I need some help thinking outside the box.

[B Bent]

Literally! I bought this old DeArmond volume pedal casing with the hopes of popping a wah kit in it. The only problem is installing a switch. There is no way to put a switch in the traditional spot that switches in wahs go. I am cool with putting it somewhere else or using some other way of switching it on and off.

Would you guys care to give me some ideas?

Here it is below:

[dschwartz]

you can put a momentary switch directly to the  foot plate, so the wah will turn on only when you have your foot over it..

[jacobyjd]

Why not put a switch at the base? I always wished i could do that with my wahs--I hate having to have it at its highest point in the sweep to turn it on

[R.G.]

Magnet and a reed switch. Wah turns on when you rock the pedal forward. Or back.
Or both - turns off either at full toe-down AND at heel down.

[Gus]

You might want to restore the volume pedal.  A magnet and reed switch like R.G. posted might be more be reversible if you do make it into a wha.   

[dschwartz]

Magnet and a reed switch. Wah turns on when you rock the pedal forward. Or back.
Or both - turns off either at full toe-down AND at heel down.

i like the idea, but i think there are no latching reed switches..and the calibration of where and when the switch should flick can be complicated, you don´t want your wah to turn on and off while you are using it...

i know that you can make a latching sw with flip flops or something else, but would get more complicated..

other ideas for wah´s activation:
- Proximity switch driving a relay or fets
- LDR driving a relay or fets (may only work on sunny days )
- using a pot with a switch (those that switch at one end) for swell...
- external remote control..( )
- pressure sensors at the base of the wah...(i like that one)

well..

[petemoore]

  Looks like there's room for one right behind the pot area.
  Only a suggestion, 3-D view and 'inhands sizing' being impossible from here.
  Trick is to get the height adjusted just right, if it is actually possible with that case, hard to tell from the pictures.
   I did up a Small Stone w/speed treadle in a V-847 case, putting the switch nearer the rocking point, which does limit some of the travel of the rocker compared to being farther away from the pivot-angle point.

[earthtonesaudio]

[Edit] Pete took the words right out of my keyboard...

From the pictures it looks like you could probably squeeze a regular switch under there, just below the opening.  It would be under the ball of your foot rather than the toe, so you'd have to adjust the height just right with washers or something.  And you would have more leverage on the switch that way, so it might be "too easy" to switch on and off.  Maybe you could address that with a rubber grommet or some other shock-absorbing widget.

[BlueToad]

Dual ganged pot, connected between vcc and gnd... unused section goes to a differentiator,to a comparator, the output of the comparator triggers a T flipflop which switches a cd4053 or similar analog switch. Move the foot forward really fast and it switches state! 

[frank_p]

Just put a stompswith on a block or a bracket sitting on the bottom plate and let the top of the switch be near the rack gear of the rack and pinion gears mechanism.  Then tap and bold something on the side or on the back of the rack gear to push against the switch at the end of the travel.

Or:
put a brass strip along the rack gear that goes all the way except at the end of the travel.  Than put a contact blade that will touch the strip all the way of the travel except at the end of the travel.  This option might be more noisy...

[Eb7+9]

well..

close ...

well shielded Infra-Red diode and cell on either side on top, driving a threshold detector which sets on/off current through micro-relay ... your foot lands on top of the pedal and you're switched - doesn't interfere with travel of pedal ...

[DougH]

Or, just get a real wah shell from Small Bear: http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=548

Doesn't look like there's much room in that DeArmond for electronics anyway- I suspect you have more headaches on the way once you solve the switch problem.

Restore the Dearmond and get a real wah shell for the wah project. Then your building headaches go away and you also have a nice volume pedal that is collectible piece as well.

[Inventor]

Yeah, what he said.  While your at it, you could make a switchless wah with an accelerometer chip.  Just create a little flip-flop circuit as described before that changes state to on for a time whenever motion is detected. 

Or make the motion detector do the wah and mount it on your guitar with a computer interface for controlling wah and other effects.  Oh wait, I'm doing that.  lol.  Make gravity do the work!

[birt]

I have that same pedal. mine looks a lot better tough, i don't think it has ever been used. it has no brand tag, an Allen-Bradley pot and a fixed cord, it's an expression pedal. it is actually the same enclosure as a Maestro Boomerang. it has loads of space inside and a really long sweep (allmost the whole pot rotation i think). i think yours is a teeny bit different in design, but not much.

so take a look at where the switch is on a Maestro. it's between the circuit and the pot gear. my volume pedal has a hole there so i would just have to install the switch.

[Rodgre]

The Foxx rocker pedals use that same casing. See where they put the switch? It's a little further under, beyond the gear for the pot.

The Foxx pedals all put TONS of circuitry inside that same casing. The footswitch also went through the PC board, as it had a long thread.

Roger

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