Richard R Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 I like the idea of a self-build CNC router. 😀 But building a CNC router before I built a guitar reminds me of my uncle. He needed a very small screw to replace one that dropped out of his camera body. So he bought a lathe, then made the tooling to make the screw, then made the screw. He also decided to make Buckmeister-Fullerene in his garage, which I seem to recall required cutting up a fire extinguisher to use as a pressure vessel.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted April 23, 2019 Author Share Posted April 23, 2019 2 minutes ago, Richard R said: I like the idea of a self-build CNC router. 😀 But building a CNC router before I built a guitar reminds me of my uncle. He needed a very small screw to replace one that dropped out of his camera body. So he bought a lathe, then made the tooling to make the screw, then made the screw. He also decided to make Buckmeister-Fullerene in his garage, which I seem to recall required cutting up a fire extinguisher to use as a pressure vessel.... That's exactly what is going on. The friend we are talking about studied 'product development' so is constantly trying to come up with nice desings for things. He had the idea of a lamp with an iris system to reduce/increase light intensity so wanted to make an iris from plastic. Problem was that he could not make it smooth enough with hand-routering, hence the building of the cnc-router. I guess it's more about the journey than about the destination? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard R Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 58 minutes ago, Kamiel said: I guess it's more about the journey than about the destination? Yep. But try explaining that to the wife as the house fills up with more and more sub-projects! 🤣 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 7, 2019 Author Share Posted May 7, 2019 I've made some more progress: Everything is glued and painted. Most of the accessories are screwed to the board. (Pics comming this weekend) I've got a question for you guys. I need to solder the 'outside-jack's' to the 'inside-jack's', like a patchbay. I have no experience whatsoever with soldering, but I do have a buddy who has. Should I just ask him to do it (it's 8 jacks, 2 XLR's and the power, so maybe a bit of work for just a beer as payment ) or should I ask to borrow his equipment and have a go on it myself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted May 7, 2019 Share Posted May 7, 2019 8 minutes ago, Kamiel said: I've made some more progress: Everything is glued and painted. Most of the accessories are screwed to the board. (Pics comming this weekend) I've got a question for you guys. I need to solder the 'outside-jack's' to the 'inside-jack's', like a patchbay. I have no experience whatsoever with soldering, but I do have a buddy who has. Should I just ask him to do it (it's 8 jacks, 2 XLR's and the power, so maybe a bit of work for just a beer as payment ) or should I ask to borrow his equipment and have a go on it myself? I wouldn't use this project as a first lesson in soldering if I were you. If you really want to though, get your mate to give you a crash course in the basics and some homework to practice on that sets you up for the job at hand. It's easy when you do all the right things. I enjoy it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 9, 2019 Author Share Posted May 9, 2019 Here two more pics. First one shows how the hinges will work that will support the 'upper deck'. It gets three of those, and it rests on the 'support beams' so that should be easily strong enough. The second one shows one of the bigger mistakes I've made: being impatient and thus not waiting to drill holes until I've got all the parts. I'm not going to fill and redrill the XLR hole, so part of the ballcorner has to go. Oh well, if that's the biggest mistake I encounter in this project I'm happy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 1 hour ago, Kamiel said: Oh well, if that's the biggest mistake I encounter in this project I'm happy That's the spirit! If you can't live with your mistakes you'd never get to the end of a project. If you're any good with the file after you've cut a relief from the corner plate, it'll look intentional. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 9, 2019 Author Share Posted May 9, 2019 (edited) Indeed, I hope I can make it look pretty and intentional, but that should be oké. I'll be working on that tomorrow. That being said, except for the soldering I think I should be able to finnish tomorrow. Hopefully I can get my friend with the solderingiron to help me this or next weekend and then I'll finally be done. I've been busy putting on the pedals to check cable-lengths etc. and I think I have to order a couple extra. The future-proof-ness of the board makes it a bit roomier, and the fact that my expressionpedal will be on the right (it used to be on the left because of the pedal order, but on the right I have better control...) but it has to go in the most left in and out of the switcher makes that I need longer cables. So I guess I'll do that now, so that when it's ready I don't have to wait around for that... Ofcourse I couldn't resist a mock-up... As you can see there's (intentionally) room for more. When I've managed to save some more money I wanna buy an octaver and maybe a nice delay. I can put at least two more pedals under the hood and as you can see at least one more on top so that should be alright. I also want to buy a nice DI to put under the hood, hence the XLR out on the side. Edit: Picture is darker than I thought, so for now only the pedals... I promise I will make real pictures with a real camera once it's all done! 😇 Edited May 9, 2019 by Kamiel 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 10, 2019 Author Share Posted May 10, 2019 Hard at work. Almost done with the stuff I can do before soldering, and tonight I'm going to the friend with the solder-iron. Here's some (again) not so great pics 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 12, 2019 Author Share Posted May 12, 2019 Almost done! I've made the cut to make the XLR out fit, and I'm happy enough with how it looks now. The 'patchbox' is soldered. It was quite some work and took some effort to put away all the cables in the tiny space, but we needed some cable-length to make the soldering doable. I do think I'm going to make a small cover so that if by accident some beer get's spilled over the board I don't get electrical problems. The last platform is glued on. Next weekend it's just putting on some velcro and I can start putting on the pedals! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimBobTTD Posted May 13, 2019 Share Posted May 13, 2019 Nice. How much does it weigh? That corner protector by the XLR looks sharp... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 13, 2019 Author Share Posted May 13, 2019 3 hours ago, JimBobTTD said: Nice. How much does it weigh? That corner protector by the XLR looks sharp... I haven't put it on a scale yet, but I am going to do that before and after I put the pedals on. It's not super lightweight is the only thing I can say right now. But it is big ofcourse, so that's expected. I am happy that I picked 8mm plywood instead of 12mm plywood, cause it's more than sturdy enough, and I would not have wanted the extra weight! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 17, 2019 Author Share Posted May 17, 2019 FINALLY DONE! It has been a longer project than I anticipated, but we have reached the finnish-line. And I took some pictures with a real camera this time, so you can actually see stuff. Btw, board without pedals was 7kg, board with pedals, powersupplie and cables etc. was 14kg. Not at all lightweight but it's quite okay when you pick it up! I still have one problem to solve but it has nothing to do with the board itself. My Qtron+ doesn't work anymore. The power connection was broken and fixed but the fix does not seem to be very good cause I can't seem to get the light to go on... Only thing left to do is borrow a labelmaker from someone and label my loopswitch and my 'patchbay'! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewblack Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 That my friend is a work of genius. Love the hinged access. Its really well done 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimBobTTD Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 Very tasty indeed. Thanks for sharing its progress with us. That orange variphase is quite the looker. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 That's a unique piece of kit. I wish you many happy years of use from it. The effort you have put in should ensure its longevity. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard R Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 Very smart indeed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blablas Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 There is way too much open space for such a nice pedalboard! 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 19, 2019 Author Share Posted May 19, 2019 3 hours ago, blablas said: There is way too much open space for such a nice pedalboard! 😉 That will be filled up, rest assured But I'm a student so money is tight, altough I am quite happy with the amount and quality of gear I was able to acquire over the years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 23, 2019 Author Share Posted May 23, 2019 (edited) Finally had the time to do some propper testing and I have one problem. Maybe here someone can help me with it: The 'patchbay' is simply jack connectors connected with each other. They are stereo jacks (bought the wrong ones cause mono would have been okay but I doesn't matter for the signal normally) so it's three little cables soldered between two jacks. The thing that isn't working is my amp-channel-switch, so switch plugged into a jack, and a normal guitarcable from jack to amp. This doesn't work and I don't understand why. Could it be the stereo jack's f-ing things up, or is it just not possible to carry the signal longer than the normal switch-cable length? Or could there be another problem? It's not that the soldering isn't done properly cause they all work for the other appliances. Edited May 23, 2019 by Kamiel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 24, 2019 Author Share Posted May 24, 2019 Btw there's also some good news, my Q-tron+ seems to be working again. As it turns out my music-shop handy man, who soldered in a new powerconnection, soldered in a normal one instead of the + on the inside one that EHX used. Very thoughtfull of him, except for the fact that he didn't tell me so I still put an adapter in between, baffled about why it wasn't working properly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jakester Posted May 24, 2019 Share Posted May 24, 2019 19 hours ago, Kamiel said: Finally had the time to do some propper testing and I have one problem. Maybe here someone can help me with it: The 'patchbay' is simply jack connectors connected with each other. They are stereo jacks (bought the wrong ones cause mono would have been okay but I doesn't matter for the signal normally) so it's three little cables soldered between two jacks. The thing that isn't working is my amp-channel-switch, so switch plugged into a jack, and a normal guitarcable from jack to amp. This doesn't work and I don't understand why. Could it be the stereo jack's f-ing things up, or is it just not possible to carry the signal longer than the normal switch-cable length? Or could there be another problem? It's not that the soldering isn't done properly cause they all work for the other appliances. By no means an expert, but it could be the stereo tips on the jacks causing problems. Have you tried mono ones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stub Mandrel Posted May 24, 2019 Share Posted May 24, 2019 (edited) On 04/03/2019 at 09:58, Kamiel said: I'm thinking I will paint the lid black, and then with a small brush or maybe some sort of sharpie I will make the inside of the engravings white. Paint logo white, then apply the black. Trust me! <edit> Too late! I see it's been done and rejacted! Looks good, very retro/steampunky feel with that wood and aluminium panel. Edited May 24, 2019 by Stub Mandrel 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamiel Posted May 24, 2019 Author Share Posted May 24, 2019 4 hours ago, Jakester said: By no means an expert, but it could be the stereo tips on the jacks causing problems. Have you tried mono ones? I have not tried mone ones cause I ordered the stereo ones and I don't want to pay shipmentcost just for new plugs while they do work (for bass -> pedalboard and pedalboard -> amp that is). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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