I was making a small tube amp with Domen, having everything bought and all, when he came to me with another proposition: with few friends they have a gig at Jakec Scouts orienteering championship and they would like to get some low cost guitar effects. I've told him that the enclosure is usually one of the costliest parts of a pedal , so we settled to put them all in one enclosure. I had a sturdy powder painted enclosure from a 19' rack switch and we decided to repurpose it for that project. To prove it can stand stress I stepped on the enclosure - it bent, but only because I've already tampered with its frontplate.
Next question was what to put inside - which effects would they like to have. As a center we choose Jed's "Klon" (which I wanted to build for quite a lot of time) - I saw it useful to serve as a buffer and as overdrive. Before we planned to put a boost - I've made some LPB-1s before (with added switch to change it to a "Screeming bird" - it really just takes to switch both coupling caps) and even had a Tube town PCB for it, so thas was another building block. Following the drive we put a chorus, "Angel" from Musikding. This was really all the soundchain we made. We planned to use my "Reverbula" (look at the previous post here) in amp's effects loop, so it was decided we will find a way to control it from the "multieffect" - for this purpose I planned two "control" switches, where essentially a connection gets to open and close - and that is signalled with a LED. This way you can control a remote device, eg.a switching relay or a device in the effect loop of the amp without the need to run the signal back and forth. Because the switching circuit is fully isolated (jacks are plastic) from other circuit it can even serve as an amp pedal if needed. As for the power I decided to put a linear regulated power supply inside to give it quality power (not some noisy whining switcher).
To tune a guitar I planned an output to jack, which gets switched with a momentary footswitch.
Soldering was quite straightforward. I really enjoyed making the Klone, Jed surely knows how to make PCBs - the pads were the right compromise in size and shape. The only complaint I had there was the quality of solder resist, it scratches off too easily (but that may just be a bad batch). For footswitches I used the PCBs I made myself, and they really make wiring a breeze - if the switch is right. Next time it it probably better to make it with pads for a panel mount version (because PCB versions just differ too much) - the same goes for the switch PCB, also my own design.
For the power supply I used an old halogen lights transformer and led AC to a Tube town linear regulator PCB I had. There was some trouble soldering on the diodes, holes were not big enough, so I had to drill them. Caps I used were straight overkill, but I wanted to make sure 7809 doesn't struggle and the power is clean. Through the construction I changed the plan and so attached this linear regulator PCB near the control assembly - control being only a power and not a signal part of project there was no fear that it would cause problems. I've added an external DC jack so also external effects can get a 9v DC.
In wiring I used shielded cable on some parts which I guessed could be problematic. Wiring is not too tidy, but still decent.
In mains part of the power supply I've put a power switch and a fuse.
In putting the enclosure together I had some trouble, because I forgot to take in account it closes with sliding - jacks were in the way and also teh power switch. I had to nibble away the corner where the out jack was and also turn the power switch horizontally.
It sounds more than amazing. "Klon" really shines. Coupled with my "Yahamaha II" on boost seting it produces serious metalized sounds - and obviously serves well in all the spectre leading to it.
At first there were big ideas to paint the enclosure and add a wooden front, but we ran out of time. So here it is in its crude form.
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