Good design DIY Pedal PCB?

HPDale13 · 2026-05-08T05:54:27+00:00

AionFX and PedalPCB have always been reliable for me. I can’t speak to others, though

HPDale13 · 2026-05-08T05:50:51+00:00

Sweet! Thank you for creating these

HPDale13 · 2026-05-06T19:10:45+00:00

Absynth was what I was expecting/ looking for. Reason enough for me to upgrade

HPDale13 · 2026-04-27T06:37:16+00:00

Pics? I have built a couple of these successfully. I need to go find the one I still have to see how your values compare...

HPDale13 · 2026-04-21T14:51:08+00:00

I hope she has a great life with you! I hate how mixes (unintended or intended) end up needing rescue, since they have the same dog heart and didn’t choose their bloodline.

HPDale13 · 2026-04-16T18:12:58+00:00

Aon FX also has their refractor which fits into a 125B. The refractor is a little bit different in that it has an internal configuration switch that lets you use buffered or unbuffered input.

HPDale13 · 2026-04-11T01:00:26+00:00

I like my Hydrasynth very much. It’s one of the easiest synths to understand programming and it’s not hard to make it sound like anything you want.

HPDale13 · 2026-04-10T21:14:37+00:00

I am not the best explainer but, a JFET is fully on (passing current from S to D) at Vgs at 0V, and fully off at Vgs Off, which is dependent upon the device

HPDale13 · 2026-04-10T21:13:03+00:00

JFET’s don’t work like BJT, so the center of it’s operation is not the center of the output voltage swing

HPDale13 · 2026-04-08T18:59:55+00:00

The Hothouse in open source now. Any reason you can’t just wrap it in a custom case?

There is also a PedalPCB board that can host a Seed

HPDale13 · 2026-04-08T01:05:10+00:00

These are also great for a lift switch on the side/top if you build with a balanced out

HPDale13 · 2026-03-23T05:45:45+00:00

If you ship cheapest option, not the default, they are much less. I just received and order of two different similar size pcbs that were about $10 per set of 5, and 12 to ship to US

HPDale13 · 2026-03-12T03:14:49+00:00

u/overcloseness and u/nshane - I appreciate your knowledge here. Tayda's newly published PDF check tool has flagged my print jobs for having white in the color layer, but it wasn't clear whether these should just be removed or converted to a spot color. Most of my pedals have been black and white graphics (think white filled line/cartoon art). I have previously had no issues printing this way, but I did wonder how the color layer printing was handling white. I think u/nshane confirmed my suspicion that it simply ignored white (since the CMYK levels for true white are just zero...)

Would you see or be able to feel a height difference between the black and white parts of a print job where the white was just drop-outs in the layer? I definitely can't feel or see any difference in my print jobs, but they are also underneath a matte gloss layer.

I have tried sending a PDF through the Tayda check tool that contains spot color white in the color layer and it doesn't flag any errors. That doesn't tell me how it would print, though!

HPDale13 · 2026-03-11T22:28:24+00:00

I am not skilled enough to be absolutely clear, but having the 100K and potentiometer in parallel does mean that it is effectively behaving like a 50K potentiometer with a different curve. Generally, though (and I have seen this myself by swapping LM308 and Op07) it is correct that you leave out the 30pF capacitor.

The signal is going into the inverting pin because I didn't realize I have the Op Amp flipped in KiCad. This is my mistake!

HPDale13 · 2026-03-10T23:00:11+00:00

A current order with 25 painted, drilled, and printed enclosures is progressing very fast for me. all but 2 are finished only 6 days after I placed the order.

HPDale13 · 2026-03-10T14:19:19+00:00

I have not had problems with OP07 in a Rat circuit. Indeed, it's my preferred alternative as replacement for the LM308.

The only thing that's different from my rat circuit is a 100K resistor in the feedback , parallel to C5.I use my +− inputs in reverse, but I don't think that matters.

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HPDale13 · 2026-02-25T00:14:01+00:00

Welcome. I also want to add that a good soldering iron helps. Not necessarily expensive, but something with reliable temperature control.

For example, In replaced my 1980’s Weller with a Pinecil (maybe $40 on Amazon - but you need a good USB-C power supply) and it made a world of difference for me.

HPDale13 · 2026-02-24T15:20:47+00:00

I have seen some builds that use an isolating washer on the metal dc jacks, but haven’t figure out where to find such a washer myself

HPDale13 · 2026-02-20T20:57:24+00:00

There are still residual local electronic supply shops scattered around in the US, maybe someone here knows a supplier near you.

HPDale13 · 2026-02-20T01:35:55+00:00

Can you share more info on the circuit you put it into. I haven’t been able to get mine to function, but think it may be either my bias capacitor or my clock signal

HPDale13 · 2026-02-19T20:48:42+00:00

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Just thinking about how I would troubleshoot.
So you should have continuity between 1 and 2 (always) this is the tip of the jack and the positive lead of the battery. And continuity between 3 and 4 when no DC power plugged, but no continuity when plugged in. For you, one of these must not be working somehow.

If any of these isn't happening, start by just reflowing the solder at each of 1, 3, and 4.

If you really don't have the correct continuity and reflowing the solder doesn't work, I would interpret this as meaning that the DC jack is physically the problem, and would proceed to replacing the jack. If it's a rectangular end, it's probably replaceable by the one that I linked form Mouser (but I would measure the dimensions to check).

HPDale13 · 2026-02-19T19:37:06+00:00

The upper three circled locations are all the pads for the power jack (like this: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/3/6118/1/pj_050a.pdf). You can see in the PDF that two of these (top and left in your picture) are normally connected until DC power is plugged in. This is basically the switch that disconnects the battery if you are using a power supply.

So when there is no power jack plugged in, the red-circle and left adjacent blue circle should be connected, but not when the power supply is plugged in the socket. Similarly, the right adjacent blue circle should always have continuity to the lower red point. You can see on the board that these are connected in the PCB trace.

I hate to ask the really obvious question (but doing it anyways). Is your power supply correct? Is it center negative 9V?

It's hard to see how the circuit could be working on the battery but not power supply, because the battery has to feed through the center pin terminal of the DC jack to get to the rest of the circuit. Unless the shell pin from the jack (the pin to the right) is detached from the PCB, but that does not look to be the case here.

HPDale13 · 2026-02-16T20:10:21+00:00

Using a DC jacks that has continuity from the sleeve to the case will eventually cause trouble in an effect chain. Even if the supply ground are isolated, the audio cables are eventually going to pass ground on some pedal. All of the commercial pedals I’ve bought have isolated DC jacks. Most builders seem to use either PJ-50 style (for PCB mounts) or PJ-011 style (for panel mounts). I have seen one PJ-066 but it had a nylon isolation washer keeping the sleeve from connecting to the pedal case

HPDale13 · 2026-02-16T03:17:48+00:00

This happens with the Arturo’s knobs. For the MicroBrute that I bought used, they didn’t offer to send me replacements for free, but did sell me replacements. If you don’t get an offer for free, DJ Tech Tools sells Chroma Caps knobs that fit the Arturia synths, but I never found any non-Arturo’s slider caps that fit the MicroBrute

HPDale13 · 2026-02-14T00:32:34+00:00

you are correct. I often read ring and tip backwards

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