Hey everybody, I wanted to share my first ever DIY build of an overdrive pedal. I had one more build before this - a version of a champ tube amp circuit.
This is my first ever project of a pedal, and second ever project in electronics in general.
I'm going to post some images in this topic of how the build is going. In the video you can check the pedal and my story about it. I'm showing this so I hope I can get some comments about it and how to improve it if possible. Thanks :)
(https://i.postimg.cc/347ZqW7P/breadboard2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/347ZqW7P)
(https://i.postimg.cc/JtHhFxYC/IMG-20190703-223142.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/JtHhFxYC)
(https://i.postimg.cc/rDNsJpnd/IMG-20190703-223226.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/rDNsJpnd)
(https://i.postimg.cc/dZGwVWg7/IMG-20190703-223323.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/dZGwVWg7)
Welcome to the forum! It looks like you have quite the project there. Keep us updated and don't worry, we love to comment on things.
Hello Ron, thank you for the welcome :)
You're right it's a slightly bigger project that I could handle in the beginning, but it was a good trial by fire. Fortunately everything turned out very good. I'm still having some troubles with pot values. I'm sharing the complete schematic here:
(https://i.postimg.cc/8FyXjP23/Capture.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/8FyXjP23)
Amazing first post! Welcome, ikhabot. Don't worry about your English, it's fine (a lot better than my Serbian :icon_rolleyes:). I really appreciate the methodical process and the effort, and I think your video is great for beginners to appreciate how accessible it all is. As a guy who enjoys reading/discussing the theory, but builds mostly paint-by-numbers, I'm also a little bit inspired by your determination to get to something that fits your needs by adapting and adopting circuit elements and trial and error. Finally, I love your socketing approach to clipping diodes, which makes a lot of sense to me. I also find that clipping switches with a lot of options tend to go unused, but it would be good to give an extended tryout to different options, on the pedalboard rather than on the bench.
Although it would make sense to me to have different clipping options available in the drive 1 and drive 2 settings. Back in the 1990s, a guy named John Greene published his variation on the Fulldrive, which he then evolved into his own product, the Glasspack. (Unfortunately, I can't find the schematic for either.) IIRC, unlike the Fulldrive, in which the boost is just a second pot in the feedback loop, he made his boost more aggressive sounding (and more compressed) by having a pair of LED clippers to ground in a hard clipping arrangement, such that they did not begin to clip until the signal was boosted enough.
Edit: While you're at it, when you're switching the boost on, you might also want to figure out a way to switch your C5 for a bit more Low frequency rolloff.
QuoteAmazing first post! Welcome, ikhabot. Don't worry about your English, it's fine (a lot better than my Serbian :icon_rolleyes:).
Haha.. thank you for the welcome Ben, I feel better :)
QuoteI really appreciate the methodical process and the effort, and I think your video is great for beginners to appreciate how accessible it all is. As a guy who enjoys reading/discussing the theory, but builds mostly paint-by-numbers, I'm also a little bit inspired by your determination to get to something that fits your needs by adapting and adopting circuit elements and trial and error.
Thank you, and it's really nice to see that you took the time to check up on the video. My English can sound substantially better on YouTube playback speed of 1.25X and subtitles on ;D . I just tried to tell the story about the journey. People who want to try to build something similar can have something to relate to, and hopefully use some of the things I made for the project. Everything is 100% free and shared.