The Please Steal My Idea Thread

[EBK]

Friggin' component sockets that are magnetized or expandable. Just drop them on/in your pads, do your business, remove and solder in the chosen part.

I don't understand what you are suggesting.  Add a socket, then remove the socket, then solder the components where the sockets were?  What are the sockets for?

[bean]

Friggin' component sockets that are magnetized or expandable. Just drop them on/in your pads, do your business, remove and solder in the chosen part.

I don't understand what you are suggesting.  Add a socket, then remove the socket, then solder the components where the sockets were?  What are the sockets for?

Sockets that require no soldering/removal for quickly testing different values/parts. Just plug them in, test your parts then unplug the sockets. Granted you can just insert components loose in a plated through PCB but it's awkward and prone to lose contact.

I tried to make some using really tiny magnets but they were just too weak to hold.

[EBK]

I think I understand now.  Something like these test points but with a socket instead of the wire loop?


Edit:
Hammer headers!  Also known as solderless or press-fit headers.


Also, this:
https://www.mill-max.com/products/new/compliant-pin-sockets

Don't know how easily removable these are though.

And these:

https://www.mpe-connector.de/index.php?lang=en&menu=16&product_group[]=6&action=Search&id_product=1731

[Digital Larry]

Take one of those old toy steam engines:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jensen-Toy-Steam-Engine-Model-75-Hobby-Craft-Toys-Made-In-America/39977124?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=1279&adid=22222222227028388537&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=61173461169&wl4=aud-566049426865:pla-96558755049&wl5=9032143&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=112561907&wl11=online&wl12=39977124&veh=sem&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjOrtBRCcARIsAEq4rW7gy59-3BSuBLFXCymQ-uB7LfGEHU6kSvkJiIN73l8C23R2eJKzcC4aAusEEALw_wcB

Oxidize the outside of the wheel, then convert that into an oil-can delay.  This has the advantage, since it is already on fire, that when you stomp on it, the little burning lozenges will come out and set the stage on fire.  The steam helps humidify the room which can be handy during winter, and if you're lucky you might even be able to brew up a small cup of tea with the hot water.

For more variation in the modulation signal, add microswitches at various points around a "Mousetrap" game, which is nothing more than a plastic commercialization of concepts developed by Rube Goldberg.

https://images.app.goo.gl/KiyWVmJaKa2U4hhV8

The switches could link to servo motors on the steam engine's valves via Bluetooth and be controlled by "an app" because of course.

[amptramp]

A Xerox cylinder delay might be a better item than an oil can delay.  The original Xerox copiers had a selenium-coated drum where the selenium was charged from a power supply and where light hit it, it discharged.  A receive electrode that almost touches but is actually a capacitive sensor (like the videodisk players) would read the signal but could be placed at an arbitrary angle (which could be variable) from the spot where the light hits.  Less mess than an oil can.

[Digital Larry]

A Xerox cylinder delay might be a better item than an oil can delay.  ...  Less mess than an oil can.

Yeah and you could make copies of the set list at the same time.  Good thinking.  But how do you set the stage on fire?

[EBK]

A Xerox cylinder delay might be a better item than an oil can delay.  ...  Less mess than an oil can.

Yeah and you could make copies of the set list at the same time.  Good thinking.  But how do you set the stage on fire?

It would be kind of interesting to have one of those photocopier scanning lights sweep across underneath your pedal board. 

[amptramp]

A Xerox cylinder delay might be a better item than an oil can delay.  ...  Less mess than an oil can.

Yeah and you could make copies of the set list at the same time.  Good thinking.  But how do you set the stage on fire?

Believe me, if you have ever smelled the stench of a selenium rectifier shorting out and catching fire, you don't want fire anywhere near selenium.  I had this happen with a television one time when I was young.  I remember it being December 15 of that year and I just unplugging the television (which was in my bedroom), opening the window and going out and riding my bicycle for two hours in the cold of December in Toronto.  By the time I got back, it stunk slightly less.

The idea came to me because we spent a couple of years making X-ray sensors out of thin-film transistor arrays of the type you see in LCD displays with a selenium coating that is charged and then discharges where it is exposed.  Since you can read the TFT array as a sensor, even though the dynamic range was quite small for each scan, successive scans could give you a dynamic range of 120 db.  We had a similar program with an LCD covered with selenium where exposure to X-rays would discharge the LCD locally and you would get an image which you could scan successively to get a large dynamic range.  It didn't hurt that the lead researcher on the LCD project was this gorgeous girl from Finland.

We were partnered with Agfa to do this.  Why did a film company want to fund a competing technology?  As they said, since the paperless office uses more paper than ever, they thought they could sell more film in the filmless medical X-ray lab.  You can't argue with that reasoning.

[Kevin Mitchell]

A Xerox cylinder delay might be a better item than an oil can delay.  ...  Less mess than an oil can.

Yeah and you could make copies of the set list at the same time.  Good thinking.  But how do you set the stage on fire?

It would be kind of interesting to have one of those photocopier scanning lights sweep across underneath your pedal board. 

[EBK]

Idea: A guitar pedal with sugar crystals grown on it.  Humidity, mechanical vibration, and ants could be non-trivial obstacles, but I still want to see it! 
(I'd recommend a soft-touch footswitch to minimize the mechanical shock to the fragile crystals.)

Sadly, the name "Rock Candy" has already been used for an arguably less imaginative pedal.   


Edit: Alum crystals might be more interesting--and with no ants (as far as I know).

[edvard]

I think I understand now.  Something like these test points but with a socket instead of the wire loop?


Edit:
Hammer headers!  Also known as solderless or press-fit headers.


Also, this:
https://www.mill-max.com/products/new/compliant-pin-sockets

Don't know how easily removable these are though.

And these:

https://www.mpe-connector.de/index.php?lang=en&menu=16&product_group[]=6&action=Search&id_product=1731

Make the plastic part of the socket water soluble.  Test - Solder - Rinse.  Tadaaaaa!!

[EBK]

Another April Fool's Day joke idea (probably):

"Sometimes you want to make your guitar sound LOUDER."
"Sometimes you want to make your guitar sound CRUNCHIER."
"Sometimes you want to make your guitar sound BUFFER."

"Introducing the BUFFER pedal!"
[guitar pedal with a flexed bicep muscle graphic]

[EBK]

Idea:  a parody of that Gwyneth Paltrow candle (Google it if you have no idea what I'm talking about) in guitar pedal form, labeled "This Smells Like My Big Muff". 

[bluebunny]

There needs to be an ungoogle.com, so that you can un-see and un-discover and un-remember things...   

[EBK]

I think it would be cool to use something like this LCD "light valve" as part of a bypass indication for a pedal, perhaps hiding and revealing a backlit waterslide decal, perhaps with a cutout opaque decal on top.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3330?gclid=CjwKCAiA98TxBRBtEiwAVRLqu1-Rf3OI9tHaEXmKw1z8_nbs4wvScgy9EUvip3KS63ZTZb66Pv0FQhoCu3oQAvD_BwE

It is glass, so the idea is not without risk, but since people make pedals with glass tubes sticking up out of them already, why not?

[bluebunny]

...perhaps hiding and revealing a backlit sub-mini tube!   

[Sooner Boomer]

I think it would be cool to use something like this LCD "light valve" as part of a bypass indication for a pedal

I wonder what the frequency response of the thing is? How fast can it switch on/off? Could it replace a vactrol?

[stallik]

Just ordered a small version. I'd like to make a light controller for Deadastro's LightWah. Would be nice to have an alternative treadle operation

[vigilante397]

...perhaps hiding and revealing a backlit sub-mini tube!   

Well you have my attention now I love this idea, and as soon as I get rid of the dozen finished pedals sitting in my closet that I'm supposed to sell I just may make that happen.

[PRR]

>>...use something like this LCD "light valve" as part of a bypass indication for a pedal
> I wonder what the frequency response of the thing is? How fast can it switch on/off?

"They're often used for electric welding helmets because they can protect the welder's eyes from the bright sparks."

Arc welding will burn your retinas VERY quick.

https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/9676413977984/Driving%20TN%20Shutters%20(Rev%203).pdf
http://www.liquidcrystaltechnologies.com/