- 1). Determine the type of effects pedal you want to build. Some popular effects pedal types include, distortion, delay, reverb, chorus and echo. Purchase a guitar effects pedal construction kit according to your preferred pedal type. These pedal kits are a good option for beginners, as they come with all of the necessary components for building a guitar pedal circuit board.
- 2). Locate the printed circuit board, referred to as the "prefboard," and electrical components in the pedal kit. This includes a series of the capacitors, resistors, diodes, IC chips and transistors. Capacitors, diodes, resistors and transistors are battery-like chips with wire leads extending from each component. IC chips look like a chip you might find on a computer's motherboard.
- 3). Examine the schematic chart that came with the guitar pedal kit to familiarize yourself with the circuit board's connection.. This is the schematic visual representation of the circuit board and how each electrical component connects to the circuit board. Notice the the number codes assigned to the individual connections. These same numbers are printed to each resistor, transistor, capacitor, diode and IC chip. For more information on understanding complex schematic charts, see Reference 3 below.
- 4). Connect each electrical component to the circuit board according to your schematic chart. Once you have each component and chip in place, begin soldering each component to the circuit board. Heat up a soldering iron for 10 to 15 minutes. Touch a piece of solder to the joint where each wire connector connects with the circuit board. Then touch the iron's tip to the solder until it absorbs to each wire connection on the circuit board. Let the solder dry and settle for about 20 minutes.
previous post
next post