-X) is the very first PedalPCB pedal I built. I kinda started off on the wrong foot, making what turned out to be a very simple, silly mistake (misread the BOM, using an "n" value cap instead of a "p" value, only off by a factor of 1000!). In the process of debugging, I ripped a trace on the PCB; though I was able to fix it, I was never happy having a messy/hacky build, so I built a second!
I really liked the pedal, and used it quite a while, even keeping it on my board and gigging it a few times. Eventually, pedal-holism overtook me, and Cattle Driver #2 was put away for a while. But, thanks to MichaelW's recent Cattle Driver build, I had to take it out of storage. I remembered why I liked it so much, and put it back on my board.
But that wasn't enough. Even though build #2 was perfectly fine, it was very "utilitarian" - sand black enclosure, label maker lables, basic 3PDT foot switch. Since I built that pedal, I've started doing the no-film waterslide decals for a nicer look. I also decided I definitely prefer the "premium" feel of the momentary SPST footswitches and relay bypass. I've built several pedal's with Madbean's "Softie" relay bypass. But for strictly on-off, I liked the simplicity of PedalPCB's basic relay bypass, and decided to give them a try.
So here I present my third Cattle Driver build. It worked just fine on first power up (wouldn't that be embarrassing if my third build had problems!). But I still managed to make an aesthetic mistake, the "Gain" or "Drive" knob is mistakenly labeled "Tone". Oh well! I guess in the general sense, "tone" is somewhat accurate. I forget that this circuit uses a couple 4.7uF caps; I like to use film here, but I'm out of 4.7uF film caps (not to mention they are pricey), so went with electrolytic.
As I was building this pedal, and another using the relay bypass, I realized the following: in a 125B enclosure (or, in general, with top-mounted input/output jacks), if you're using relay bypass, there's no reason the switching circuit has to be at the bottom of the pedal. That is, ideally, we want to minimize any excess cable length. So what I'm now scheming to do is make my own PCB with the Cattle Driver circuit and the relay bypass circuit (on a single PCB). The other perk of this design is that it should save some pedal assembly time. (My least favorite part of pedal assembly is the wiring of all the I/O, DC jack, switch and PCB; it always seems to take way longer than it should, especially if the goal is a tidy final product.) With the amount of free time I have, that should be ready in a few months.
Anyway, here are pics of both the just-completed Cattle Driver #3, and also the completed-long-ago-but-never-posted Cattle Driver #2.
I really liked the pedal, and used it quite a while, even keeping it on my board and gigging it a few times. Eventually, pedal-holism overtook me, and Cattle Driver #2 was put away for a while. But, thanks to MichaelW's recent Cattle Driver build, I had to take it out of storage. I remembered why I liked it so much, and put it back on my board.
But that wasn't enough. Even though build #2 was perfectly fine, it was very "utilitarian" - sand black enclosure, label maker lables, basic 3PDT foot switch. Since I built that pedal, I've started doing the no-film waterslide decals for a nicer look. I also decided I definitely prefer the "premium" feel of the momentary SPST footswitches and relay bypass. I've built several pedal's with Madbean's "Softie" relay bypass. But for strictly on-off, I liked the simplicity of PedalPCB's basic relay bypass, and decided to give them a try.
So here I present my third Cattle Driver build. It worked just fine on first power up (wouldn't that be embarrassing if my third build had problems!). But I still managed to make an aesthetic mistake, the "Gain" or "Drive" knob is mistakenly labeled "Tone". Oh well! I guess in the general sense, "tone" is somewhat accurate. I forget that this circuit uses a couple 4.7uF caps; I like to use film here, but I'm out of 4.7uF film caps (not to mention they are pricey), so went with electrolytic.
As I was building this pedal, and another using the relay bypass, I realized the following: in a 125B enclosure (or, in general, with top-mounted input/output jacks), if you're using relay bypass, there's no reason the switching circuit has to be at the bottom of the pedal. That is, ideally, we want to minimize any excess cable length. So what I'm now scheming to do is make my own PCB with the Cattle Driver circuit and the relay bypass circuit (on a single PCB). The other perk of this design is that it should save some pedal assembly time. (My least favorite part of pedal assembly is the wiring of all the I/O, DC jack, switch and PCB; it always seems to take way longer than it should, especially if the goal is a tidy final product.) With the amount of free time I have, that should be ready in a few months.
Anyway, here are pics of both the just-completed Cattle Driver #3, and also the completed-long-ago-but-never-posted Cattle Driver #2.
