My First Pedal !!! PICS

[Fernando Aguirre]

Hi,

This is my first post but i have been reading this forum for a while.
I have completed my first pedal, and most important IT WORKS!!!.
It is a mxr microamp clone.
I did it with perfoard ( i won´t use a perfboard ever again in my life )
but from now i will make the pcbs because i found the perfboard way very difficult, at least for me.

The enclosure is hammond style that i bought at Smallbearelec.com, and i used a 3dpdt blue switch.
I tested it using my Mesa Boogie studio pre and a 50/50 mesa power amp.
With the clean channel it works excellents, a very nice boosting.
With the dist. channel is very noisy, but i read somewhere in here that the microamp is kind of a noisy pedal.
I wanted it only for the clean channel so no problem.
I painted it with an aerosol called painter´s touch in red colour, then applied a transfer called LetraSet which also have some floral designs i used, and then clear laquer.
Here are the pics. I need opinions. Thanks to all of you for the information that i found in here.

[Samuel]

Looks fantastic! Do the sections of the back cover stay on OK with only two screws apiece?

[Fernando Aguirre]

Hi,

Thanks for your nice comments.
Yes, the screws hold the cover ok. I found this technique at www.pisotones.com , these are a couple of guys from Spain with a lot of cool ideas, check them out.
thanks
Fer

[axr]

looks awesome

[Paul Marossy]

Great job!
I used to feel the same way about perfboard, too. I think when you're starting out, making PCBs is a lot easier. As you get more experienced, I think perfboard becomes more user-friendly because you can read schematics better and look at other layouts to see how things are done. At least that has been my experience... (but I also have designed quite a few of my own PCBs, so maybe that helps, too)

[Fret Wire]

Looks nice Fernando. I saw that on Pistones with the battery access. Haven't tried it though. What op amp did you use, single or dual? Good build.

[Hal]

yea Pauls right about getting better at reading schematics...also, going from breadboard to perf is much easier than drawing a layout

[petemoore]

Try a brighter light for photos...
 But the pedal looks real nice, much better than My first by a long shot looks wise.
 Micro Amps are cool, I bet that Boog lites up with that.
 I said that about perf a long time ago, about 50 perf builds ago...lol.
 No doubt you learn more about circuits quicker with perf.  PCBs prevent certain types of errors, but you don't really get a feel for which parts even connect like you do when you work with perfboard and schematic or layout.
 Plus the mistakes might  tend to make you an excellent de-bugger, like me.  :oops:     [well at least with the circuits I'm familiar with...my excellent debugging skills are made up for by my mistakes when building...lol.
 Congrats !!!

[Marcos - Munky]

Congratulations. Your pedal looks great.

[Gringo]

Bienvenido che! De a poco van cayendo argentinos por estos pagos

Your first build looks great! I'm still trying to find some cheap enclosures and switches to box some of my stuff, with no luck.

Keep it up!

[PB Wilson]

Looking good! I like the floral decoration. (I'm confident in my masculinity, so I can say that. :wink: )

About perf-board, it can be tricky at times, but there are some advantages such as being cheaper, no etching or press-and-peel disasters, easier and more flexible when it comes to modding designs, and like petemoore said, it helps develop your debugging skills. Keep at it and you may find yourself drooling over the excellent perf-board layouts at Runoff Groove!

LONG LIVE PERF!

[Peter Snowberg]

That looks great! Welcome to the forums.

Take care,
-Peter

[Fernando Aguirre]

Thank you all for your nice comments.
For the one who asked about the op amp i used the JRC 4558D that i bought at smallbearelec.com

[Fret Wire]

That was me. You could always try an NE5532 to quiet it down some more. May or may not help on the dirty channel, but will definately be noticeable on the clean channel.

[Fernando Aguirre]

The clean is dead quiet, i will try with the option you suggest to see if it can help with the dist. channel
Thanks!

[Phorhas]

Congrats Man

Looks good

[dan]

i wish my first pedal worked (and looked) that good. nice work.