I will be posting about three completed projects today. They were all designed to integrate into my pedal board.
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- The output buffer is at the top right, the input buffer is at the bottom left, and the power conditioner is mounted underneath the top slat.
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- Pedal Board with Buffers, Power Conditioner – Top. The output buffer is at the top left, the input buffer is at the bottom right, and the power conditioner is mounted underneath the top slat, directly to the left of the center support.
The first one is a power conditioner. It is a dual non-isolated regulated supply. I built this mainly to consolidate my power needs down to one box and one switch. I do plan on building an isolated supply in the future, but that won’t be happening for quite some time.
The second one is an input buffer. It is based on the Cornish buffer (bootstrapped BJT w/ filtering), but with more aggressive power filtering and some component substitutions.
The third one is an output buffer. It is a simple IC buffer, but I guess some people call it a Klon buffer. I fail to see how tacking a couple of resistors onto the end of one of an IC circuit that is so simple that even I understand it. Regardless, more power filtering, some component changes, and a higher end opamp.
My theory behind the buffers is that I am looking for consistency. I want my guitar to always see the same impedance, and my amp to always see the same impedance. I have built so many pedals at this point that there is no telling which pedal will be first in the chain, and which will be last in the chain, or how they will react with whatever guitar/amp combo I decide to play. I want my guitars, effects, and amps to work together in a predictable fashion.
I’ll be posting pictures of the completed builds, along with ExpressPCB schematic and PCB files, along with PDFs of ready-to-transfer images.
More to come!