Now, nothing is more frustrating than building a circuit, finishing the enclosure nicely, putting it all together only to plug it in and have nothing coming out of it (I know what I'm talking about here, trust me).
I've heard of a new saying recently: "Rock it before you box it" and it makes plenty of sense.
Now, I don't breadboard my circuits before I build them but there's gotta be a middle-ground.
With this little thingy here, I can finish a circuit, wire the pots and plug it in to verify that it works correctly. If it doesn't or if there's some fine-tuning to be done, it's much more easier to just unplug the alligator clips and work directly on the circuit than it would be to try and troubleshoot/mod from inside a completed pedal, especially when working with smaller enclosures (1590b for example).
So, what I did is take a 1590a (very small) enclosure, wire it all exactly the same as a "real" pedal (including a led mind-you) only to leave the 4 circuit connections (ground, 9v in, input and output) hanging out of the enclosure with alligator clips.
That way, I can just plug the circuit, switch it on and off and verify that all the post work correctly and that the pedal sounds great.
I'm gonna add a signal probe to it soon to help de-bugging when necessary.
Below 10$ to build and really helpful. This morning I tested my Ampeg Scrambler circuit (its box isn't done yet) only to find out that the output was far below that of the amp. A single resistor change was done within a minute and BAM! Perfection. In a fully populated enclosure, that would've been a different story.
Pics aren't the greatest but you get the idea.
It's more of a rat's nest in there than I'd like to admit but it's been a bit of a challenge to work in such a small thing...
I've heard of a new saying recently: "Rock it before you box it" and it makes plenty of sense.
Now, I don't breadboard my circuits before I build them but there's gotta be a middle-ground.
With this little thingy here, I can finish a circuit, wire the pots and plug it in to verify that it works correctly. If it doesn't or if there's some fine-tuning to be done, it's much more easier to just unplug the alligator clips and work directly on the circuit than it would be to try and troubleshoot/mod from inside a completed pedal, especially when working with smaller enclosures (1590b for example).
So, what I did is take a 1590a (very small) enclosure, wire it all exactly the same as a "real" pedal (including a led mind-you) only to leave the 4 circuit connections (ground, 9v in, input and output) hanging out of the enclosure with alligator clips.
That way, I can just plug the circuit, switch it on and off and verify that all the post work correctly and that the pedal sounds great.
I'm gonna add a signal probe to it soon to help de-bugging when necessary.
Below 10$ to build and really helpful. This morning I tested my Ampeg Scrambler circuit (its box isn't done yet) only to find out that the output was far below that of the amp. A single resistor change was done within a minute and BAM! Perfection. In a fully populated enclosure, that would've been a different story.
Pics aren't the greatest but you get the idea.
It's more of a rat's nest in there than I'd like to admit but it's been a bit of a challenge to work in such a small thing...
