Pedalboard Build Report: In Progress

[sta63bmx]

Since I've built a fair assortment of pedals and hooking everything up is getting really annoying, I decided to go ahead and build a pedalboard.  These were my goals, not in order.

1. To have a pedaboard that would keep everything hooked up and contained in ONE SPOT so that I could just open it up and go (after plugging into the input jacks of the pedals).

2. To have a power supply contained on the pedalboard; I'm sick of buying batteries.

3. To have all the power wiring hidden underthe board somewhere.

4. To have enough room for maybe 6-8 pedals, a crybaby, my A/B box, and the tuner.

5. To have the pedalboard protect all of the pedals, but give me quick and easy access so I could set up and go quickly.

6. To have a little bit of additional storage for picks, fuses, fast fret, strings, my handy scrwedriver, and maybe some tubes.

7. To have a pedalboard that would take a severe beating!

So I figured I'd build a heavy-duty would box that either opened with hinges or had a lift-off top.  I planned on mounting all the pedals to a slightly elevated board so I could run all the power wires under the board.  I had some scrap aluminum in the lab, so I had a piece cut to what I thought would be an appropriate size.  The rest of it is all made from plywood.  Top and bottom are 3/4" poplar plywood, shorter sides are 1/2" oak plywood, and the longer sides are 3/4" cherry plywood.  That was what I had at hand in convenient sizes to make this.  The small wood cleats for locating the bottom relative to the top are oak so they'll take a beating.  Nielsen latches (dunno if they're still in business, left over from a job my dad did when I was just a kid), and the handle is a $3 farm store special.   To the pictures...

The Box



It's kinda hard to tell, but the half-inch sides are on the right and left here (the front has the handle, back is opposite that).  I screwed through the face of them into the edges of the 3/4" material.  The box is pretty solid, but not too heavy.  Even fully loaded, it should be easy to carry by the handle.  When it stands up on edge it's at the perfect "pickup" height.  I still have to ease the corners with a router and then I'm gonna sand it all and either paint it black or stain it a really, really dark color to hide the fact that it's all different plywood.

The Box Opened



The cleats there locate the top relative to the bottom as you close it up.  There's a little play, but only a very little.  The edges on the cleats are eased so it all slips together easier.  The cleats are about 3/4" thick.

Aluminum Pedalboard and Power Supply



Here you can see the aluminum board and the probably power supply location.  The big black wart is the one discussed in the Giant Wall Wart Thread.  It supplies AC to the silver box, which contains my rectification/filtering/regulation circuitry.  It's nothing fancy, just two parallel recto-filter-LM317 circuits, one for 18V, one for 9V.  It's not all finished yet, but there will be a power switch and indicator light for each voltage.  The transformer I'll just plug in, and it will probably be velcroed down.  I want to be able to take it off the board, though, because it has long cords for AC in and out, so I probably wouldn't need an extension cord to run this thing.  The aluminum is listed as 0.190" thick, and it's 23.5" by 15", so it's decently heavy duty.

Empty Board



This is a little closer view of the board itself.  One small strike against the board is that with the 3/4" base and the aluminum just above those cleats, the pedalboard "zero height" is already almost 2" off the floor.  I don't know how to get around that if I want all the power wiring UNDER the board.  I could use shorter cleats, I suppose.  But I might not mind the pedalboard height.  I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, if it hasn't been bombed out of existence.  The empty space at the top right is going to be my storage location.  I might put a little tackle box-style container there to hold picks.  Not sure how I'm gonna do the rest.  A little midget lunchbox-size container might do it.  But it has to latch and keep everything under wraps so it doesn't spill.  The REAL bummer is that I can't finalize all the pedal locations yet because...I DON'T HAVE ALL THE PEDALS IN FINAL HOUSINGS AND SOME AREN'T EVEN BUILT!

*insert tearing out hair not-so-smiley here*

We have a show next Saturday.  And I'm still NOWHERE close to being done with everything I wanted to do.  I have parts on the way from Mouser, and they're supposed to be here Tuesday.  We have practice Tuesday, Wednesday, and probably Friday at the venue.  That means I won't have the final version of this rig until Wednesday ("If I'm LUCKY!" -Mitch Hedberg-) and then I'll have two practices to shake it down.  If I'm lucky.  Maybe only one.  That part is frustrating.

Rant Ahead

I have been building pedals in steel-stud enclosures for a while because it's a cheap way to audition pedals before committing to a nice enclosure and spending money.  Mine are not sturdy enough for the rigors of live playing, and even though they've held up *pretty* well I'm still having some issues occasionally.  On top of that, I'm still kind of undecided on a low-gain overdrive, and I want a second clean boost.  So this is what I need to have done by Wednesday, and the starred items I can't complete until I receive parts.

1. Finish up the pedalboard box: mount the aluminum, ease the corners, sand it, and probably just paint it black. I'd like to stencil it with our name.

2. Finish the pedalboard power supply: power switches, status LEDs, screw silver box to pedalboard, velcro transformer to pedalboard.

3. Rehouse MXR Microamp, BSIABII, possibly Blue Magic in new boxes (gonna involve me cutting some aluminum plates for the ends and some 2-in-1 boxes, but nice ones like my EM box). ***waiting on quality jacks

4. Build Fetzer Valve as second clean boost and put it in a good box. ***waiting on jacks, pots, trimpots

5. Build Professor Tweed as low-gain OD and put it in a good box. I would like to audition it against the Blue Magic and decide which one to house/rehouse.***waiting on jacks, pots, trimpots, mica caps

6. Make my patch cables. ***waiting on cable ends

ARGH!  I have spent the past couple months fixing all my cousin's stuff and he STILL doesn't know what he wants to use.  I shoulda started this a few weeks ago.  Ok, I'm done whining.  I'm gonna go play a tiny violin now.

[sta63bmx]

Well, at least now it's painted and the aluminum is mounted.  It's getting close!  My parts should be here this evening, so I'm preparing for a LATE night of work.  We do have a practice on Friday, so at least I'll have a chance to run through everything.  I'll also try running a fan in the back of my small Ampeg to see if I can keep that crackle at bay.  I'm betting on a resistor, because that amp runs super hot.  Anyways.

Closed View



I think it just looks way better with a coat of black spraypaint.  Plain plywood is so...well. 

Open View



I mounted four small wood blocks that are barely taller than the cleats that locate the top when you close it all up.  These blocks are screwed into the bottom plate, and then I put four holes in the plate and screwed it to those blocks.  That way I can take it out and put it back and if I ruin the threads in the block I can make a new one instead of having the hole in the bottom of the box stripped out.  It's nice and sturdy.  I've got about 3/4" under the aluminum for running cords.  It looks big when it's just the box, but it doesn't look big when I can see the aluminum like this.

With Stencil



I hate cutting out stencils.  But it's nice to break up all the black.  There's some overspray but I don't care.  Well!  I'm getting there.  I have to get and cut some 2" wide aluminum stock today to finish up my "new" boxes.  I am going to double up some effects but I'm still completely undecided as to HOW I'm gonna do it. 

[Eric H]

I don't understand how the wire-routing works. Are you going to cut slots , or holes in the aluminum?

-Eric

[sta63bmx]

That's a good question and I wish I had a good answer.   You're thinking what I'm thinking, though.  I am going to plce the pedals and see about how I want it laid out, and then I'm going to see if I can lay out a pattern of holes for my DC power wiring.  The power supply will be at the top of the board and the wiring will run from there underneath the aluminum and then I'll drill one hole for each place I'm going to bring a cord up.  Then for each pedal I'll fish a DC power cable up through the hole and plug it in.  I can get away with small holes for that, so that will be cool.  I think for now I'm gonna run my audio cables on top of the board.

I'm using metal right angle plugs (the sort of flat  kind) so I am gonna leave them on top so I don't have to drill big holes for them.  I will have it drilled and fully populated by the end of the week, so I guess we'll see how I did then.   I would prefer to mill slots in there, but I can't really get a favor like that for free, and it's not worth the hassle to me. 

I think I'm going to make a special spot for the crybaby on one side or the other (probably the right side since I'm right-footed) and get it mounted, and then get my A/B box to the tuner mounted, and work the rest around it.  I'm looking at other people's pedalboard for ideas.  Here's the pedals that will be on there...

Crybaby
Blue Magic
Prof. Tweed
BSIABII
Fetzer Valve
Microamp
A/B box (out to tuner)

The microamp will go first to buffer the chain, and it'll be set for unity gain or real close.  The other OD pedals, I'm not real picky, but I'll probably have the Prof. Tweed last in case I wanna use it as more of a boost.  The Fetzer Valve will go dead last to boost the amp.  Ok, so I do have a specific order.  I didn't know until now.  Thanks for making me think about it.  That makes sense now.  OK.  I got it now.

A/B box -> Microamp -> Blue Magic -> BSIABII -> Crybaby -> Prof Tweed -> Fetzer Valve

So the Blue Magic and BSIAB will be paired in one larger enclosure and then the Prof. Tweed and Fetzer Valve will be paired in one larger enclosure.  Awesome.  And the Microamp will go into a better enclosure on its own.  It's actually a Distortion plus with a "no diode" option that is almost identical to the Microamp except for a few values.  It does the same thing.  I want it to be a separate pedal because I use it by itself all the time for clean stuff.  GREAT.  This will work awesome.  Awesomely.

Thanks for being the catalyst, Eric. lol  Now I have a plan. 

[Eric H]

Thanks for being the catalyst, Eric. lol  Now I have a plan. 

Haha --no problem. What you've built so far looks great.

-Eric

[Somicide]

It reminds me of the case my clarinet is in, if only it had corner protecters (which I think would be pretty bitchin'  )

[sta63bmx]

Clarinet: "Never had one lesson." -Ferris Bueller's Day Off-

I want some corner protectors for the top.  The only bummer is that the bottom piece is JUST 3/4" plywood, so I don't know if I could fit a corner protector on there.  Time to start rehousing pedals and getting it all ready for Friday.

[David]

If you rout some channels in your plywood base, your wiring could go in there and that would lower the "crawlspace" height under your aluminum pedalboard plate.

[sta63bmx]

I didn't think of that, David.  If the current pedalboard height becomes an issue (the aluminum is about 1.5" or 38mm off the ground) I could do that.  Right now the aluminum piece is big enough that it comes out over the top of the four cleats I'm using to locate the top of the box relative to the bottom when I put it together, but if I cut it down about 3/4" in width, it would tuck down in there.

The one downside to the boxes I'm using like the one below is that they're a little tall, about 1 7/8" or 48mm. 



The sides are aluminum extrusion and the top and bottom slide into slots in the extrusion.  Once you put caps on the ends to hold it all together, you have a nifty little box.  I'd rather have some of those Toadworks boxes or something like that, but this stuff was free.  I paid about $11 for enough material to make endcaps for three boxes, so figure each box is costing me about four bucks.  And I'm usually doubling up effects in each box to save space, so each box goes a long way.

I really enjoy it when other people point out something I didn't think of, because you can always use more ideas.  I have a full wood shop at my disposal, but I could use some more machine tools.

[sta63bmx]

I thought I originally posted this in the lounge.    if I posted it here on accident, I'm sorry about that.