Interesting Enclosure....Need help deciding what to put inside it...

[Sir_Ian]

Here is an inside and outside pic.





This is a Logitech plastic enclosure. Its a gas and break pedal for PC racing games. I found it at Savers today (a sort of goodwill-esque store). I bought it for 2.99 not knowing what was inside. I was very pleasantly surprised with what I found. Each pedal is hooked up to a 10k pot. (I'm guessing linear, but not a 100% sure). The travel on the pots is a little different but roughly from 9.5k to 2k....Meaning measuring from the center lug to an outside lug A, the ohms range from 9.5k to 2k. And inversely from the middle lug to outside lug B, the travel is from 8k to .5k. Anyways....thats about right.

Each pedal has its own pot. and is spring loaded. So it won't sit in a middle spot like a crybaby will. If I take my foot off of it....it goes all the way up.(like driving a car). So this means unless I am sitting or grow a third leg....I can only control one pedal at once.  So I'm thinking of putting two effects in, and I need ideas.....I need pedals where the foot control would be interesting to use. I thought about a kay fuzztone and tremelo...but am kinda leaning against it. For one...the pot in the tremelo is 1 k, and there is no easy way for me to swap out the 10k for a different pot. So this means the pot that I'm controling in the effect should be in the range of 10k. I can always put a bigger resistor in parallel to get a greater resistance pot, but then my response it not so linear.

Other things I was considering. I don't have a lotta room in this thing....so the circuit needs to be kinda small. I was thinking of maybe using the pot as a wet/dry blend for an effect. I also need to find  a way to true bypass this, but I don't think I have any room for a 3pdt on this. if there is a way to do it so the second I start pressing down....it turns on a little...that would be cool, but i'm ok with pressing it on then manipulating with the pedal. Also....this pedal can be two effects in one, with both on or both off...or maybe i should have two on offs so it acts like two pedals in series. I just need some cool ideas. One last note on this....I play the bass, and I would like this to be geared towards the bass, but it does not need to be bass specific. I would like it to be original, but not a one trick pony effect....but feel free to suggest the one trick pony...who knows....that might be whats best.

On a separate note. I know i need to put aluminum foil in it to shield it. If I do two effects....Do i need to do two separate power supplies...or will that create a ground loop. If I can only have one 9v hookup...that means both effects will have to run off 9v, so 9 volts needs to be powerful enough to power both.

Thanks for the help...and I look forward to some great ideas.

[cpm]

just make an expression pedal out of them
this way you get simple electronics, no need for bypass or jacks, and no shielding.

[sean k]

I think I'd tend towards a distortion pedal and use the pots to control various parts of that. Maybe one pot could sit on ground with some LED's above it on the signal out and the could take away resistance to ground and so add graunch while the other pot could be on the tone leg to ground on the feedback and change the roll off of treble, bass boost. With about 10k to play with you wanna be controlling something that doesn't mind being on ground while also being a bit off it makes a difference. That makes me think of high pass and low pass filters and diodes.

[sean k]

Good golly, It's all in the diode warp thread. I suppose I'll go back on the forum and the next thread that interests me will be about changing resistance in filters...

[DougH]

Good idea. I've got an old steering wheel and gas/brake pedal from an obsolete racing game. I might have to take a look at that...

Thanks for the idea!

[John Lyons]

Mark Hammer posted about these game controllers a while back.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=69992.0

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=9737.0

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=9489.0

john

[Sir_Ian]

Mark Hammer wrote:

In one sense, the spring-return could be seen as a nuisance. After all, what self-respecting wah shell has a spring-return? Then it occurred to me that if a microswitch was mounted under the heel of the treadle, and used to enable a solid-state switch, you could have instant switching. Put your foot on the treadle and the effect is enabled once you start to push forward. Lift your foot off the treadle and the effect is disengaged.

Thats from a different topic on the same subject. I'm puzzled on how this microswitch would work. Would it be DPDT, or could a SPST momentary somehow trigger a DPDT for true bypass. I'm not interested in having an LED...especially if it is foot rocker activated....

I'm not sure I'm gonna have it foot rocker activated....but it is worth looking into. So any ideas on how to do this?

As far as what to put in this....the distortion idea sounded good. Using the pedal to change the clipping....cool idea.

One idea I had was to put a green ringer in there...or something to that effect....and use the 10k pot as a wet dry blend...so the more I pressed down...the more green ringer you would hear. Is a 10k pot big enough to be used as a blend pot. Or would I basically always hear both effects?

[Sir_Ian]

called up my guitarist brother today for ideas.....He said Octave up. So i was planning to build a green ringer anyways...is this the project for it? If so...it would depend on if a 10k pot can be used for blend....any ideas of how the second 10k pot could be used in the green ringer.

The big discovery is that I was playing with the thing....and I can manipulate both pedals at once with one foot....it isn't quite "natural" but i can.

So...if I do do an octave....is there a better one that the green ringer. Octavia maybe?

I personally am leaning towards the distortion still. I have a schematic for a 3 knob one.

Anyhows...thanks for the current ideas...and please...send me more. More the merrier. I've tried to think alot of ideas out, but there are always  things I don't. thanks

[Sir_Ian]

Ok. I think I've decided on a distortion to put in it. I'm going to use the "bass overdrive" designed by mnordbye. (I might change my mind...but either way...this is what I'm leaning towards).

I'm also going to try and use the 10k pot as a blend. Anybody have a reason why this wouldn't work?!? But in order to do this I need to buffer the signal and have a clean channel and a distortion channel.  I was looking at moosapotamus's "paralooper" circuit. http://www.moosapotamus.net/THINGS/paraloop/paralooperSCH.gif

Since there is not a lot of room in my enclosure....I need to cut out the "unnecessaries." So much question is....Do I need the 4th opamp stage after the blend. I'm looking at it and it appears to just be a gain stage and a volume to cut it back. Any good reasons I would want to keep it? thanks.

[asfastasdark]

This would be extremely helpful for a killswitch pedal, seriously. 

[earthtonesaudio]

Feedback pedal, because that's probably something you'd only want to be "on" part of the time, for expressive feedback effects.  The spring will keep you from accidentally leaving it on, squalling away.

[Sir_Ian]

I dont' know if anybody is really paying much attention, but in case there are those curious on my progress. Here is a little update.

I've decided on a circuit to put in there. MgNordbye's bass overdrive. Heres the schematic. http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/mnordbye/own_creations/mnordbye_schematics/bassdrive.png.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

I happened to be looking to build a good overdrive while I found this enclosure...and I had this schematic...and since one of the first suggestions was a distortion....I breadboarded this. Now my orignal Idea was to have a built in paralooper or something of the sort and blend in the distortion with the clean. But after breadboarding this....I found this unnessary.

If you look at the schematic, you will see a 1k GAIN control. The great thing about this control is that it allows you to go from a overdive to a distortion. For those with a tubescreamer...this control is kinda like the drive. But what makes this control so ideal for my current application, is that unlike the drive control on a TS, this control doesn't increase or deacrease the volume output that much. So I can twist and turn this gain control without having to conpensate by turning the volume knob.

So I'm going to build this schem and put it in my enclosure and use the pedal to give sudden increases of fuzz over a nice overdrive.

OK!!!! thats one pedal down. Now I was trying to rig up the other 10k pot on the other footpedal to do some cool tone shaping or something. So maybe when I pressed it in, I cut out a bunch a low end for a lot of highs. However, with 10k, I just couldn't really get the play I was looking for.

But I also just breadboarded an octave up circuit here that somebody posted. I decide to try it because my Brother's original Idea was an octave up. Schematic here -> http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71134.0

One of the key reasons I like this octave up is because it has like 6 components...and I'm cramped on space. It also sounded rather nice, also adding quite some fuzz.

Now the problem is just trying to figure how I want to add it on (if its reasonably possible). I might try and merge it on the overdrive. Or I might have it standalone (circuit wise).

I tried using a 10 pot to blend a dry and wet signal with the octave up. (i cheated...not using any buffering...which definately why my experiment failed miserably.) But I'm not sure buffering would help a ton. I guess my idea is to use the pedal so it gradually blends in the octave up with the regular signal untill all you hear is octave up and no octave down. Once again...only having a 10 k pot to use as a blend...I'm not sure this is feasible. Everywhere I look I see 100k pots or larger being used for blend.

What I might do is just use a reed switch to turn the octave circuit on or off, which would mean there would be no gradual incline and 10 pot on one of the pedals wouldn't be used...oh well. So the second you step on it or maybe once its all the way down...it octaves...this will probably be the route I go.

So I've never used a reed switch. Can I just make my own. And I use it to trigger a flip flop circuit? Or can I just use to reed switchs that would act like true bypass and run my signal through the reed switches....or since its two switch is there a possiblity for millisecond misconnection problems? (as I'm writing this...I'm thinking I'll need a flip flop circuit) So does anybody have any good working flip flop circuits that are low on parts.

THANKS EVERYBODY

As for the guy who suggested killswitch. I would see where this would be cool...maybe the next one....I really just want an effect. And for the feedback. I'd be really tempted to do this if it were for a guitarist, but since I play bass....I don't know.....it just doesn't seem as useful.

thanks for ideas and the interest.