Post your first build

I started with BYOC as well. I believe it was the Leeds Fuzz. It would’ve been 2014?? And it was the first of a bunch of byoc builds, in less then a year.
I was hesitant to take the leap from Kits, to PCB and part sourcing. Mostly because I’m lazy, and I thought it would increase my chances of failure.
Eventually I made an order to Guitarpcb, and Small Bear, to make a simple Fuzz Face.
Pedal building is a wonderful and rewarding hobby. I wish I had started many years earlier. One of my favourite aspects of it, has been the camaraderie on forums like this one. Thank you to er’body for sharing.
 
Unfortunately, I didn’t date the inside of this, but at least I corrected the polarity that I had wrong on the outside! I’m not sure what century I made this!! I had been building tube hi-fi stuff, but then when I was happy with my set up, stopped building electronic things*, until I saw Anderton’s book, and began building pedals. This was the first, and it worked great into my Vox like amp.

(* probably not completely true, as I have several boxes of partially completed, but way over my knowledge-set projects up in the attic. I think when our son was born, I suddenly had even less free time to pursue complicated builds—yeah, I’ll stick with that version…The pedal projects were so concise that I figured I’d be safe starting them.)

I can’t figure out how I have the barrel connector mounted—it’s in really well, but it looks like I may just have a small ring of heat shrink holding the threaded stem in place, since I couldn’t fit the nut in. Knowing the way I used to work, I’m sure I tested whatever it is before I did it. I did not, however, do the grinding to make the back fit until after it was painted.

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Here's the only remaining picture of my first build, before assembly, from about 12 years ago. It was an EP Booster on vero. I believe this was before Tayda offered UV printing, and I used a waterslide that turned out terribly with texture and yellowing from the clear coat. The graphics were meant to be ironic because I "love" social media!

The switches, true to the original, did nothing. It was a tacky looking volume box and I later threw it out. I swore off pedal building not long after this due to an abusive relationship with vero. That is, until I discovered PCBs during the pandemic, and have been a shameless addict ever since!

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Well, if we’re going to be totally honest, here is a picture of my very first build (with the requisite gut shot as well).

In February 2023, I had never even so much as picked up a soldering iron, much less knew the difference between a resistor and a cap or an IC. When I decided I wanted to try my hand at building pedals, I figured I really needed to start with something smaller just to get the hang of soldering. It fired up on the first try!

(Then I built an AionFX Radian kit, followed by a PPCB Dragon’s Breath as my first PCB. Thirty or so builds later, here we are and you all are stuck with me, so it's time to come to peace with it.)

Mike
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Wow. A lot of you have been doing this for awhile now. Not to mention the serious ambition of just going for it. Very cool.
I started building circuits in '99. But they were solenoid timing circuits for electronic paintball guns before there were...electronic paintball guns.
I should have started building pedals back then, I just got hooked on paintball.
Anyway, my first pedal was pedalpcb uberfuzz to use instead of my superfuzz.
I believe that was 2 years ago. 20240103_125026.jpg 20220627_105637.jpg
I never use those power jacks any more. They are metal framed (not good for outside +V). I machined a bushing just to use it. I never solder wire directly to a circuit board. Always use a header. I never solder anything mounted in the enclosure. I use modular boards and connectors for ease of troubleshooting and assembly.
 
I wish I still had my first. I traded a madbean sabretooth built in 2011-12ish for a vexter mastotron thinking I got a great return on investment since it's essentially a mammoth with a bonus impedance knob and subs switch, neither of which are features I would use 🙄. I was not yet sentimental about the diy builds and I'm kicking myself now. No pics so just imagine a bare 1590bb with sharpie labels and a rats nest inside. Probably had a white washer. A familiar sight.

So here's my first ppcb board. I thought I was clever until I saw like 5 other build reports in these plastic boxes. I kind of liked the look with the nasty flux all over the ronaface. Looks more ronatastic.


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I’ve got three first builds here:

My very first pedal— The “Kill Switch Doo-Dad”
Just a passive kill switch that I built because I had the itch to try building a pedal after I learned to solder when I was building a replica of Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstrat. Pretty sure the only time I’ve ever actually used it live was to do the kill switch parts in “And The Cradle Will Rock” and “You Really Got Me” when I was playing in a Van Halen tribute show in an after school music program I was in.
Built it in the summer of 2014— just recently found the PedalPartsPlus order slip in some old files, and I ordered the parts on June 28th, 2014.
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My first (maybe? I think I actually might have done a SHO first) actual active circuit- the “1971 Overdrive”
Built this one in late 2015. It’s a GGG BSIAB2 kit in the 4-knob configuration. Used a leftover 1971 quarter from my frankenstrat build to house the LED, and it’s painted with Dupli color spray paint in an inverted frankenstrat color scheme. Relic’d for extra coolness.
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My first hand-painted pedal, my first pedal as “Simms Sounds,” and my first “original” circuit— “The Minion”
This one is entirely passive except the indication LED. I was playing in the aforementioned Van Halen tribute show in late 2015, and I found myself struggling to do the quick tap dancing to turn my EVH flanger on and off for the quick bursts of flanging on “Unchained,” so I ordered momentary and latching 3pdt switches, studies the switching action, and came up with a scheme to have a bypass looper with both momentary and latching action. Nowadays it would be easy enough to do with a single footswitch and an intelligent relay system, but that wasn’t really an option I knew of or was capable of as a 16 year old amateur builder. Built this one in November of 2015, about a month before the BSIAB2 above.
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Locrian99 said:
Then I bought this awesome landtone fuzz pedal kit from Amazon.
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I built this one too. Awesome little fuzz pedal. Sadly I don't have this one anymore either (but I might get it back -- guitarist wants to try the Big Muff clone I am building next).
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Locrian99 said:
The instructions were terrible. There was a crap ton of offboard wiring.
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And yes the instructions were crap, and it's virtually impossible to cram all of that off board wiring into that 1590B. I gave up trying to get the battery to fit in there.
 
Alright, I'll be technical. Here's my very first, first build (spoiler alert, it never worked). It's a good thing I can't find a pic of the actual soldering, because it was atrocious.

I'll start out with what I learned from this one:
  1. don't make your first build phaser
  2. don't make your first build a 14-stage phaser
  3. see step 2
  4. see step 1
  5. make your first build from something with beginner-like documentation …or any documentation at all

This was my choice, so I only can blame myself


JZ9MX1v.jpg


Ds5G2bZ.jpg


nIUxQfi.jpg


bwrVFXD.jpg


Even had an enclosure (massive) drilled/milled for it and art planned

US8UMnJ.png


Wbqs0NG.png


6. BONUS LESSON: don't bin/thrift a box of projects/supplies without saving the (socketed) ICs you paid a lot for (and have now nearly tripled in value)
Yeah, those are 7x CA3086 NPN arrays for the stages…
and those slide pots, too

oh well, lessons learned!
 
Not my first (don't have a pic) but I think I built this in the summer of 2005. So, it would be one of the early ones. I built it for my buddy b/c we were about to make a record and he needed a fuzz. It was total fly by the seat of your pants design. I don't even remember what all does what. Basically a tricked out FF that has microphonic and self-oscillating settings. We ended up using it all over that record.

I also got accused of cloning the Fuzz Factory when I showed it on DIYSB. Back then people cared about that stuff because cloning pedals was serious.business. Anyway, it still works and he still uses it.

Pong.jpg
 
jessenator said:
Alright, I'll be technical. Here's my very first, first build (spoiler alert, it never worked). It's a good thing I can't find a pic of the actual soldering, because it was atrocious.

I'll start out with what I learned from this one:
  1. don't make your first build phaser
  2. don't make your first build a 14-stage phaser
  3. see step 2
  4. see step 1
  5. make your first build from something with beginner-like documentation …or any documentation at all

This was my choice, so I only can blame myself


JZ9MX1v.jpg


Ds5G2bZ.jpg


nIUxQfi.jpg


bwrVFXD.jpg


Even had an enclosure (massive) drilled/milled for it and art planned

US8UMnJ.png


Wbqs0NG.png


6. BONUS LESSON: don't bin/thrift a box of projects/supplies without saving the (socketed) ICs you paid a lot for (and have now nearly tripled in value)
Yeah, those are 7x CA3086 NPN arrays for the stages…
and those slide pots, too

oh well, lessons learned!
Click to expand...
Jesus Christ! Is that an early dead astronaut board. I have an etched abductor delay before he started having boards fabbed.
 
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