For my birthday, I decided to work a completely new project: build a guitar effects pedal. I purchased the “Confidence Boost” project kit from BuildYourOwnClone.com (as in clones of popular guitar stomp boxes). It’s a great project for about $15 which comes with detailed instructions and makes a pretty decent little boost effect. The kit itself only comes with the printed circuit board, electronic components, and off-board wiring such as jacks and potentiometer.
I soldered up the components and off-board wiring and plugged-it up. And nothing. It didn’t make any sound! I posted a couple of photos to the discussion board and quickly got a response: the input jack was wired backward. In other words, the signal from my guitar was just going to ground and nothing was going on to the effect (or amp). I quickly re-worked the input jack and it worked. The tiny potentiometer (blue screw driver knob in the photo above) was a bit tough to use.
I decided it would be fun to go ahead and wire this up as an actual stomp box, so I ordered a few more components and an enclosure. I spent some time painting and finishing the enclosure. I just used a white pen to draw out the labeling, but it turned out just fine for this project. I read up on how to wire a footswitch for true bypass (when it’s off, it doesn’t affect the signal at all) and with an LED indicator light.
![](https://www.jasoncoleman.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/fullsizeoutput_409a-1024x768.jpeg)
![](https://www.jasoncoleman.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/fullsizeoutput_4098-1024x768.jpeg)
![](https://www.jasoncoleman.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/fullsizeoutput_4099-768x1024.jpeg)
But of course, it only really matters how it sounds. I’m far from a capable guitar player and even worse when trying to film my playing, but here’s a small sample.
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