Dyna Red Distortion

Dyna Red Distortion

                                                 Click me for audio

During the holiday season I wanted to make a few distortion pedals for gifts. 

I found the Dyna Red Distortion to be a great distortion that cleans up very nice just in case they were more of an overdrive person. 

I order from Tayda Electronics

I usually order from Tayda Electronics. They have most of the components I need and very good prices. Pots, enclosures, and Jacks are the cheapest I've found.

Cutting the Veroboard, cutting tracks, and adding links

Regular piece of Veroboard, some people paint the vero board to give it a better look. 
I leave it blank for now but in the future I might paint them.

My Japanese flush cut saw gives me accurate cuts by doing back-stokes only and cuts very fast.

I used to drill completely through the board to make cuts but I found it looks odd to me. 
To make the track cuts I use a drill bit slightly larger than the strip and drill lightly, I then clean it up with an xacto knife. 

For links I use 24AWG hookup wire. To get a clean twist I strip it then chuck it into my drill while holding the other end with pliers. I then tin the entire strip. 

I first start with the Op amp then resistors. The opamp here was a CA3130. From what I have read it is wise to socket your IC just in case. I take my time with resistors to make sure I'm using the right value. 

I then start with my taller components. I socket the L.E.D because I wanted to experiment with different MCD ratings and found that brighter Green L.E.D.s gave me harsher clipping. I also socket the JFET. 

Capacitors are left for last because they are the tallest especially the Electrolitic.

Now I have a fully populated board ready to go

One final check for any bridges 

2014 Chimbolo fx begins

Welcome to Chimbolo fx, this blog will be dedicated to Guitar and Bass Effect Pedal builds. 

Late last year I began to modify my pedals. I started with a Boss DS-1 by preforming the Keeley mods. After a few tries I finally got it to work. I then modded a TS-9, Crybaby wah, and an MXR classic overdrive. Once I finished the Classic Overdrive I was out of pedals to mod and I did not want to buy anymore. I began to research pedal building and found out there were many sites and resources for Strip board layouts. My first build was  a cut down version of a Woolly Mammoth.

 

                                                              I only had an Ipod case for an enclosure.

Building that pedal was great experience. I have built 8 pedals since that Woolly Mammoth and with everyone I keep learning more.

Within this blog you will see my attempts at building pedals and  step by step descriptions of how I did it.