Rehouse Danelectro PBJ x2

[seibertdr]

Hi there,

I just got two Danelectro PB&Js. Great little echo pedals. There are three knobs, mix, time, and repeat. There are two foot switches, bypass and short/long. I am interested in rehousing these two pedals into one box (1509BB?) I am not going to do True Bypass. They sound pretty good the way they are. I am going to need to move the jacks, DC jack, switches, and pots to the new enclosure. I found another article that someone did but I think it was too complicated and overkill for me. Since I am not modding the pedal, would remove the old jacks and pots and wire in new jacks and pots. I am not sure what to do with the switches but the would need to be able to mount on the enclosure. From what I have read, they are CMOS switches. What kind of switches can I replace these with. There is a bi-color LED to indicate whether the pedal is in long or short mode. I think that is an easy one. The pots look like trimpots with small knobs glued on top. The pots are mix(A104), time(B502), and repeat(A104). I should be able to remove these pots and wire in the new pots. Any thoughts. With putting them both in the same enclosure, I want to be able to switch one on at a time or have both on at the same time. Possibley a mixer in there somewhere? Maybe later. I would like one pedal to feed into the other pedal so that I only have one set of jacks on the enclosure. I should be able to wire the output jack straight to the input jack. Any objections. I think this will be a fun project with great benefit. I like lots of echo and thought this would be a great way to do it. Also, wanted them to be analog. I already have two Boss DD-3s but some of my older analog effects (Phase 90, Boss CE-1) seem to bang into them causing them to go wakka wakka which doesnt sound natural to me. I am all ears and open to suggestions. Thank you, Don

[hday]

Don't have much help to provide, but if you wanted to you could put the output of the first one into the input of the second. But if you're working with delays, the delay of the first pedal will be further delayed by the second. Not sure what you're trying to obtain. It might sound wicked, but you should play around with them first before committing to your design and cutting them up. If you're trying to select from one or the other so you have a better selection of delay speeds, you could have one switch that would select which pedal to engage, two switches for the half speed, and one to select the two pedals in a series or a bypassed signal. Also, with this layout, you could "true bypass" the pedals.

But mainly I just wanted to bump this because I also have PB&J that I would like to rehouse. I, however, am not really a fan of this pedal. The controls are too touchy. But if you're rehousing, you could replace those pots with some nicer ones that will give you a bit more control over your speeds.

[ppatchmods]

The switches can be replaced with momentary(2 lug) switches from smallbear and the pots can be upgraded to 16mm pots.  The switching is going to be a little difficult if you want to run them on the same jacks. You would really need to truebypass them to save on not having to use 4 jacks. check out this layout:

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/two_in_one_wiring.pdf

This (IMO) is the easiest way to get it done.

-John

[F.V]

I've done a dual pb&j rehouse:


I think to fit the two in your going to have to go a bit bigger than a bb size enclosure, I used what would be a 1950J enclosure (i think), a bb sized enclosure doesn't really have the depth to fit two in, or my experience has been tainted by the myriad of expression outs etc that mine had. Another thing to think about is surface area for the 4 footswitches required for mounting the two together. The 1950J is only just big enough to get the 4 on (and still have them stompable) But you could have 2 or 3 footswitches instead, and make the mode switches toggles, but being able to toggle between the modes on the fly is a pretty good feature i reckon.

You can either replace the LED with another bi-colour led, or two individual led's.

There's really no need to true bypass it, you can just run the output of one pedal straight into the other.

[seibertdr]

I've done a dual pb&j rehouse:


I think to fit the two in your going to have to go a bit bigger than a bb size enclosure, I used what would be a 1950J enclosure (i think), a bb sized enclosure doesn't really have the depth to fit two in, or my experience has been tainted by the myriad of expression outs etc that mine had. Another thing to think about is surface area for the 4 footswitches required for mounting the two together. The 1950J is only just big enough to get the 4 on (and still have them stompable) But you could have 2 or 3 footswitches instead, and make the mode switches toggles, but being able to toggle between the modes on the fly is a pretty good feature i reckon.

You can either replace the LED with another bi-colour led, or two individual led's.

There's really no need to true bypass it, you can just run the output of one pedal straight into the other.

That is an awesome rehouse. Do you have a layout for it? What are the extra two knobs and the four switches for? Do the two LEDs indicate the short/long mode? I am looking for something easy to do. I am new at this and I dont want to ruin 80 bucks worth of pedals. Thanks for your help. Don

[F.V]

A drilling template for the box? I could draw one up for you if you were going to use that size of enclosure, because it took me a lot of measuring to get it just right. The extra two knobs are extended delay time knobs, which give you up to 16 seconds of delay or so, which is really lo-fi and grainy. The two innermost knobs are the switch between the long delay time pot and the regular delay time pot. the two outermost switches are for self-oscillation. The 4 leds are the short/long indicators.
I wouldn't say its too hard of a rehouse, and there are a load of good mods that could be done to it, including a hold which i regret not doing on mine (but i may still add, via a switchable output jack)
The real source of knowledge on this is over at http://experimentalistsanonymous.com where colin has got a thread dedicated to it, and a fantastic annotated schematic of the pedal.

[seibertdr]

What would I use to keep the different PCBs separate. There are three PCBs in the PB&J. There is one for the foot switches, one for the controls and the echo PCB. Would really thick paper work?

Thank you,

Don

[F.V]

Thick paper would i suppose, i had the main delay board mounted to the base and the in/out board floating free. You can just discard the switch board and solder the caps across the poles on the switches your using as replacements.

[seibertdr]

I read somewhere else that I could eliminate the switch PVB by putting in new switches and putting some caps across the lugs. How would I go about doing that. What caps do I need and which lugs to I need to wire them too.

thank you, Don

[F.V]

Check out the schematic at experimentalists anonymous for the values for the switch caps, and just solder them across the two lugs your connecting. ie. wire 1 & one leg of cap to one lug and wire 2 & the other leg of cap to the other lug.


http://experimentalistsanonymous.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=491