The Please Steal My Idea Thread

[patrick398]

You know where I'm going with this, right?

I only have baby potatoes, do i need to run a few in series? And also for PNP circuits what should i use? A yam?

[duck_arse]

You know where I'm going with this, right?

I only have baby potatoes, do i need to run a few in series? And also for PNP circuits what should i use? A yam?

izzit a power supply for chips?

where's my coat?

[italianguy63]

[EBK]

Copied from another thread:

Next up, we have a tube screamer built into a bread roll...

[DaveLT]

Copied from another thread:

Next up, we have a tube screamer built into a bread roll...

I have built a stratoblaster into a light bulb fixture before 

[Rob Strand]

What about a lemon, poke in a nail and a copper rod and it could be self powered.

I saw someone build a pedal into the cast base of a clothes iron, it looked really cool.

[amptramp]

I am tired of all the hum / buzz / power line noise issues.  Someone build a complete pedalboard set that uses fibre optics to connect one pedal to another and the guitar and amp too.  Positive supply Fuzz Face versus negative?  Nobody will care anymore and there will be no need for polarity inverters for the power supply.  The charge pump market may tank but the sound will be better.  In fact, I bet you could do an awesome fuzz with phototransistors if you used both bias and light control.  Hey, steal that one!

[DaveLT]

I am tired of all the hum / buzz / power line noise issues.  Someone build a complete pedalboard set that uses fibre optics to connect one pedal to another and the guitar and amp too.  Positive supply Fuzz Face versus negative?  Nobody will care anymore and there will be no need for polarity inverters for the power supply.  The charge pump market may tank but the sound will be better.  In fact, I bet you could do an awesome fuzz with phototransistors if you used both bias and light control.  Hey, steal that one!

one could conceivably use an LED driven by an transistor or use a socket intended for fiber optics 

[Sooner Boomer]

I am tired of all the hum / buzz / power line noise issues.  Someone build a complete pedalboard set that uses fibre optics to connect one pedal to another and the guitar and amp too.  Positive supply Fuzz Face versus negative?  Nobody will care anymore and there will be no need for polarity inverters for the power supply.  The charge pump market may tank but the sound will be better.  In fact, I bet you could do an awesome fuzz with phototransistors if you used both bias and light control.  Hey, steal that one!

How would you go about that in practice?  S/PDIF?  That can do two channels of PCM data.  Somewhat short-haul; limited to 10 meters/~30 feet.  Then, would you do the effects in digital form?  Or convert back to analog and use good, ol' fashioned circuits to perform the heavy lifting?  This could mostly be done right now with off-the-shelf components, so it's not a far-fetched idea.

[diffeq]

I am tired of all the hum / buzz / power line noise issues.  Someone build a complete pedalboard set that uses fibre optics to connect one pedal to another and the guitar and amp too.  Positive supply Fuzz Face versus negative?  Nobody will care anymore and there will be no need for polarity inverters for the power supply.  The charge pump market may tank but the sound will be better.  In fact, I bet you could do an awesome fuzz with phototransistors if you used both bias and light control.  Hey, steal that one!

How would you go about that in practice?  S/PDIF?  That can do two channels of PCM data.  Somewhat short-haul; limited to 10 meters/~30 feet.  Then, would you do the effects in digital form?  Or convert back to analog and use good, ol' fashioned circuits to perform the heavy lifting?  This could mostly be done right now with off-the-shelf components, so it's not a far-fetched idea.

I may be wrong, but I think amptramp meant analog light modulation, without ADC-DAC.

[Sooner Boomer]

That's going to be a lot harder. 

[EBK]

Has anyone ever built a pedal inside a hollowed-out book?

[bluebunny]

I have an old biscuit tin in the shape of a book.  Too big for a pedal and too thin for standing on.  I was going to turn it into an amp or a cigar-box guitar.  Right now it's languishing on a shelf looking like, well, a book.

[ElectricDruid]

I am tired of all the hum / buzz / power line noise issues.  Someone build a complete pedalboard set that uses fibre optics to connect one pedal to another and the guitar and amp too.  Positive supply Fuzz Face versus negative?  Nobody will care anymore and there will be no need for polarity inverters for the power supply.  The charge pump market may tank but the sound will be better.  In fact, I bet you could do an awesome fuzz with phototransistors if you used both bias and light control.  Hey, steal that one!

How would you go about that in practice?
</snip>

The MIDI interface did exactly that about 35 years ago. Everything is coupled via opto-isolators to avoid ground-loops and hum problems. And for exactly these reasons - it would have been nightmare otherwise. Admittedly it doesn't run at audio rates, but the principle is good at least. I guess the bandwidth of fibre optics is where it wins over simple opto-isolators, but I wouldn't be sure sure it couldn't be done with simple photo-transistors until I'd proved otherwise.

[iainpunk]

Has anyone ever built a pedal inside a hollowed-out book?

Yes, i did!
Was a very basic fuzz, using a sziklai pair consisting of a Si and a Ge transistor.
I later rehoused it because of noise issues

[amptramp]

I am tired of all the hum / buzz / power line noise issues.  Someone build a complete pedalboard set that uses fibre optics to connect one pedal to another and the guitar and amp too.  Positive supply Fuzz Face versus negative?  Nobody will care anymore and there will be no need for polarity inverters for the power supply.  The charge pump market may tank but the sound will be better.  In fact, I bet you could do an awesome fuzz with phototransistors if you used both bias and light control.  Hey, steal that one!

How would you go about that in practice?  S/PDIF?  That can do two channels of PCM data.  Somewhat short-haul; limited to 10 meters/~30 feet.  Then, would you do the effects in digital form?  Or convert back to analog and use good, ol' fashioned circuits to perform the heavy lifting?  This could mostly be done right now with off-the-shelf components, so it's not a far-fetched idea.

I may be wrong, but I think amptramp meant analog light modulation, without ADC-DAC.

Correct, I did mean a fibre optic analog interface.  There are circuit designs that use an optoisolator for the output and an optoisolator for the feedback in an op amp circuit with the LED's in series so the signal fed back is similar to the signal fed to the next pedal in the chain.



The difference I would like to see is the LED in the transmit side and the receiving optotransistor in the other with a fibre optic connection between them.

[Sooner Boomer]

I had an idea that popped into my head about a month ago.  It's hard to believe that serious drugs were not responsible for this.  What about air stomp boxes for use when playing air guitar?  You could have a whole range of pedals; fuzz, distortion, overdrive, reverb, chorus, flanger, wah, etc., etc.  This could be expanded to a whole range of accessories; air picks, air straps, etc.  And you heard it here first!

[EBK]

I had an idea that popped into my head about a month ago.  It's hard to believe that serious drugs were not responsible for this.  What about air stomp boxes for use when playing air guitar?  You could have a whole range of pedals; fuzz, distortion, overdrive, reverb, chorus, flanger, wah, etc., etc.  This could be expanded to a whole range of accessories; air picks, air straps, etc.  And you heard it here first!

I could make tons of these!  I would worry that I would eventually get very lazy doing so, however, because no one could see where I cut corners in construction.  That lack of accountability would be my downfall.   

[marcelomd]

IL300 was the usual choice for output+feedback optocouplers if you want to go further. Could be nice for a compressor or something.

I fear the analog optical transceivers are not linear enough (may be a feature, not a bug!) for general use. Also, fiber is kinda fragile for road use.

[duck_arse]

I had an idea that popped into my head about a month ago.  It's hard to believe that serious drugs were not responsible for this.  What about air stomp boxes for use when playing air guitar?  You could have a whole range of pedals; fuzz, distortion, overdrive, reverb, chorus, flanger, wah, etc., etc.  This could be expanded to a whole range of accessories; air picks, air straps, etc.  And you heard it here first!

I was going to do some of these - but I couldn't find the parts.


[imagine the thread for the air guitar air circuit box with air burst button!]