The PCB for this product has been discontinued.

Building a Dirty Boost using the DIY Stompbox Kit.

First off, you’ll need the following:

Tools:

  • Needle Nose Pliers
  • Wire cutters
  • Solderpult (aka solder sucker or solder vac)
  • Solder Wick
  • Solder
  • Hand drill
  • Soldering Iron
  • Voltmeter

The tools
Components:

    • DIY Stompbox Kit2-DIY Stompbox
    • Components for the Boost
      Reference Part
      R1 47K Ω Resistor
      R2 10K Ω Resistor
      R3 100K Ω Resistor
      R4 5K Ω Potentiometer
      R5 100K Ω Potentiometer
      C1 22uF Electrolytic Capacitor
      C2 100nF Ceramic Capacitor
      C3 47uF Electrolytic Capacitor
      C4 1uF Ceramic Capacitor
      C5 100uF Electrolytic Capacitor
      T1 2N5088 Transistor

The Build:
First, we looked for a suitable schematic for a Boost, which we cleaned up and have included here for your convenience.

3-Boost Schematic

We then prototyped the circuit on a breadboard to make sure it was going to work. Schematics on the internet are never wrong, right?

4-Boost Prototype

To test that the boost worked completely we wired up a skeleton DIY Stompbox Kit to the breadboarded Boost via 4 wires. Jeff said it sounded great and like a boost, but we really think he just wanted Keith to quit “playing” the guitar. Anyways, onward…

5-DIY Stompbox Boost Prototype

So, as with any prototype where soldering is involved you need a plan. To assist us in the planning we printed out picture of the DIY Stompbox PCB which we’ve actually turned into a template for you all to use on your projects to make things easier. Here is our plan. Note: The plan and what we actually ended up running as traces on the PCB do differ.

6-The layout plan

Here we go… Step 1. Board

7-Step 1 The board

Step 2. Resistors

8-Step 2 Resistors

Step 3. Caps and Transistor

9-Step 3 Caps and Transistor

Step 4. Holes for the POTs. Drilling holes on a PCB does not require a drill, drill press or even a dremel. PCBs are soft enough that you can drill them very easily and quickly by hand. In prototyping this works great for those one or two holes. Check out our fancy red handled drill in the tools pictures above.

10-Step 4 Holes for POTs

Step 5. Soldering on the POTs.

11-Step 5 the POTs

Step 6. Soldering traces to connect everything. Our trace plan failed to account for the mechanical mounting holes of the POTs so we had to adjust it a bit. We also didn’t like the placement of the pots on our plan when we were test fitting on the board so we adjusted that as well which also meant trace changes. The end result was…

12-The traces (solder side)

Step 7. Solder on the components for the DIY Stompbox which results in…

13-Completed DIY Stompbox Boost

And that’s it. Check out our videos to see the real fruits of our labor.

2 Comments

  1. Tellef says:

    Hi, since I have never before built a stomp box I have a question that is probably stupid. Do you sell a kit containing the components for this box? If not: is the component list on this page (http://www.synthrotek.com/kit-assembly-instructions/effect-pedals-assembly-instructions/diy-stompbox-assembly-instructions/diy-stompbox-boost-demo-project/) all I need to get the correct parts in any store I go to?
    regards
    tellef
    oslo

  2. Steve Harmon says:

    Hello Tellef. Sadly, the DIY Stompbox is no longer being made. We sold the last of the PCBs a few months ago.

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