T.I.P. 3rd Hand

[carrejans]

Has anyone tried one of these? I never saw one.

http://www.toneinprogress.com/index.html

Here is a video with Paul Gilbert using one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cex2znTms8


Will it be easy do diy, you think? 

[Evad Nomenclature]

That's a pretty neato trick, i've seen them mentioned before but never seen one in action.  cool stuff.

[iaresee]

Cool but not always fool proof. This little gem of idea came courtesy of (I think) Brian Wampler's email update for Indy-Guitarist.com: The Option Knob.

That's my pick for 2008's "why didn't I think of that?" product -- simple, elegant, brilliant.

[carrejans]

Cool but not always fool proof. This little gem of idea came courtesy of (I think) Brian Wampler's email update for Indy-Guitarist.com: The Option Knob.

That's my pick for 2008's "why didn't I think of that?" product -- simple, elegant, brilliant.

That's even simple to make yourself.
Demo of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZVBtaiKtKM&feature=PlayList&p=2F8032185FEC341C&index=0&playnext=1

But the 3rd hand is more handy, I think.
How do you think this 3rd hand works? Plain simple mechanics, or is there some kind of motor involved?

[gez]

They were around many years ago, but went out of production.  I think it was EH who manufactured the originals.

They work like those flexi-shaft accessories you can buy for a drill: inner core of wire revolves around in a plastic sheath.  Stick that to a gearing mechanism and away you go...

[ayayay!]

I think that "Option Knob" would break my pot shafts off in no time, especially with most pedals using cheaper pots nowadays.   

[iaresee]

But the 3rd hand is more handy, I think.
How do you think this 3rd hand works? Plain simple mechanics, or is there some kind of motor involved?

It's a rotating shaft like a dentists drill. The one I had would stick on a rather frequent basis. It'd just seize up during travel. It's too delicate to force. You had to gently work it lose.

[Mark Hammer]

They were around many years ago, but went out of production.  I think it was EH who manufactured the originals.

They work like those flexi-shaft accessories you can buy for a drill: inner core of wire revolves around in a plastic sheath.  Stick that to a gearing mechanism and away you go...

The original was the E-H Hot Foot.  I had one at the time (late 70's) and used it in a band.  The target app for it was really the E-H Memory Man.  By working the delay time control with your foot, you could do in analog what the Digitech Whammy came to do digitally a generation later.

There were several flaws in the original E-H design which the TIP version has nicely overcome:

• The HF had the flexible shaft come out the side, which meant that you could not place the pedal under control very close to the HF, since the cable would not turn corners very easily.
• The amount of torque on that cable was substantial, which meant that the pedal under control either had to weigh a lot (like the E-H MM), or be secured.  If not, the pedal would simply flip right over when you went to rotate the control with the HF.  I used mine to control the output level on my cheap little Univox Compressor, so that it could function like a volume pedal and overdrive in one.  The Univox pedal was light and small enough to be easily flipped.  Fortunately, even though I did not have a pedal-board per se, I used those straight solid male-to-male adaptors to link up the 3 MXR pedals that came after the compressor.  Together, they had enough combined weight to "resist the flip".
• The means of attaching the cable end to the pot was a big wing nut.  This meant that the knobs had to be spaced relatively far apart or else you simply would not have room to attach the cable.  Most certainly, no HF would even begin to be usable with any of today's Boss or DOD pedals or Z-Vex, or any pedal that stuck 3+ knobs on a 1590B package, or 4+ on a 1590BB.  Of course, at the time, many of E-H's pedals came with only one knob (e.g., Small Stone), or else had controls well spaced, as on the Memory Man or Electric Mistress.

The TIP version has the cable extend out the top, which eases cable tension and torque (reducing the flip factor), and uses a smaller cable end that permits use on today's more cramped pedals.

[carrejans]

Nobody who has a diy tip? 

[earthtonesaudio]

Tip#1:
The total range of travel of the foot rocker must result in the exact range of rotation you want for the knob under control.  Too little range and you don't get the full use of it, too much range and you might snap the shaft off the knob (ouch).

You could do this perfectly with correct gear ratios, precision machining, etc... but a simple & easy DIY hack would be to use a rubber slip joint (like an O-ring) between the pot shaft and the foot rocker somewhere.  That way if you rock too far, it just slips without damaging anything, and you can still get the full range of travel.  You would still want to be reasonably accurate though.

[Mark Hammer]

The original E-H Hot Foot simply attached the flexible shaft inside the unit to the shaft of a pot, and used a regular rack-and-pinion arrangement to move it around.  So the rotation of the flexible shaft was exactly the same as the intended rotation of the pot at the other end.  The only caveat was that the free end of the flexible shaft had to be secured to thepot under control such that it did not force that pot to move too far.  But that's a matter of use, not design.