First pedal complete!

[Eschmidt]

Hello,
This is my first attempt at building a pedal. I selected the Je T’aime as it required few components and only had one knob. I’ve never soldered before either, so this entire process was completely new. Needless to say, I’m hooked and thoroughly enjoyed this process. The pedal works perfectly and sounds great!

I decided to use a larger than necessary 125B enclosure since I’m new to this and figured I could use the extra room while putting everything together. And as a nod to the Marshall style sound this pedal provides, I cut a piece of gold aluminum for the top portion of the pedal. I also used a purple Marshall indicator light instead of the standard 5mm LED. The light is actually purple, but the picture makes it look blue. Overall I am happy with how this turned out for being my first time, and will certainly be building more pedals soon.

 

[Erik S]

Looks great!

Excellent for a first effort.

 

[jimilee]

Very nice. Looks better than most first builds.

 

[Eschmidt]

Looks great!

Excellent for a first effort.

And thanks for your help regarding the Marshall indicator light!

 

[Eschmidt]

Here is a close up of the board

 

[Blooze]

Great job!

 

[Hetari Gotoh]

Splendid job. I love the coherence of the whole design and the purple indicator + gold aluminum in particular.

 

[KR Sound]

Looks great!

Welcome fellow Hoosier. I drive near Roanoke monthly when I visit my dad in Warsaw.

 

[Eschmidt]

Looks great!

Welcome fellow Hoosier. I drive near Roanoke monthly when I visit my dad in Warsaw.

Nice! Warsaw isn’t far at all!

 

[Asdrael]

Looks great, welcome to the hobby! And you made it your own with the Marshall styling, love it.

 

[BuddytheReow]

Awesome first build!

 

[thomasbe86]

This is a very sleek built! Not just for a first ime! I wish my first few hundreds would have been that neat!

 

[MattG]

...and will certainly be building more pedals soon.

Welcome to the addiction, err, I mean club!

My first builds (emphasis on the plural) definitely didn't look that good.

One thing: maybe it's just the camera angle, but it looks like the resistors that go to the indicator LED are awful close to the switch wiring (the LED cathode ("K") in particular). When the effect is on, the LED cathode is connected to ground, and if that right-most switch pin ("effect out") touches the LED-K wire, you'll get no sound.

Electrical tape is the quick and dirty fix. If you're will to re-solder, you could use heat-shrink tube. I sometimes use hot-melt glue for things like this. I also have a roll of self-fusing (also called self-amalgamating) insulating tape, which is a million times better than electrical tape.

 

[Eschmidt]

Welcome to the addiction, err, I mean club!

My first builds (emphasis on the plural) definitely didn't look that good.

One thing: maybe it's just the camera angle, but it looks like the resistors that go to the indicator LED are awful close to the switch wiring (the LED cathode ("K") in particular). When the effect is on, the LED cathode is connected to ground, and if that right-most switch pin ("effect out") touches the LED-K wire, you'll get no sound.

Electrical tape is the quick and dirty fix. If you're will to re-solder, you could use heat-shrink tube. I sometimes use hot-melt glue for things like this. I also have a roll of self-fusing (also called self-amalgamating) insulating tape, which is a million times better than electrical tape

Thank you for the kind words! And yes, I see what you mean. I’ll go back and tidy that up, thanks for the tip!

 

[comradehoser]

Great first build! I super dig that bezel and the pedal graphics/design choices.

I think you only need one 4k7 for the LED, which is actually R100, so I don't think you need to provide any more. Generally PPCB incorporates the LED resistor in the board.

You didn't provide pics of the solder-side of the board, but here's some unsolicited advice that may save you some grief down the road: the off-board wiring pads soldered on the component-side show incomplete soldering. Could be a) you need better solder/more flux; b) you need to heat pads and components a bit longer or set your iron higher; c) you need to flow a bit more solder so that the full pads and components are wetted.

Ideally, your solder joints should look like miniature, shiny mount fujis. Not flat, not blobby.

 

[Eschmidt]

Thanks for the tips, I’ll be sure to keep those things in mind going forward.