Completing Circuits
My solderable breadboards finally arrived so I began work on completing the circuits between each effects pedal and their respective microcontrollers and sensors.
My tremolo circuit has been finished other than a soldered connection between the distance sensor and the PCB (waiting to finish the enclosure to see how long the wires should be). As well, I replaced the LED on the tremolo board with an LED with longer leads so that I can run it to the top of my enclosure with no issues.
The delay circuit is complete — this includes an LED with long enough leads to reach the top of the enclosure as well as the joystick having soldered connections to the PCB. I’m still having trouble with the quality of the sound outputted by the pedal — each repeat is a bit distorted but it’s something I feel I can sort out before the final showcase. The effect has noticeable change when the joystick is interacted with which is enough for me at this stage.
My distortion circuit is coming along but is definitely the most intense build. Firstly, while trying to replace the stranded wire leads on my initial pedal’s potentiometers, I believe I added too much heat to the PCB. When I tried to solder the replacement solid core wire in place, there was no metal to solder a connection, rendering the pedal useless. Without completely melting down, I searched my basement for an older pedal and ended up finding a Boss Heavy Metal distortion pedal. After gutting it for its electronics and adding a few simple grounding jumpers, I got the pedal to work.
Now, I have the pedal’s ‘level’ and ‘distortion’ potentiometer leads soldered to my circuit with an Arduino Nano. I can’t complete the circuit without finishing my guitar’s setup though. I need to drill holes in a straight line up the neck of the fretboard where the LEDs will be fed through. Also, on the back of the neck I need to router out a groove so that the leads from the accelerometer at the head of the guitar and each LED can run undetected down to the body where I plan to use a molex connector for a quick connection between the pedal and these components. Without finishing the guitar and having these leads available to make a molex connector, I can’t solder anything onto my board.
I plan on getting started on the guitar setup within the next week so I can finalize its circuit. As well, I am beginning to piece my enclosure together — I’m going to use walnut slabs for the exterior, counterboring holes for their respective buttons, LED bezels, I / O jacks, sensors and the power supply. I want to get the majority of this project finished by April so I can use the last month for final polishing and adjustments with limited time crunching.
