Another Core build

[Venya]

Another vanilla piStomp Core build (so far, at least). I had ordered and had it shipped home a few months ago while I was still overseas, but then I was waiting for the arrival of a swing arm LED lamp with a huge magnifying glass; I learned from my last kit radio build that my eyes are getting too old for this sort of thing without a good deal of help.

Assembly took about the length of The Tale of Despereaux and Jurassic Park on DVD. I had previewed the (very good) instructions, but not in great detail, so I took my time. My most recent soldering experience was a QRP Labs QCX+ 5-watt transceiver. I felt pretty good about this one compared to that one, which took 12-15 hours over the course of several weeks and still needs some rework to be fully functional.

This project was very comparable in difficulty to ElectroSmash kits I have built such as their 1-watt amp and pedalSHIELD Uno.

Once I am satisfied with the initial testing, I will be adding

• 3 footswitches with red LED circles because shiny
• 2 analog pots
• pretty knobs I bought for all of the pots and encoder
• expression pedal

My primary use is bass guitar, but I also have started feeding my money straight into the furnace that is hardware electronic synthesis, so this will also be used with my MicroFreak, which is a very powerful but "cheap" synth that suffers only from lack of built-in effects.

I haven't acquired a standard case yet, so this will probably live in a cigar box or something for a while. Baby steps.

Thank you for this great project. Very excited to sort it out and start playing with it.

UPDATE: OK, this thing is freaking awesome. So much fun. I have a minor issue or two to track down, but now I'm really motivated to get a proper box for it to protect it from wear and tear. This is going to provide me many hours of entertainment.

[Venya]

For longer enclosures that will accommodate 4+ footswitches, you'll likely need to use an extruded aluminum enclosure. Something like: 1455N2201

Challenge accepted. But note: these also come in bright shiny red, and I couldn't not go for that option once I noticed it.

I forgot that my build will have the MIDI/expression pedal expansion, too, so I decided going bigger was a good plan; I'd rather have too much space than not enough. I can always add more switches or knobs if it seems too big.

Now to sweet-talk one of my friends or relatives who does CNC work.

[Venya]

The playing is not great and I think I had the inputs a bit too hot because there's some distortion I didn't hear while playing live, but it does work very nicely and I've spent more than a few hours playing with it today.

https://vimeo.com/666181026/cba471d987

[Randall (Admin)]

Awesome!  Nice to hear it used on bass.  Thanks for sharing your demo!