Drilling the Enclosure
Friday, September 7th, 2012 at
7:15 pm
Now that we’ve modeled the enclosure and printed a drilling template, we’re ready to jump out of Sketchup and into the real world.
In this video, I’ll be demonstrating how to accurately drill the holes in a diecast aluminum 125B guitar pedal enclosure, preparing to install the electronics. I’m using the drilling template we printed in part 2. The pedal I’m building is a modified Ross compressor, using a printed circuit board purchased from GuitarPCB.
Funny, I just noticed while reviewing the final video edit that I was saying “barrel” instead of “bezel” for the LED bezel. I guess I was channeling my inner Cooper.
Some of the resources used in this video:
- Carl Professional Rotary Trimmer
- Automatic punch
- 3/32” drill bit- always handy. Buy a cheap 10-pack in case you break one.
- Unibit stepped drill bit. I’ve since purchased this unbelievably cheap set from Harbor Freight which has steps down to 1/8”
- Round file
- Fractional calipers – one of my favorite tools
- Weller WES51 soldering station
- Pot back covers – or just make your own with heat shrink, or electrical tape
- See more pedal-building resources in the Intro to DIY Pedal Building
Tagged with: Electronics • Pedal • Video
Wow this is an amazing series! keep it up
Thx for the videos good sire, this is good stuff, as always!
Great video, thanks.
I recommend just buying pre-drilled enclosures from Pedal Parts Plus. They have all parts for pedals you would need and everything fits nicely in their pre-drilled enclosures. You can even custom order various hole configurations for various knobs and switches etc.
Sure, you can get predrilled enclosures from ppp, mammoth, byoc, etc, not to mention complete pedal kits. My intention with this video series is to show how to do it all from scratch.
That’s really cool John, cos’ sometimes we want a hole layout the DIY stores don’t offer as pre-drilled option or we have to enlarge a pre-existing hole, as you demonstrated.
What effect is it? The easiest types of effects to build are usually fuzzes and overdrives and distortions. But some overdrives can be complex if they have op-amp chips.
This is a modified Ross compressor. (See the notes below the video). I’m planning to do a video later demonstrating how to make a simple boost or fuzz, on vero/strip-board,
I’ve actually tried making my own ToneBender replica circuit, but the Germanium PNP transistors are extremely heat sensitive and I think I ruined them. The ones I used were 2N404 and they had gold leads and I believe gold is actually one of the most conductive metals for heat.
Fantastic!
Thanks so much – you gave me the confidence to do this myself – why pay someone else?