diypedalkits.com clean boost pedal

[pete.young]

I've just spent a couple of hours building my first pedal and I thought a review was in order, in case anyone else fancies a punt at it. The pedal I chose is a Clean Boost pedal from http://www.diypedalkits.com/ in a very small housing, which I needed because of limited pedal board real estate. After a slight hiatus caused by Xmas post and bad weather (during which time Kevin offered to send me another kit because of the wait, most generous), here's what arrived:

This was quite an expensive kit, but came with all the holes in the casing pre-drilled. Since I don't have a bench drill this was a worthwhile saving of effort.
The kit included comprehensive instructions. The PCB which does the work is based on veroboard - here it is under construction:

Here's the completed board with the pot soldered in place.

Spot the deliberate mistake - the transistor (the black lump on 3 legs in the middle of the board) was too high and I had to remove it, clean up the tracks and fix it back in place as close to the veroboard as possible. Space is a bit tight fitting this into a micro housing, and the transistor was taking up space that would be needed by the DC power socket. Doh. Here's the switch being wired up:

While all this was going on, I decided to save myself a fiver by painting the case myself, using spray cans with car primer and top coat that I had lying around in the garage. Here's the case inbetween top coats:

Finally, you need to fix the other components (jack sockets, LED, etc) in place and solder them up. With everything connected, you can see there's not much room:

Finally, here it is all assembled, velcroed and fitted to my pedal board (which gives you an idea of scale).


What does it sound like? Well, it's a clean boost! This design is apparently a copy of the Zvex Super Hard On, down to the authentic crackly pot. It does deliver a lot of boost (said to be in the range of 20Db!), but virtually all the action is in the last 60 degrees of the pot. I'm not sure if that's normal or due to some duff assembly work!

Edited September 11, 2020 by Rich

[nick]

[quote name='pete.young' post='1075336' date='Jan 2 2011, 02:37 PM']..... but virtually all the action is in the last 60 degrees of the pot. I'm not sure if that's normal or due to some duff assembly work![/quote]

Good review.
Regarding everything happening right at the end of the pot.... I think thats 'normal' & not down to the build etc.
Guessing its a 5K log pot(?), maybe swapping it for a linear one could even it out a bit.
Cheers