General Guitar Gadgets

[newey]

I bought a kit for an Effects Loop stompbox recently from General Guitar Gadgets. A good experience with them, they ship quickly. The kit has all the parts, including a pretty heavy-duty steel enclosure (which I'm in the process of painting and labeling, prior to actual assembly).

The 3PDT footswitch seems to be of stout quality, as well as the jacks.

Since there's no PCB involved in this particular project, I can't vouch for their PCB-based kits, but overall I'm very happy with the order from them.

The DOD version of this pedal runs about $70, the kit was $30. I'll definitely be trying to build one or more of their actual FX kits.

The kits come without any instructions ("Save a tree for a Tele body", I always say . . ) as all the info is on their website, in both schematic and diagrammatic form.

All in all, big props!

General Guitar Gadgets

[newey]

An update: It's done!

Well, except for testing/troubleshooting. I can't do that until I get some 9V batteries, since MF still has my power supply backordered. (AAAARGHH!)

But I got the enclosure painted, decaled and clear-coated last night, in between a few "adult beverages". This morning I fired up the iron and wired it up. It was a breeze, everything fit the enclosure nicely.

I'll post some photos when I get a chance.

EDIT:And, I self-censored and moved the thread here from the coffee shop, since it threatened to turn into an effects build thread.

[JohnH]

Cool - a simple and useful device.

You could test its looping without the battery

Can anyone spot the (deliberate?) mistake on the schematic?
www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_sw_loop_sc.pdf?phpMyAdmin=4a28f86a515b7883e7bc35a68d4e7b6d

Wiring diagram looks OK though!

John

[newey]

Do you mean that the schematic shows the Batt. - going to the tip of the input jack rather than to the ring? I hadn't noticed that last night when I compared the schematic to the diagram!

You could test its looping without the battery

I still would need a 9V for an effect to loop. Well, I suppose I could check it with the meter, but what fun is that?

[JohnH]

Yup! have a girl-scout cookie!

But the battery only powers the LED, it should loop without it. Or did you mean you have nothing to run the effects themselves? I see.
John

[newey]

Took these pix with the webcam on my laptop, since I also have no batteries for the camera! It's dand hard to aim a laptop!

[newey]

Finally got some 9Vs to test this out, and- Problem!

Got bypass, got LED when I switch the loop on, but no signal through the loop. Double checked the cables and my DOD chorus, which I was using as the test pedal for the loop, and all is fine there so it's the loop box that has an issue. Went back and hit all the connections with the iron, thinking maybe a bad solder joint, but no change.

So, troubleshooting begins.

[andy]

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Best of luck finding the cause Newey.

[mr_sooty]

I got a kit from GGG a while back, the MBB (Bluesbreaker clone). It sounds fantastic, one of the best overdrives I've used. It's a really good SRV Blues type pedal.

I found them great to deal with, and the kit relatively easy to put together, although I did have a problem when I accidentally orientated the switch the worng way, needed ChrisK to help me fix that.

The only issue with the pedal was that it's very 'open' from an eq point of view, which made it a little noisy. But ChrisK (again) helped me tweak it to take out the real high top end and filter out some of the noise. Man, I love this pedal now.

Also, before I modded it, I emailed GGG and told them about the noise I was getting. They thought it might be a faulty chip and sent me a new one, all the way to New Zealand. They was wrong, but I was really impressed with the service. They also really helped me when one of the solder pads came off (too much heat I think).

Anyhoo, this is what my pedal looks like:


My name's Cam, DOHC stands for Double Over Head Cam, as in the car thing.

Here's my fairly bad demo:



..and here's somebody elses much better demo. This is what really sold me on the pedal:



I love having a homemade pedal on my board. I wish I needed more pedals, I'd love to build more, but I'm really pretty set. One day I might build another one, just for fun and sell it or something.

[newey]

Sooty-

I was looking at the MBB as a possible future project, GGG has them on sale right now.

Still trying to sort the loop box, which is frustrating because it's pretty simple and I still can't find the problem. I am somewhat wondering if I, too, may have wired the footswitch 90° off. It is tricky, the thing is symmetrical and unmarked so far as I could tell. I used the meter on it and marked which way it went, but it's still remotely possible that I screwed it up and somehow rotated it between the meter and actually wiring it.

Haven't got time to sort it today. But I did finally get the power supply that was backordered from MF, so I actually have a pedal board now, which is cool.

[flateric]

Solder a quick couple of jumpers onto the switch terminals or remove it altogether from the circuit to see if it all works with it hardwired 'on' - then you'll know for definite if the switch orientation was ok or not

[newey]

Good tip, flateric! Hadn't thought of that.

Although the loop box troubleshooting is currently taking a backseat to Xmas shopping with the wife.

[ChrisK]

....is tricky, the thing is symmetrical and unmarked so far as I could tell. I used the meter on it and marked which way it went, but it's still remotely possible that I screwed it up and somehow rotated it between the meter and actually wiring it.

Yep.

Within a pole, you can pass a solid wire straight thru all three terminals.

Pssst, this should help.

HTH