worst commercial stompbox design

[walker]

or anything made by pete cornish, and then that ^

[robertreynisson]

I'm surprised more people aren't turned off by the ZVex stomp-to-knob proximity. I haven't owned any ZVex gear, but I would imagine it would be tough for a moderately animated rock guitarist wearing Doc Martins to stomp the bypass without moving the knobs. But I haven't heard much complaint about this.

Come on! Just aim before you shoot I've been touring with my own DIY setup for a year, and I cram everything as tight as possible. Most of it is in tuna cans. Never had any problems with stomping with a flat foot completely on top of a pedal and crushing it to death. But maybe that's because I am not wearing any Doc's

[DougH]

I haven't owned any ZVex gear, but I would imagine it would be tough for a moderately animated rock guitarist wearing Doc Martins to stomp the bypass without moving the knobs. But I haven't heard much complaint about this.

This is exactly the reason I really like the Danelectro Cool Cat setup with the knobs on the side. I find it funny that so many people complain about this but I just find it a lot easier to step on the switch without crushing something. Reaching over the top and turning them and wondering what is more/less, left/right, etc isn't a big deal to me.

One of my pet peeves with form factor is the use of toggle switches, esp when they are mounted near the stomp switch. They are just too fragile to be anywhere near where you are stomping your foot. And they are too fragile to mount on the side where they could get broken from jostling around during transit and etc. The new rule is- NO TOGGLE SWITCHES, okay?  If something is so all-fired important to switch on/off- use a stomp switch or go home.

[Hides-His-Eyes]

I like rocker switches, but not as much as I hate trying to make square holes.

[petemoore]

  Mini Toggles...hafta say just fine till all bad.
  Like the other 'features' which should come with the directions ''pry gently from the outside to destroy something on the inside''.
  1'' long-thin cylindrical plastic knobs on plastic shaft pots is A-1 design for breakaway componentry, a very light touch can operate and remove them, no longer will you need great force to remove the master volume, this delicate component conveniently located for break-off at the bottom right corner, in the 'bumper guard' position.
  You will however have to melt something into the center of the remains of the plasti-shaft if you're lucky to have enough remains and the internals aren't overly damaged, in order to operate the master volume control [one of 72 new B-Away knob designs installed on the front of the mixer-PA box].
  I could have saved sis a bundle, fender a reputation from self-obsoleting devices, and everyone else could have knobs that make it extremely difficult to damage the pots they allow easy turning of, but don't break off at the first, second or 1,000th soft knock or semi-hard pull at the shaft, not placed in bumper-guard position.
   A heavy transformer with 3' of cord-line on either end, one end won't break [2 prong AC plug will simply disconnect], the other side will break stuff off the inside the mixer case where it's hard to impossible to repair, especially vulnerable to this because it has a transformer 'drop hammer' effect [being strung like in a hammock, in the middle of cord-lines] helping yank on it. {I did manage to reconnect the 17+/Gnd/17- supply wires and wire-stay them with a metal tab-stay and self tapping screw. The crispy hard plastic, 3prong jack sticks out beyond the case pretty far, this helps add leverage force to the drop-hammer transformer, very effective at shattering the brittle jack.
 

[dschwartz]

  Mini Toggles...hafta say just fine till all bad.
  Like the other 'features' which should come with the directions ''pry gently from the outside to destroy something on the inside''.
  1'' long-thin cylindrical plastic knobs on plastic shaft pots is A-1 design for breakaway componentry, a very light touch can operate and remove them, no longer will you need great force to remove the master volume, this delicate component conveniently located for break-off at the bottom right corner, in the 'bumper guard' position.
  You will however have to melt something into the center of the remains of the plasti-shaft if you're lucky to have enough remains and the internals aren't overly damaged, in order to operate the master volume control [one of 72 new B-Away knob designs installed on the front of the mixer-PA box].
  I could have saved sis a bundle, fender a reputation from self-obsoleting devices, and everyone else could have knobs that make it extremely difficult to damage the pots they allow easy turning of, but don't break off at the first, second or 1,000th soft knock or semi-hard pull at the shaft, not placed in bumper-guard position.
   A heavy transformer with 3' of cord-line on either end, one end won't break [2 prong AC plug will simply disconnect], the other side will break stuff off the inside the mixer case where it's hard to impossible to repair, especially vulnerable to this because it has a transformer 'drop hammer' effect [being strung like in a hammock, in the middle of cord-lines] helping yank on it. {I did manage to reconnect the 17+/Gnd/17- supply wires and wire-stay them with a metal tab-stay and self tapping screw. The crispy hard plastic, 3prong jack sticks out beyond the case pretty far, this helps add leverage force to the drop-hammer transformer, very effective at shattering the brittle jack.
 

ehm, i didn´t understand a word....

[DougH]

  Mini Toggles...hafta say just fine till all bad.
  Like the other 'features' which should come with the directions ''pry gently from the outside to destroy something on the inside''.
  1'' long-thin cylindrical plastic knobs on plastic shaft pots is A-1 design for breakaway componentry, a very light touch can operate and remove them, no longer will you need great force to remove the master volume, this delicate component conveniently located for break-off at the bottom right corner, in the 'bumper guard' position.
 

"Breakaway componentry", heh-heh!  Rip Glitter would be proud...

I was helping my son fix his OP Stingray bass the other night, one of the pots loosened up and broke one of the wires. The "friction fit" knob on the spline shaft pot was so tight, the force required to pry it off also came close to removing the shaft from the pot. It put so much force on the cheap pot shaft that the "stop" no longer worked. So I installed a decent 16mm pot in its place. And of course, no spline shaft, so the original chrome knob no longer fits. So I gave him a blue "pointer" knob I had lying around and he laughed and remarked that his bass now looked "so ghetto". So, it's time to redo the electronics in that thing, including the nasty stock jack. Time to order some knobs too.

[philbinator1]

I like those old retro knobs; i've got heaps of em from the recycling centre scrounges i do.  some are actually really good quality (well of course they are, back then things were built to last more than a year).  I have 5 beeeautiful turntable screw-ons i'm gonna put on my Dr. Boogey, when i eventually make it.  Your son called it ghetto, i prefer Mojo.    Or Juju, which, my girlfriend informs me, is the 'good' path of spiritual intent in Haiti, 'Mojo' being the evil.  So i guess there are a lot of evil electronic components/stompboxes around here.     but, i digress...

[DougH]

This is what this knob looks like:



The reason he said it looked "ghetto" was because it didn't match the other two chrome knobs, which look more like this:



 

[petemoore]

  Dschwartz, we can start with Mini - Toggle:
  http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=81183.msg672717

  http://www.shopwiki.co.uk/Switch+Mount
  They switch according to the schematic, but are fragile.
  I recommend using them only when default:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_(band)
  Values for whatever is switched will be seen when, not if, the switch begins to actup or it's lever
   http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=lever+wiki&fr=chr-offrhap
  is broken 
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken
  completely off.
 
  Transformers:
  http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Transformer+wiki&fr=chr-offrhap
  They're heavy, if a string from each side supports it, it looks somewhat like a Hammock:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammock
 
  When the heavy weight swings:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swinging
  It breaks the heart of the connector, and inside the mixerboard.
 
  This makes them self-obsolescent:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_(album)
 

[dschwartz]

thanks petemoore..

[jkokura]

Poor Pete. It must be frustrating to have everyone tell you that you make no sense. For what it's worth mr Moore, I've been able to understand you most of the time pretty well. You have a unique and interesting style, no one could disagree with that, but I get you.

Jacob

[petemoore]

  The "Worst Ever" threads invite attack on stupid.
  Tall knobs sticking out of plastic <1/4'' potshafts is stupid or intentionally designed to invite failure. It invites failure. When the master broke off I realized the plastic shafts stupid design, had it been pointed out to the designer, would probably have been successfully defended because the money men who throw stupid money around probably don't even care.
  I don't know if Fender Mixer/PA's still have breakaway control knobs, perhaps no-one who is interested in the least even knows which companies and which models have this attractive, failure prone design.
  My typing may sound stupid to some, certainly someone seens the stupidity in having a knob stick way out so it catches on the back seat material of the car when you let a friend put it in there...he set it in there real sweet really, perhaps a slight touch more acceleration downward than the designers had intended..."anything could take one of these knobs off, I'm glad it was you", and had a good laugh because we don't care either ~!
  YUMV.