In my never ending quest for the ultimate distortion pedal I ordered a
BYOC Mighty Mouse, mostly in the thought of it will give me a challenge and a versatile dirt box. So I placed my order with their
UK distributor.
Some background before I start, I am not an electrician or have much experience with this kinda jazz. I'm a chemistry student that can solder, so how hard could it be? We'll see...
So first thing this morning my girlfriend answers the door then throws a heavy jiffy bag at my head. Nice way to wake me up. Once opened it revealed this to my tired eyes-
Yahoo! Shower then lets get cracking. After clearing a space on my dining room table and heating up my soldering iron i got to work dismantling the package.
Ok everything there, lets get going thought i! Tools needed- soldering iron, screwdriver, wire cutters (i found shortly after starting that mine are as blunt as a spoon) and scalpel. I've found a scalpel is amazing for stripping wires. just whoosh it round and it's a clean cut without damaging the metal of the wire. works for me!
Nice clean circuit board, I started chucking components in like a man posessed, resistors- BAM!, diodes- (check polarity) WHACK!, capacitors? Easy- bosh! Actually, I put some capacitors in the wrong place. c--k! Spent ages trying to salvage them, no use. Oh well, off to Maplins (then to KFC...) to replace the caps.
Almost there, after that little setback I'm back on track. Circuit board is done, just the pots and rotary switch to bang in.
BOOYA! it's in. The switch switches between 6 different Rat distortions, standard, turbo, asymettric clipping and some overdrive modes. Saucy.
This next part I wasn't looking forward to. Wiring the switches and stuff. All very tight to work, my soldering iron was failing and I'm not a neat worker at the best of times, never mind in cramped conditions. Off I went soldering up the switch first, then the jacks, before finally attaching cables to the board itself.
it's in! time for a quick test before I screw the bottom on. Plug it in aaaand...
Power? Check! Sound? No... Dammit! A quick check later and a few things seem obvious. i forgot to plug in the main chip thingy, the negative terminal for the power clip is hanging off and some solder has dripped shorting out the distortion pot. All fixed and a scribble with a cd pen later...
We have life! Do we have sound?
We have sound! it works! yahoo! everything seems to be in order, all pots work and the rotary switch is perfect. yahoo! also my shift key has broken right off, so going to avoid capitols...
so there we have it. i started at around 11, took 2 hours to fill in the board with my slip up, break for an other couple of hours for lunch and parts and finished at 5. all in all i think it took me about 3 and a half hours to build from parts to rock. not bad really. will paint it eventually, but not got a garden or garage to paint safely in. one day.
well i hope this was entertaining and enlightening, and maybe inspires someone reading to give a kit a try. i had lots of fun with this basic kit, and have a cool distortion pedal to brag about. even with a few tools (all i really used was my soldering iron, a scalpel and a screwdriver) and never done this before i managed it (almost) first time.
oh and the thread wouldn't be complete without a fully completed gut shot.
not the neatest but it'll do.
if you got this far, thanks for reading!
