I was asked by a few this morning about the 5 pin DIN cable I made for my test rig. I took some pictures of the process and maybe they can give some others some ideas. It was pretty straight forward.

What’s needed:

• Alligator test leads
• 5 Pin DIN connector
• Shrink tube

Make sure you place the shrink  tubeing and the DIN connector cover on the alligator leads before soldiering on the DIN connector. I have made that mistake a few time… time wasted.

I then soldiered each alligator lead to a pin of the DIN connector.

I then placed the connector shield together and used a bit of painters tape to hold it together before hot glueing it.

Fill the barrel/shied with hot glue and let it setup.

Shrink the tubing and secure the DIN connector

My old testing rig was falling apart on me and all I really could do with it was test PCBs before I boxed them up. It was not a good tool for troubleshooting by any means. I would usually have to get my tone generator and my audio probe and troubleshoot a stubborn circuit. Jacob of JMK Effects made a new Testing Rig that solves my headaches by having all the needed troubleshooting/testing tools in one device. His Testing Rig PCB is a perfect addition to any bench for DIY pedal builders.

Here is pictures of my build:

I wanted the in, out, 9V & GND to be detachable so I could use the pedal as just a headphone amp and not worry about the leads shorting out. I also thought it would be nice to have multiple cables made so I could bounce between builds. I also added a BNC connector so I could use a probe from my oscilloscope as an audio probe.

I thought, why paint something that is just going to be a bench utility, so I left it just raw aluminum. I will most likely use stamps to label the switches and knobs.

Got a King Tut PCB from Rully and it just simply sounds great. This is my favorite Big Muff variant to date. This will replace my larger 1590BB clone that I made on a Madbean Mudbunny board I made a few months back.

Etched the enclosure and shot it with some burnt gold metallic. The pictures do not do it justice.

Here is a gut shot

This is Madbean’s take on the Mid-fi Demo Tape Fuzz. This is one LOUD fuzz pedal.

Here is the board after I etched it and populated it.

I etched an enclosure for this build

Finished

Gut shot

Voltages:
IC1 JRC4558
1 4.4v
2 4.4v
3 4.4v
4 0v
5 4.4v
6 4.4v
7 4.4v
8 8.9v

This is a great layout made by josh at 1776 Effects and designed by the RunOffGroove people. This is inspired by the Vox AC30 with top-boost and I say it nails it perfectly. I love how you can get the jangly highs with this pedal and it’s low gain breakup.

PCB etch:

Populated and biased:

Etched enclosure:

Finished:

Gut shot:

Over all I am very happy with this build. Just like the Voxy Brown circuit I built, it’s a bit shrill sounding at times on my Twin Reverb but it does sound excellent on my Bassman.

Information and layout

Buy a PCB from 1776 Effects

I was playing around with a few low part count fuzz pedals and found Marks vero layout of the Monolith Fuzz Oracle and the demos sounded awesome. I used the following transistors in my build.

Q1: AC152 Hfe 114
Q2: AC125 Hfe 306

I decided to go with a “darker” theme on this pedal due to the sounds this thing produces. It gets some great low end and a VERY usable tone knob.

Here is the etched enclosure.

Drilled the enclosure and hit it with some flat black rattle can. I then wet sanded with 1000 git.

Assembled and ready to melt faces.

Gut shot

Just got these in today. Took a whopping 1.5 weeks (which is not to bad from China to the US) to get them but it was well worth it. I was tired of the expensive prices of 1/8 watt resistors from Mouse. I found a seller on eBay from China that had a bulk of 97 values and 50 each. That’s a total 4850 pieces. I got all this for $30 and free shipping. Time to test and sort and to move up some mini builds to the top of the build list.