Installing a Copper Clad fuzz in a guitar with a PedalPCB board

ragamuffin

ragamuffin

New member
Hey there! Newbie builder here; I've put together a few kits but don't have much technical knowhow. A few months back I built myself a jazzmaster with an onboard Colorsound one knob fuzz built on a pcb from Tayda replacing the rhythm circuit. The one knob fuzz is massive, sounding actually a bit too massive for my tastes. It's a cool fuzz, just not what I want in my guitar, so I'm thinking of trying a different circuit. I think I'm going to try out a Copper Clad/Golden Fleece in there, unless you guys have a better suggestion.

Anyways, my question: the Tayda board just has In, Out, Ground, 9volt, which makes it easy to wire up in a guitar. The PedalPCB board on the other hand looks like it has: two jack grounds, 9v + and -, the l.e.d., and four unmarked? holes at the bottom. Could someone explain how I would wire this up with no l.e.d. or switch/daughterboard? Thanks!

Guitar pic:

IMG_2465.jpg
 
x6U0prx.jpeg


You only need to use one of the ground connections as they are all linked. Use a 3pdt toggle switch so it can turn off the battery. I also wired up a stereo jack so it automatically disconnected the power connection when unplugged as a failsafe.

Board gets power and ground. Switch gets its two wires to the board. Place the circuit before your volume knob. On your guitar I would drill an extra hole in the pickguard for the switch so you can prolong battery life and get better clean tones than with the Copper Clad.

Or better yet, use a Fuzz Face and wire the fuzz control to be fully on and play with the volume control until you get unity or whatever you like, then wire it with two resistors to be a set value. Then use your guitar's volume to control it. The fuzz face has a better tone as well
 
Thanks for the input! I ended up ordering parts to build a one knob fuzz face circuit

The 3pdt is a good idea. I'd like avoid drilling an extra hole in the pickguard, but I just found a Switchraft 3pdt slide switch on Mouser that looks like it should fit and I think I might order one. https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/502-50209LX

Is this how I would wire it? (minus the R1 and LED, this is just a picture I found online)
3PDT_3.jpg
 
It's correct, except the LED cannot be in series with the rest of the effect. You'll either have to omit the LED or find a 4pdt switch to put the LED on its own circuit.

On mine I felt an LED was unnecessary because the position of the switch was enough of an indicator (up is on), and it also clashed with the idea of the on board effect being stealthy.

Then you want to decide whether you want your guitar volume before or after the effect.

edit - just saw your note about the LED- Yes, that's correct
 
falco_femoralis said:
It's correct, except the LED cannot be in series with the rest of the effect. You'll either have to omit the LED or find a 4pdt switch to put the LED on its own circuit.

On mine I felt an LED was unnecessary because the position of the switch was enough of an indicator (up is on), and it also clashed with the idea of the on board effect being stealthy.

Then you want to decide whether you want your guitar volume before or after the effect.

edit - just saw your note about the LED- Yes, that's correct
Click to expand...
Awesome, thanks
 
falco_femoralis said:
It's correct, except the LED cannot be in series with the rest of the effect. You'll either have to omit the LED or find a 4pdt switch to put the LED on its own circuit.

On mine I felt an LED was unnecessary because the position of the switch was enough of an indicator (up is on), and it also clashed with the idea of the on board effect being stealthy.

Then you want to decide whether you want your guitar volume before or after the effect.

edit - just saw your note about the LED- Yes, that's correct
Click to expand...
Another question/clarification: Does the 9volt+ red lead go to the effect board, and then to the 3pdt switch? Or the other way around?
 
The pos wire from the battery should first go to the switch, then to the board. Then the board completes the circuit thru its ground connection. If you wired the pos wire from the battery to the board it would always get power - the switch is what interrupts this.

I installed a stereo jack for the board's ground connection that would disconnect the board's ground when the guitar was unplugged, to save battery life. To do this you just take the ground wire coming from the board, then wire it to the Ring connection on a stereo jack. When you plug the guitar in, the TS jack makes the connection and provides ground to the board, same as the input jacks on commercial pedals that have batteries.
 
On your switch, you have the wire coming from the battery jumpered to the power wire to the board. This will allow the power to bypass the switch. What you want to do is connect the battery supply voltage to the center pin of the switch, then the wire going to the board with one of the outer pins. I drew up a diagram to show this (along with the output jack wiring)

bmQzMNM.jpeg
 
falco_femoralis said:
On your switch, you have the wire coming from the battery jumpered to the power wire to the board. This will allow the power to bypass the switch. What you want to do is connect the battery supply voltage to the center pin of the switch, then the wire going to the board with one of the outer pins. I drew up a diagram to show this (along with the output jack wiring)

bmQzMNM.jpeg
Click to expand...
Thank you so much! That makes sense
 
Got it wired up correctly with the schematic and it all seems to be working! The switch shuts off voltage to the fuzz.

Slight problem/annoyance though; I get a pretty loud "pop" when switching the fuzz on or off. Is this to be expected? Any way to reduce it? Thanks
 
falco_femoralis said:
Install a pulldown resistor. Here's a thread about it, and here's another one. Some people put it on the input, and others on the output. Depending on the way your board is set up, you may have to experiment with either one.
Click to expand...
So here's the schematic I'm working with

It looks like there is already a resistor on the input that may be functioning as a pulldown? (R5, 1M) so I should be good there, right?

So it would make sense to put a pulldown resistor on the output, and the place to do that would be between the effect output (which comes from from lug 2 of the volume pot) to ground yes?

FF Schematic.png
 
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