Stew Mac pedal kits

[Electron Tornado]

I haven't seen any discussion here of any of the pedal kits from Stewart MacDonald.  I've recently built two kits, so I thought I would post about them. I built a King of Tone clone and a Lightcycle Phaser II.

- The directions are easy to follow.
- Enclosures are pre-drilled.
- Pots are PCB-mounted.
- Unless you make a lot of mistakes cutting the provided wire to length, there is plenty with a little left over.
- The graphics are not waterslide, they are decals. Black was the only option.
- There were no schematics provided. However, I have a feeling they get their boards made by this place, and their downloadable directions include schematics:  https://www.pedalpcb.com/product/phaseii/
- The PCBs can feel a bit cramped.
- There is no room for a battery in the phaser. The power jack is one I've not seen before, but it works OK.

Apart from the lack of schematics, I'd give the kits I built a thumbs up. I'm really enjoying the phaser. Not sure why the circuit board photo is so much smaller.

    

[FiveseveN]

Are they massively overpriced like everything else in their catalog?
Yup! At least they took out the schematics so you don't get a chance to learn anything.

[drdn0]

Aside from talking about the time 'they' spent designing their circuits (I'm fairly sure they are all just whitelabelled PedalPCB kits), and the utterly ridiculous costs, the thing that -really- bugged me is they don't even provide resistors that fit the super common footprint they are using.

Man that really grinds my gears 

Looks like you did a solid job on the build though!

[duck_arse]

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[tootsMcgee]

Your builds look super clean! How does the phaser sound?

As for StewMac, the lack of schematics feels dirty. It looks like there's no technical anything in the docs; no schematics, no troubleshooting steps, just a series of steps and if it doesn't work then *shrug* I guess they have a support email? It feels more like a product than a project, but you're on your own with no tools if something goes wrong in the build.

I like how on the Screamer page it says "It's more than just a schematic" which, I guess technically correct...?

The foam adhesive pads for the back of the pots feels cheap compared to plastic dust shields.

Not to shill but I like Aion and BYOC's documentation better

[Electron Tornado]

Your builds look super clean! How does the phaser sound?

Thanks for the thumbs up for my build. The phaser sounds fantastic! Clean and glassy. I wanted a phaser that used LDRs, and I think that was the only kit available at the time. Stew Mac's pedal kits might not be the cheapest, but they're not the most expensive, either. With both pedals, I was looking for a full kit so I wouldn't spend time sourcing any parts I didn't have on hand, and the pre-drilled enclosure saved some time. 

I agree, the lack of a schematic was a big minus, but I found schematics at Pedal PCB. And, if Stew Mac is getting their PCBs from there, so what? It's more business for Pedal PCB, who isn't selling full kits anyway. As for the foam adhesive on the backs of pots - I've seen sketchier stuff in a few production pedals and "boutique" brands.

[aron]

Really nice builds! Congratulations!

[Jmariner]

In the 90's, I ordered some specialty 5-way switches from Stewmac. They were something obscene like $15 or $20 each with the ability to produce unusual pickup combinations. Eventually, they all ended up in traditional 5-way configuration. In those days, it was difficult to find other sources and with stew, you pay through the nose. I have some really nice aluminum wood clamps from harbor freight that are 8 bucks each and stew's are something like 70 or $80 for one! lol
I don't want to go advertising companies, but Tayda electronics has a lot of PCB's for the most popular home brewed pedals for under $10 each. If you can handle the slow boat from China delivering them, shipping is only 3.99.

I absolutely don't need pedals outside my own engineering, but they have the plexi 800, the dr. boogie and a few others I am undoubtedly going to buy. The affordability vs perfboarding them means I will never build them if I went the perfboard path. 

[Paul Marossy]

I didn't know they had such an offering. Those look pretty decent.