# Paragon mini (first pedalpcb build)



## Boba7

Hey guys

First time working with a pcb from pedalpcb, and it went quite smoothly!

Just a KOT clone, with the latest updates from the freestompboxes forums:
- high gain / low gain resistor change (100k/1k)
- input cap is 22n instead of 10n
- low gain feedback cap is 47pf instead of 100pf
- 1N914 for the hard clipping diodes

For the soft clipping section I went with BA282, which are supposed to be exactly similar to the originals MA856. They sound very good, but I'm not sure 1N4148 would have been much different
I elevated the treble trimpots a bit with sockets, to allow a better access from the holes on the back of the pedals

That one is for a good friend of mine, I took my time to plan it and build it!

Cheers!


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## Dali

First time I ever see an inverted enclosure. Nice idea and build !


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## Robert

Very cool!    Those aesthetics go really well together.


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## chongmagic

Looks awesome all around!


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## Boba7

Thanks guys!


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## zgrav

I see that you have some extra ventillation holes in the "bottom" of that enclosure.   : ^ )  Nice way to proceed.


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## Boba7

zgrav said:


> I see that you have some extra ventillation holes in the "bottom" of that enclosure.   : ^ )  Nice way to proceed.



Haha yes they’re actually there to allow access to the treble boost trimpots and the dipswitches


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## music6000

Dali said:


> First time I ever see an inverted enclosure. Nice idea and build !


Look up FARNDURK pedal, all his pedals were built like this. Used metal stamps for Lettering & filled with black epoxy.


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## Boba7

music6000 said:


> Look up FARNDURK pedal, all his pedals were built like this. Used metal stamps for Lettering & filled with black epoxy.



I couldn’t remember that name, I’ve actually been looking for it! Obviously a big influence for me. I had come accross pictures of his pedals a few years ago, and really loved them
Dont think the company exists any longer though... ?


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## Nostradoomus

Mantic builds this way as well. Cool!


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## music6000

Here is my Valven from 2012, He used to make his own Washers in house, Industrial type Switches, Quality PCB's. 
He had Health issues & getting the finished product had its Issues!
 It has the build date & my Initials stamped & blacked out on the Base of the pedal :


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## Barry

Interesting and very cool!


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## Chuck D. Bones

Nice job!  Did you get your knobs from BLMS?  Lotta cool build ideas here.  Grouping the in, out and power wires together like Farndurk did could cause problems with high-gain pedals.


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## Boba7

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Nice job!  Did you get your knobs from BLMS?  Lotta cool build ideas here.  Grouping the in, out and power wires together like Farndurk did could cause problems with high-gain pedals.



Yes, the knobs and dress nuts come from (B)LMS. Thanks for the kind words! 

You're totally right about the wires. Actually when the enclosure is closed, the output wire goes right along the left side and the input wire along the right side, so they're pretty far apart. And on top of the pedal, the ground and 9v wires are the shortest I could make them. 
No issues anyways, but I wouldn't do it that way with a really high gain or sensitive circuit, of course.


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## Chuck D. Bones

I was actually commenting on Farndurk's wire routing.  It would not have occurred to me to assemble the box "upside-down."  Now I'm tempted to try it out.  Stamped lettering looks cool too.  I wonder if the Tayda and SB boxes can take that without cracking.


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## Nostradoomus

Chuck D. Bones said:


> I was actually commenting on Farndurk's wire routing.  It would not have occurred to me to assemble the box "upside-down."  Now I'm tempted to try it out.  Stamped lettering looks cool too.  I wonder if the Tayda and SB boxes can take that without cracking.



Tayda boxes can, I’ll confirm that. Just get a jewellers block or something under where you’re going to punch it or else the whole thing will have a nice dent in it...learned that the hard way


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## music6000

Chuck D. Bones said:


> I was actually commenting on Farndurk's wire routing.  It would not have occurred to me to assemble the box "upside-down."  Now I'm tempted to try it out.  Stamped lettering looks cool too.  I wonder if the Tayda and SB boxes can take that without cracking.


Farndurk went through a few different enclosures to find the ones that wouldn't crack.
He use to clamp some kind of Guide so he could put the stamp against it to keep the letters Straight.
Trivia : He deliberately ground the ''D'' offset.  If you look at any of his pedals you will see the FARN*D*URK ''D'' is lower than the other letters!


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## music6000

Wait there's  more, the *Farndurk Tone Plug*, Collar removed to show Diodes.
He had all different types available to change the pedal on the Fly.


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## Boba7

music6000 said:


> Wait there's  more, the *Farndurk Tone Plug*, Collar removed to show Diodes.
> He had all different types available to change the pedal on the Fly.
> 
> View attachment 2243



Smart, what a cool idea! Dipswitches are less expensive, more practical but far less spectacular!


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## mad5066

Boba7 said:


> Hey guys
> 
> First time working with a pcb from pedalpcb, and it went quite smoothly!
> 
> Just a KOT clone, with the latest updates from the freestompboxes forums:
> - high gain / low gain resistor change (100k/1k)
> - input cap is 22n instead of 10n
> - low gain feedback cap is 47pf instead of 100pf
> - 1N914 for the hard clipping diodes
> 
> For the soft clipping section I went with BA282, which are supposed to be exactly similar to the originals MA856. They sound very good, but I'm not sure 1N4148 would have been much different
> I elevated the treble trimpots a bit with sockets, to allow a better access from the holes on the back of the pedals
> 
> That one is for a good friend of mine, I took my time to plan it and build it!
> 
> Cheers!


nice clean build, where did you get the font paint stamp for the labels?


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## Boba7

mad5066 said:


> nice clean build, where did you get the font paint stamp for the labels?



Thanks!
They’re cheap stamps I found online, those sold in a wooden box, you’ll find them very easily 
Stazon ink and clearcoat.


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## Funnel

Looks Great, I like the stamp look.  I have used metal stamps and sharpie, but it was more challenging to get a consistent result.  Next time I might try with rubber stamps.  If I'm not mistaken I'm currently using some of your mods for a dirt baby rom madbean.


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## Boba7

srf86 said:


> Looks Great, I like the stamp look.  I have used metal stamps and sharpie, but it was more challenging to get a consistent result.  Next time I might try with rubber stamps.  If I'm not mistaken I'm currently using some of your mods for a dirt baby rom madbean.



I can't even remember the mods (except for the tap tempo I added), but I'm glad they're shared!


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## culmer

Do you happen to have any sound clips of this pedal?


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## mattdrago

Boba7 said:


> Hey guys
> 
> First time working with a pcb from pedalpcb, and it went quite smoothly!
> 
> Just a KOT clone, with the latest updates from the freestompboxes forums:
> - high gain / low gain resistor change (100k/1k)
> - input cap is 22n instead of 10n
> - low gain feedback cap is 47pf instead of 100pf
> - 1N914 for the hard clipping diodes
> 
> For the soft clipping section I went with BA282, which are supposed to be exactly similar to the originals MA856. They sound very good, but I'm not sure 1N4148 would have been much different
> I elevated the treble trimpots a bit with sockets, to allow a better access from the holes on the back of the pedals
> 
> That one is for a good friend of mine, I took my time to plan it and build it!
> 
> Cheers!


Very nice build! I'm curious about the low gain feedback cap being set to 47pf here instead of 100pf. Are you saying you did this on the low gain channel? If that's the case, does this change increase the overall gain on this channel, but just not as much as changing the resistor value from 1k to 100k?


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## Boba7

mattdrago said:


> Very nice build! I'm curious about the low gain feedback cap being set to 47pf here instead of 100pf. Are you saying you did this on the low gain channel? If that's the case, does this change increase the overall gain on this channel, but just not as much as changing the resistor value from 1k to 100k?


Doesn't make any difference, and actually I now use 100p for both channels 
No difference in gain, the cap would affect the treble response very slightly, but I'd have to calculate how. 
But yeah, no difference at all


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## mattdrago

Boba7 said:


> Doesn't make any difference, and actually I now use 100p for both channels
> No difference in gain, the cap would affect the treble response very slightly, but I'd have to calculate how.
> But yeah, no difference at all


Oh okay I gotcha  I just finished building a Paragon Mini the other day and did a side-by-side comparison with my original Analogman KoT and honestly the only difference I could hear was that the Paragon Mini sounded like it had a bit less low end compared to the original. I haven't really analyzed the circuit at all to confirm anything, but I imagine there's a high-pass filter stage somewhere that determines the cutoff point where the low end frequencies start to get attenuated, so I was curious if changing that capacitor value was related to this. I guess I'll have to find the time to figure it out for myself lol


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## Boba7

mattdrago said:


> Oh okay I gotcha  I just finished building a Paragon Mini the other day and did a side-by-side comparison with my original Analogman KoT and honestly the only difference I could hear was that the Paragon Mini sounded like it had a bit less low end compared to the original. I haven't really analyzed the circuit at all to confirm anything, but I imagine there's a high-pass filter stage somewhere that determines the cutoff point where the low end frequencies start to get attenuated, so I was curious if changing that capacitor value was related to this. I guess I'll have to find the time to figure it out for myself lol



what did you use for input caps? 10n or 22n?


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## mattdrago

Boba7 said:


> what did you use for input caps? 10n or 22n?


I used all of the original values given in the build document, so I used 22nf for the input caps. If I recall correctly, I'm pretty sure the input caps here are being used to block DC voltages from getting into the signal path, so I doubt it's filtering out any frequencies that are audible.


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