MXR Envelope Filter finished (pic)

[jjs]

Hi,

I just finished my MXR Envelope Filter and wanted to share some images of it, but first of all big thanks to Tonepad for the great Layout and the mods.

So some facts about this one:
Because of the small box I had to alter the PCB layout a tiny bit. I moved the 47uF electolytic cap, so that it could be bent flat. To round the corners I had to move the ground trace that goes around the PCB.
The Inverter ICs are made by Motorola and Toshiba. Not sure about the switching IC. I found that a 74HC4066 works as well as the specified 4066 switch.
I included all the mods (reverse sweep, filter range, emphasis control) from the Tonepad site and they are great. At first it was a bit hard to get a nice sound out of the reverse mod, I initially thought it would not do anything at all. But when you get familiar with the controls it produces great sounds.
The output is also modified for more bass (as mentioned in the build reports).
At first test I had to really strum hard with my stratocaster guitar to get any sweep. I didn't like that, so I included a Fetzer Valve. It cannot be seen on the picture, but imagine it sitting on a peace of perfboard right under the PCB between the jacks. The volume of the booster is not set very high, just so that the volume in bypass mode equals the volume when the effect is active. With the booster it's easy to get it sweeping.

The box finishing is done with a layer of white primer, then the artwork (done entirely in Openoffice.org Draw) printed on glossy photo paper and then glued to the box.
Final step was spraying it with clear coat.



This is my second (finished) project. The first one was a Ge Fuzz Face.

[gez]

wow, that is superb!!!

[Jim Jones]

Excellent job!

Jim

[mahoney]

The design is brilliant.  How did you get the holes for pots/jacks/etc. lined up so well?  Did you make the holes after you glued it?

[smoguzbenjamin]

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

nice!!

[Marcos - Munky]

Beautiful!!!

[bazzwazzle]

The design is brilliant.  How did you get the holes for pots/jacks/etc. lined up so well?  Did you make the holes after you glued it?

[mahoney]

Also, what are the dimensions of the box (looks like a Taiwanese "B" from Small Bear), the paper for the top and around the sides?  I'd like to try this method myself since I have illustrator 10 and color laser printer here at work.  but I don't have a box here to measure...

[Thomas P.]

Holy S....!!!!!!!!!!

This is one of the best looking pedals I've ever seen!!!!

[strungout]

Awesome dude!

I'm biased to blue and orange together  

[jjs]

Wow, thanks for the compliments!

To the questions:

]How did you get the holes for pots/jacks/etc. lined up so well? Did you make the holes after you glued it?

Actually I just drilled the holes in a frenzy after finishing the circuit cause I wanted to try it out as fast as possible. I didn't much think about it, just measured roughly where the holes should be and drilled. When you look closely you will notice that the stompswitch is a tiny bit off centre. The two switches on the top are also not 100% centered below the "threshold" knob, the alignment of the "reverse" text covers that though.
So the layout was done afterwards. I just measured exactly where I had drilled and did the layout in Openoffice Draw. Then printed it and compared the position of the holes with the print out until it was an exact match (I did this VERY often).
I had also exprienced with drilling afterwards. But it completely messes everything up because the small metal pieces from the drilling will go between the paper (or t-shirt transfer foil, same thing there). So this didn't work out for me. But it is surely a good idea to print out the layout on normal paper, glue it to the box, drill, remove it and then glue on the final paper.
It's not so easy to cut the holes into the paper. When doing this after glueing to the box it gets messed up (again, i tried it). What I did was taking one of those tools with which one can make new holes in belts (belt pliers is the word, right?)

what are the dimensions of the box?

According to the site I bought it (www.banzaieffects.com) its the size of small MXR boxes. About 11x6x3 cm.
If you are interested here is the layout in Openoffice Draw and Acrobat Reader format:
ef_layout.sxd
ef_layout.pdf

[crawler486]

Great Build !!!

How did u remedy the severe volume drop?

[thomas2]

ok.. that must be the coolest thing ever! my projects look like crap when compared to yours  :lol:
well done

[mat]

What a beautiful pedal  :shock:

Did You drill one of the screw holes away to make room for the battery ?

What kind of glue did You use for the photopaper ?

Thanks for sharing  

mat

[jjs]

How did u remedy the severe volume drop?

As described in my first posting I put a Fetzer Valve (booster from //www.runoffgroove.com before the input of the circuit board.
I did this to get a more pronounced sweep with my singlecoil equipped guitar. When You only want equal volume in bypass and effect mode, put the booster after the output of the circuit. I did no other modifications which could affect the volume.

Did You drill one of the screw holes away to make room for the battery ?

Yes.

What kind of glue did You use for the photopaper ?

When I first tried this method I used liquid glue (brand "Uhu"), but this didn't work out well. It moistened the paper and I couldn't get it even.
So I used more dry glue in form of a stick ("Pritt"). Normally not the first choice for glueing anything to metal, more for glueing photos into an album. But it works. If I would pull away the paper from the box now, I'm sure the primer would stick to paper whereas the primer would loose contact with the box.

[Burstbucker]

JJs-

Man, that's an awsome looking pedal.  Simply beautiful!

[Mark Hammer]

I feel like I been psychedelicized!!

Nice work.

[StephenGiles]

Beautiful, why can't EH turn out something like that!
Stephen

[brett]

One of the best looking pedals ever.  
Innovative methods.
And fitted into an 11x6x3 box.  
I thought about that myself and decided No way!!
But you've got the proof!!!  :shock: