Friday 13th Doom Hole...

[Dan0h]

Finished Black Hole #2 tonight. Spaghetti wires... Pretty stoked though, my 3rd working pedal in a row. Liking these Gorva enclosures a lot.
Did Jovi’s trick with mounting the pots in the top of the enclosure before soldering, what a life saver. There’s no way I would have been able to make those pins line up any other way.

Next up, Paragon.

 

[Dan0h]

Here’s the first knob choice. Which looked good in my head but not so good in real life. So I went with the orange red combo for the final version. I am really starting to realize the value of classic black knobs. I think my colorful knob days are done.

 

[HamishR]

Oh I don't know - I like the colours you chose. But coming from a design background, my first thought would be "why am I using different colours?" If you just want to use different colours that's a perfectly valid choice! Or you could colour-code them by purpose.

For example I built a dual pedal which has a 4-knob overdrive with a 2-knob boost next to it. The boost is a Red Rooster, so no-brainer it has red knobs. The OD has no colour reference so I used cream knobs simply because they show up well against a black enclosure. So when I reach down to tweak the pedal it's obvious which effect I am tweaking because of the colour coding.

As you have no graphics maybe you could use red for gain-related controls and orange for tones. Or use your large knobs for the most likely to be used pots and the smaller knobs for less used controls? Sometimes a row of large knobs along the top and smaller below just looks good. I would be tempted to see what red along the top and orange along the bottom looked like, just for aesthetics.

Or if you have a series of black enclosure (like I do!) you could use the knob colour to signify pedal types. Blue for delay, red for OD, orange for fuzz... It would be a shame not to use those colours because they really pop on those black enclosures.

 

[Dan0h]

Dude! I’m going to rock the red on top for the gain and orange on the bottom for EQ. Great idea. I think the reason I left the red orange pattern was due to just swapping out the large red knobs with the orange and I sort of liked it so I left it. But I like the idea of red on top and orange on bottom much better. Thanks for spotting that. The knobs are too close to getter to use the two large red knobs next to each other so that’s not an option on this pedal.

 

[Dreamlands]

I like the orange and red against the black. Looking forward to seeing your revision.

 

[Fuzzonaut]

Nice!

And yeah, I'd also have the red knobs in the top row, orange 2nd row.

 

[Dan0h]

Thanks again to the awesome forum here. The edited knob layout. Very happy with it now.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Looks great! Is that a purple LED? I'm a multi-color knob guy myself, so do watcha like!

One thing, that tabbed washer on the toggle switch has gotta go. You bought that fancy anodized nut from BLMS, right? They also sell pretty anodized toggle switch washers. I bought a bunch of translucent nylon washers from the Big A and mostly use those.

 

[Dan0h]

Looks great! Is that a purple LED? I'm a multi-color knob guy myself, so do watcha like!

One thing, that tabbed washer on the toggle switch has gotta go. You bought that fancy anodized nut from BLMS, right? They also sell pretty anodized toggle switch washers. I bought a bunch of translucent nylon washers from the Big A and mostly use those.

Agreed. I can’t stand the tabs. My first pedal I didn’t realize you could bust the tabs off of the pots so my pots are all crooked AF. I’m going to look up the nylon washers. Thanks Chuck.

 

[Dan0h]

Looks great! Is that a purple LED? I'm a multi-color knob guy myself, so do watcha like!

One thing, that tabbed washer on the toggle switch has gotta go. You bought that fancy anodized nut from BLMS, right? They also sell pretty anodized toggle switch washers. I bought a bunch of translucent nylon washers from the Big A and mostly use those.

Oh, that’s a UV led from them as well. Looks purple.

 

[Dreamlands]

"They also sell pretty anodized toggle switch washers."

I was just searching for these online and not having much luck.
Yeezzzz, oh sweet serendipity.

Thanks Dan0h and Chuck!

That UV LED is really cool, btw.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

I use UV LEDs in some of my pedals too. Takes a fair amount of current, I usually use 1.5K as the ballast resistor.

Here's the link to the washers:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NRZYC65/

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Did Jovi’s trick with mounting the pots in the top of the enclosure before soldering, what a life saver. There’s no way I would have been able to make those pins line up any other way.

I do it that way too, but there is something to watch out for: the holes have to be aligned very accurately because the hole you put the pot in for soldering is not the hole it goes in for final assembly. If any holes are misaligned, it won't go together without undue force. I also employ Jovi's trick of splaying the pot pins so the pots don't fall out when I turn the board over.

 

[Dan0h]

I do it that way too, but there is something to watch out for: the holes have to be aligned very accurately because the hole you put the pot in for soldering is not the hole it goes in for final assembly. If any holes are misaligned, it won't go together without undue force. I also employ Jovi's trick of splaying the pot pins so the pots don't fall out when I turn the board over.

This is very true. My holes were slightly off on this build which made the potential for problems very obvious. Didn’t even think about it until fitting the pots back through the opposite side. Luckily they were only slightly off. The mirror issues always trip me up at first, but once a mistake is made it is not made again.

 

[r.callison]

Looks like one of those prewired LEDs with the resistor in it? Curious if you have to omit/jump the LED resistor if so.

 

[Dan0h]

Looks like one of those prewired LEDs with the resistor in it? Curious if you have to omit/jump the LED resistor if so.

Yes. The three pedals that I have used them on I have not omitted the resistor for the led on the board. They have worked that way so I have kept that routine going. Someone else may know of you can omit the boards led resistor and have it still work.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Depends on what's in the prefab LED/bezel. Some have a resistor, some don't. Ask the vendor and when in doubt, leave the resistor on the board. If you connect an LED directly to 9V power without a current limiting resistor, it will die immediately. I bought a pre-wired LED/bezel from BLMS and it contains a resistor of unspecified value. BLMS says the resistor is appropriate for operation from 9V to 12V.

 

[Dan0h]

Played this build for the first time in forever today. Man this thing sounds good! I forgot how thick it was.

 

[RetiredUnit1]

Played this build for the first time in forever today. Man this thing sounds good! I forgot how thick it was.

And just in time for Friday the 13th next week!!!