The hella rats chronicles

[DailyDovetails]

I think the rat might be my favorite pedal. I want to like all the kooky or fancy pedals but at the end of the day I always go back to the rat. It into a peavy classic 50 was my sound in my 20s. I built a rat with a ton of switching options https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/hella-rats.20070/ . From what I learned there I decided my first PCB design would what I liked most from it. Standard rat with extra hard clipping options only.

So far in the process I have received the boards and I like the faceplate a lot but feel like I messed up in the pot and switch footprints. The switches are sub minis and the pots I don’t know what the heck is going on with them. The holes are tiny. I guess that’s what happens when you rely on someone else’s footprints. If you want it done right you have to do it yourself.




I’m going to build one of these out to make sure it works and then I will fix what I don’t like about the design and reorder V2 boards.

 

[Nostradoomus]

Those film cap pads are huge!

 

[DailyDovetails]

Those film cap pads are huge!

Yeah I think I may size them down a bit and make the resistor holes a little bigger.

 

[DailyDovetails]

Got my the prototype working. I somehow botched the volume knob layout and it works opposite the direction I intended but other than that it works and sounds fine. The noise floor is decently low for what it is.



I used my new crimpers to make the connections throughout. I think I will build a few more pedals that way.

For the PCB I need to figure out the volume knob, finish drawing new footprints and add the option for an SMD J201. I also realized as I was looking at some schematics last night that there are some differences between Aion, Electrosmash, the multirat by GGBB @ diystompboxes and Robert’s schematic. I need to spend a bit researching to see if they are meaningful and if I want to make any changes.