How to Build Your Own Circuit Boards for Guitar Effects
Practicing guitarists must always find new ways to keep their music interesting. Building circuit boards, for example, allows them to produce their own guitar effects. To step up your guitar playing skills, find the right patterns on the Internet and use them to create your boards. Once you build your guitar effects circuit board, you can then correctly assemble the circuit that will produce each guitar effect.
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Things You'll Need
- High speed Internet access
- Box of transparency film
- Bare circuit board
- Copper cleaner
- Laser printer
- Iron (the kind you use to get wrinkles out of shirts)
- Permanent marker
- Hacksaw
- Muriatic acid
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Hard plastic tub
- Acetone
- Soldering iron (may not need to be used)
- Solder (may not need to be used)
- Dremel tool
Instructions
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Instructions
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1
Find a circuit layout for the guitar effect you want to use. Some of the best online resources for finding guitar effects circuit layouts are listed below in the References.
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2
Use copper cleaner to clean your bare circuit board. Simply follow the directions for cleaning a surface supplied on the copper cleaner can's label.
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3
Use a laser printer to print out the circuit layout onto the transparency.
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4
Turn your transparency over so that the circuit layout is on the downside face. Place the transparency over the copper circuit board.
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5
Take your iron and iron the circuit pattern onto the circuit board. Note: Preheat your iron to its second highest setting before ironing. It will take approximately one minute to fully iron on the circuit pattern to the board. Make sure that you press down on all sides and corners to ensure that the toner gets melted.
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6
Peel off the transparency from the board, and do so immediately while the circuit board remains hot. If there are any portions of the ironed-on circuit layout that look light, take your permanent marker and go over them so that they are darker. You will be able to see the patterns very clearly when you use them to build the circuit board.
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7
Trim the circuit board to the right size with your hacksaw.
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8
Pour a 1:1 mixture of muriatic acid and hydrogen peroxide into a hard plastic tub.
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9
Place the properly cut circuit board into the tub and allow it to etch. This will take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, so be sure to watch it. If you need to, put your gloves on and pull it up to see if it is deeply etched.
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10
Clean off the toner using Acetone. If you find during cleaning that some parts of the circuit board are etched to the point of mild damage, solder jumpers in those areas.
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11
Drill the holes indicated on the circuit pattern into the circuit board using the Dremel tool. You are now ready to assemble the complete circuit for your guitar effect.
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Tips & Warnings
Always wear chemists' goggles and gloves when you do metal etching with acids. The acids used in etching are dangerous if not handled with care.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit circuit board image by Andrzej Thiel from Fotolia.com
