circuit bent projects into guitar pedals!

[timd]

Has anyone turned a circuit bent (if you are unfamiliar with this, google it) piece into a guitar pedal? I just turned a toy Hanna Montana guitar into a distortion/oscillation monster with true bypass. It had echo to it, but I managed to fry that in the circuit bending process! I'll upload pics to this thread soon. Most anything that has an obvious input and output (or speaker) can be used as long as you get the proper voltages right. If anyone has done this, what have you used?

[CynicalMan]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=88371.0

[LucifersTrip]

Has anyone turned a circuit bent (if you are unfamiliar with this, google it) piece into a guitar pedal? I just turned a toy Hanna Montana guitar into a distortion/oscillation monster with true bypass. It had echo to it, but I managed to fry that in the circuit bending process! I'll upload pics to this thread soon. Most anything that has an obvious input and output (or speaker) can be used as long as you get the proper voltages right. If anyone has done this, what have you used?

I've circuit bent tons of stuff (that was my gateway to pedals), but haven't turned any into pedals.  All the stuff I've done
generates their own sound, so there's no input...just an small output speaker that I remove and replace with a 1/4" jack.

what are good examples of toys that have an input....and don't just make a sound by pushing a button?   The one posted by CynicalMan  is one, but that's not common to find.

[timd]

I have to give you props - that is really cool!

[timd]

I have also made stuff out of toys and used the speaker output for the 1/4 jack. Many toys have an mic input, which is (almost?) always the mini jack and needs to be modified to 1/4. The Hanna Montana toy guitar had this mic input, and a echo knob with that input (fried it!!). I disconnected the cheezy songs circuitry and bent it for distortion/oscillation and on some settings it sounds like the random number generator pedal!

Just go to the thrift store and see what they have!

Here's a thought that I have had often? How hard would it be to "manufacture" an input on a device that doesn't have one? Is this just a crazy waste of time?

[emstin1]

You'd have to go through the circuit and find areas of it that could take external audio...any circuit with Ann audio amp ala the lm386 could theoretically take an audio source...a guitar signal may require some boosting.  Again this is all theoretical, YMMV.

[petey twofinger]

i have 2 of those sitting here , looking for more too . they also have a similar barbie model , saw one today , with echo but it was 3 bux

i made a lil echo box outta one , i had 3 , i added delay time / feedback pots . i just run it on my "sound system" mp3 player , sub and total of 76 spkrs wrth sub . you have to tweak the delay for every song , and some it doesnt sound great but some tunes it just kills .

really curious about how you bent it . i sent you an email , lemme know if you didnt get it . i basicly beg you for a demo video , pics , pinouts , diagrams , all info reasonably possible ! ireally do not want to fry anything . i have before , and i cant forgive myself when that happens .

i was gonna make some mini echo amps and sell em , but maybe doing a goofy pedal would be more "practical" heh .

thatnks for sharing man !!

now i am stoked , but i got tons of stuff lined up here ...

[LucifersTrip]

I have also made stuff out of toys and used the speaker output for the 1/4 jack. Many toys have an mic input, which is (almost?) always the mini jack and needs to be modified to 1/4. The Hanna Montana toy guitar had this mic input, and a echo knob with that input (fried it!!). I disconnected the cheezy songs circuitry and bent it for distortion/oscillation and on some settings it sounds like the random number generator pedal!

Just go to the thrift store and see what they have!

I actually have tons (50+) toys in boxes that I never got around to mutilating....Fuzz pedals took over. I'll see what I have that can be destroyed.

Here's a thought that I have had often? How hard would it be to "manufacture" an input on a device that doesn't have one? Is this just a crazy waste of time?

not at all...I'm sure it's possible, but a better understanding of electronics would help...or just go the circuit bending way...trial an error.

[LucifersTrip]

You'd have to go through the circuit and find areas of it that could take external audio...any circuit with Ann audio amp ala the lm386 could theoretically take an audio source...a guitar signal may require some boosting.  Again this is all theoretical, YMMV.

Almost all the toys have a "brain" (a black formed "dome", probably covering a chip. It seems that most of the stored sounds originate there). Other than that, there's just a bunch of transistors, resistors, caps & diodes.

I pulled a couple transistors from baby toy a while ago and made an excellent Fuzz Face that all my friends chose over the one I made with BC108's...funny

[timd]

I've run into the "black blob" more times than not when circuit bending. I suppose you could connect a sound source to a 1/4 female jack, connect the sleeve to circuit ground and start prodding traces coming out of the blob with a wire connected to the 1/4 tip until you hear something. Anyone?

[timd]

Getting back to that bending toys with mic input, and speaker output for guitar pedals, I really wish there was a way to take a cheap keyboard with mic input and make a pedal out of it that would let you scroll through all the preset noises (keys, horns, etc) and process the guitar with those - much like the Saxxy in the above post.

Is is even remotely possible??? As far as I can tell, the mic inputs usually bypass this part of the circuit.

[timd]

One word of caution though - if making a 9v guitar pedal out of one of these circuits, make sure you get the voltages right! I had to use a pot and trimmer for my project to step it down from a 9 volts to 6.

[timd]

Pics!!!

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[timd]

http://s1075.photobucket.com/albums/w429/timd33/?action=view&current=DSC04875.jpg

[timd]

check out the photobucket album for more pics of this project! Ask with any questions..

[petey twofinger]

really cautious about blowing one of these boards up . i do have a camera with a macro lens . i could upload some close ups of the board later . did you add any components besides pots ?
how many pots did you add ?
what value are the pots ?
how many bends did you find ?
how would  you describe each bends "function" or effect .
anyway if i upload some nice macro images you could , say use paint or another imaging program to highlight the bend points on the pcb ?

i have seen diagrams like this before , i know its kind of a lot of work . i at least would try and get some really nice images for you to start working with .it would be nice because i have seen these guitars a LOT lately . i am guessing they came out last christmas and were very affordable , cause i have purchased 5 . one is converted into an echo unit . the others i was going to make into mini echo amps .

BUT if these mods are cool ... i would lov to bend it , but like i said i am a lil worried about frying anything , having the bend points as a reference would be a super cool time saver !!

think about it . thanks , pete .

[petey twofinger]

first let me make a few UN-necessary comments .

where did you get that chassis and what was it originally ? it looks like there is a thermos holder inside there ! but then its all scratched up like a squirrel was trying to escape . maybe that thermos holder was for his water bottle ? `i know its nice to have lotsa room to work , but damn . a frugal squirrel could  stash enough nuts and grubs to  last the winter in there ! dont get me wrong , i HATE spending $ on housings .i got some kiddie lunch boxs (for an lpb-1 maybe?) and this wooden  duck game box called quack quack that i made into a cmoss synth so who am i to yammer .  

second observation ; is that an old TV tuner knob ? how long was that sitting in your junk drawer ? the only reason i bring this up is cause I did the same thing on one of my mini amps . it was from my grammas old B+W 7 1/5 inch zenith . that thing got moved around to like 5 houses over the period of 30 plus years before it finally found its home . its my favorite feature on the amp . sure i hacked 2 dano pedals and an amp board to make it , BUT I'LL BE DARNED IF I'M GONNNA POP .49 CENTS FOR A KNOB ....   jusat imagine getting dragged outta retirement to a SH**TIER job after takin it easy for 35 years  

i LOVE how you re-used the OEM H.M. knobs though . i swapped em out on my hacka montanna echo unit only cause i had a matching set from grammas emmerson eight track . those are gonna be worth some $$ someday , i kid .

on to image 18 . whats in the salad bowl , ceasers apc ? forest mimms ate out that salad bowl every day for 23 years till widlar threw it out the window in a jealous rage . ( i heard mimms replaced (drunk) widlars analog micronta vom with a walmart digital multimeter after spilling thousand islad in the vu meter )

ok all attempts at geek humor aside , i put my glasses on and looked a little harder at the images .

i am seeing (prolly wrong though) 2 pots for bends , then one that looks like its for voltage .

one pot has one wire going to a middle lug on an onboard pot , and the other wire coming off of that first bend pot goes to a pin on the chip ?

same thing for the other bend pot but it is going to a different onboard pot , middle lug , then a different pin on the same chip ?

which pins are they ? are they "end" pins ?

whats the number on the chip ?

did you add any components besides pots ?

what value are the pots ?

how many bends did you find ?

how would  you describe each bends "function" or effect .

how would you describe the effects of the bends ?

sorry about the first 5 paragraphs , please let me know how wrong i am / how much i missed , and thanks for posting this info man !!

p.s. whats a stuttering stanley ?

[anchovie]

Is is even remotely possible??? As far as I can tell, the mic inputs usually bypass this part of the circuit.

The clue is in how the toy works unmodified! If you yell into the microphone on a toy keyboard, you hear your yelling come back through the little speaker(s). It doesn't turn your voice into a piano/trumpet/harpsichord.

[timd]

Petey Twofinger - I'll be explaining the whole thing is stages tonight, but I did want to say before I forgot that I took the cap's and resoldered them on the underside of the board. There was no room to mount the original pots with those things sticking up like they were. Next time, I think I'll take the pots off the board entirely.

[timd]

Is is even remotely possible??? As far as I can tell, the mic inputs usually bypass this part of the circuit.

The clue is in how the toy works unmodified! If you yell into the microphone on a toy keyboard, you hear your yelling come back through the little speaker(s). It doesn't turn your voice into a piano/trumpet/harpsichord.

This is great advice.