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I was looking at adding some extra functionality to a couple of bits in my guitar set-up, in my case this involved buying some footswitches – One for my Vox AD30VT amplifier, and one for my Boss RC-2 Loop Station. Vox offer the VFS-2 and Boss has the FS-6 for a combined cost of around £60, which is quite a bit for what they actually are. Okay, the Boss has a few fancy features like interchangeable latching / momentary functionality, status LEDs and switchable polarity but I don’t need any of that. I was sure I could build something that does exactly what I needed for a lot less than sixty quid, so I did.

For this little project I had to pick a few things up from Maplin, I used their website in the end as all of the bits I was after were unavailable in my local store. First of all I’d need a project box to house all of the components, they didn’t exactly have a huge range of suitable enclosures but I found a fairly good die-cast aluminium one that measured 145 x 95 x 45mm that fit the bill, its Maplin part number is N92BQ. I also need a couple of 1/4″ stereo sockets and some heavy duty momentary foot switches, part numbers HF93 and N92AP respectively. Those parts came to about £25 delivered, I already had the required wire and tools knocking around.

First up we’re going to have to decide how we want our switches positioned on the top of the box, it’s probably worth taking both usability and aesthetics into consideration. I chose a staggered configuration which would give me fairly easy access to all four switches and give adequate space for labeling each switch. This is also a good time to decide where we want to position our stereo sockets.

I guess this is a good time to point out that it isn’t totally necessary to go the stereo socket route, I chose to do it this way so that I have the flexibility to use different lengths of cable depending on what I’m plugging the footswitch into. I decided to put my sockets in the face furthest away – if you’re planning on putting a switch close-by, check the clearance, I had a lucky escape on that one! So, mark it all up and drill! The switches I used required a 12mm hole and I found that my project box was a bit inconsistent in its hardness!

Now we’re going to want to mount the switches in their holes, give them a good tighten with some pliers as they have a habit of coming loose when not tightened properly – But don’t over tighten them otherwise you’ll strip the thread. By mounting the switches this early on it gives us a good sturdy platform for soldering the wires onto the switch terminals. When cutting our lengths of wire it’s a good idea to build in a nice bit of slack so that we have the freedom of changing the positions of the switches at a later date.

Strip, tin and solder one end of each of your lengths of wire to each switch terminal. For those not down with the jargon, tinning is the process of coating the exposed wire and terminals with solder, this makes it easier to solder the wire to its terminal. You might find it a lot easier by fashioning a hook with your exposed and tinned wire and then hooking it onto the terminal before soldering.

Next we’re going to want to solder the other ends of those wires to the stereo sockets, each stereo socket will accommodate two switches. To avoid the requirement for a third-hand, I mounted the sockets on the outside of the box to keep them in place while soldering. Take one of the wires from each of the two switches that you want to associate with the first socket, these two wires will both be soldered to the ground tab of the stereo socket. The ground tab will be the one that is a part of the same piece of metal that touches the largest part of the stereo plug when it is in its socket, you might find it easier to identify by plugging in a 1/4″ jack and following the bit of metal to its tab. Before soldering, twist the two wires together, tin it and use the hook technique to make the process easier. You’ll now be left with one wire free on each of your two switches – Solder one to the tab that traces back to the tip of the stereo jack, and the second to the tab that traces back to the small section of the shaft. Repeat on the other two switches for the second socket.

We can now mount the stereo sockets in the inside of the box and tighten them in the same fashion as you did the switches. Bunch up the wiring so that it fits comfortably inside the box, not obstructing the stereo sockets or in a position where it will get trapped between the lid and the rest of the box. Screw the lid down and go test it out! If your switches aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, double check all of your wiring making sure that your solder joints are good and solid, also check that nothing is being shorted out.

At this point, feel free to paint the box if you wish – I don’t think I’m going to bother, I quite like the industrial look which I am going to finish off with some labeling done with one of those sticky strip letter puncher-outer things if I can find one, I remember having a couple of them knocking around somewhere.

It’s worth pointing out that I kinda cocked up a bit in this process – I didn’t really do any research on the VFS-2 that I was looking to replace, after testing my switch out on my amp, I realised I should have bought latching switches instead of momentary ones. Unfortunately, latching switches tend to be both more expensive and deeper so they would only fit in the foremost positions where I wanted them in the rear. Luckily, my Boss GT-8 has amp control functionality and the ability to connect two external switches, so my GT-8 now controls my amp channel switching and has two extra assignable switches and my RC-2 now has bank switching and single-tap stopping. So, even better than what I first set out to achieve!

Tags: DIY, footswitch, Guitar

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Gadgets, Guitar, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.