Members jshaffer20 Posted May 27, 2011 Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 I discovered these pedals a while ago and for the money, they sound REALLY good but man are they UGLY!! Not only that, but with the all of the jacks and knobs on the top end of the pedal, they are extremely hard to use on a crowded board like mine. So to make them more usable I decided to re-house them in Hammond 125B enclosures from PedalPartsPlus.com. I bought the cases powdercoated and they look GREAT!! I will warn you that doing this requires pretty decent soldering skills and a good deal of patience! I can do one in about five hours taking my time. I re-used all the pots, jacks and switch except for the power. I bought those from PPP.com as well. So here we go.... The pedal in stock form.....UGLY!!! Some of the tools required for the job include.... small screwdrivers of varying size.. needle nose pliers.. wire cutter and strippers.. a soldering iron with a small tip. Mine is a Weller EC3001 De-soldering braid.. solder.. 22 gauge hookup wire, can be other sizes as well, thats just what I had. black Sharpie marker.. electrical tape.. small crescent wrench.. small combination square or ruler.. DECONSTRUCTION Start by taking the back off with a small philips head screwdriver Use your small wrench to remove the nuts from both input and output jack. Then simply slide the board out.. Remove the two small screws on the backside of the footswitch (didnt take a pic) After that, use a small pair of needle nosed pliers to remove the ring that holds the switch in place. There are two small grooves on each side where the pliers will fit into. The switch should now be free along with the board holding the jacks. Now, take your small flat head screwdriver and gently lift the knobs off of the pot shafts. They are tight but will come right off without damage. Now take the pliers or (small socket) and remove the nuts holding the pots and PCB in the case. After that the guts will lift right out... stay tuned for part 2!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted May 27, 2011 Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 Dans are not ergonomic pedals and their switchs are funkey on the feet. I have a Rockey Road leslie emulator pedal which is even smaller than the cool cat. The buttons are way to close together to work it. If its on a soft surface you would flip the dinkey box over. Instead of a rehouse, My solution was to install a stereo jack. I then have a cable coming from it thats connected to an old tape recorder foot switch that has two momentary switches. I can then place that on the board and use it to turn it on and off and change the leslie speed. Works like a champ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 PART 2 Now the fun begins, fire up the soldering iron and get it hot. While its heating, take your sharpie and number the connectors on the PCB so you know where everything is going. I also labeled the pots and jacks just to be sure I put everything back right and to save confusion. Now we are ready to de-solder the jacks. Go ahead and unplug the three white connectors freeing the board from the main PCB and switch. Use your de-solder braid on each pin of the jacks. They are highlighted in red in this photo.. Set the jacks aside and grab the main PCB. You might want to grab a beer or five for this part as well. De-solder the two outside pots first. I did this by holding the iron on all three pins and wiggling the pot off the board. After that use the braid to clear the holes for later use. Now move on to the middle one. This is the Tremolo pedal so this would be the soft/hard switch. I call this one the "TEN PINS OF HELL". Use the braid and de-solder all ten pins. This takes a while but keep at it and you will eventually get it free. After you get that done and do your victory dance you should have something that looks like this... Now find the two pins of the LED and de-solder them. I just heated both up and pulled it free. Easy. Now you will need ten small hook up wires for re-wiring the hard/soft switch. I used about 5" just to be safe and have room to work. It helps to tape them together and cut them all nice and even. After that, strip and tin (add a bit of solder) to the end of each wire. I stripped about 1/16" from each wire. After that, start soldering the wires going into the top of the PCB (where the LED was sticking up) After you get the ten wires soldered to the board, tape the pot to the top of the old casing to act as a second hand. Now start soldering the wires to the pins. Be sure to note the orientation that the pot came off of the board and hook the wire up accordingly. I used extra wire to give me some room to twist the pot into its new location. You will see that later... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 The pot wired up.... Now move on to the two other pots. Wire them up in the same fashion. You should be good and warmed up now with the iron:evil: Now take two wires about 3" long and wire the LED up. I used a new 5mm green. Now we move on to wiring up the jacks. The wires for the jacks are on either end of the board where they were mounted. You should have them labeled (if you listened to me) so it should be easy to find them. Now grab the smallest flat head screwdriver you can find and pry the small piece of plastic holding the metal pin in the connector like so.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 Pull the pins out and you have this... Now just solder those pins right to the jacks. If you labeled the jacks its easy. After you do that it should look like this... Now take a two, 6" lengths of wire and jump it from the unused lug of each jack to the center pin of the power jack Now take the two power wires running from the middle of the PCB, one is red, one is brown (mine are red/black because I replaced them). The red wire goes to the tip of the DC jack, the brown goes to the sleeve. Then take the jumper from the output jack lug and solder it to tip of the power jack. You can do this to test the function of the pedal before housing it, but to install the DC jack it will have to be de-soldered and done again once in the case. This is everything completed.... I took it one step further and added a volume pot to the internal trim pot to make it adjustable on stage. It also doubles as a clean boost with the depth knob set to zero. COOL!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 Now everything is ready for the case. Start by figuring out where you want the jacks and knobs and start measuring it out. You need to be careful at this step to make sure you leave enough room for everything. You might want to use a different case with different knob configurations so I wont do much explaining here. But I will give you pics on how I did it..... Start by covering the case in tape where you want everything to be and lay the knobs out to check for fit After you figure out where you want everything, punch and drill the holes. I used a uni-bit and a drill press but regular drill bits and a drill will work if you have them. Now its ready for the guts Start putting the pots into place. I soldered enough wire onto them that I can move them around if I want to get the desired knob layout You will need to re-solder the power connections but after that its as simple as dropping it all in. I covered the PCB in tape to protect it a little but this is the completed internals And thats it!!!! Two tremolos and a vibe all done using this method Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 27, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 I am sure I said some things that dont make sense, so if you have any questions feel free to PM me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A-20 Posted May 27, 2011 Members Share Posted May 27, 2011 that's great. Particularly the pics w/ circuit board stuff... I wonder if all the cool cats are basically the same underskin? Pots should work the same, power, led, ... and if there were a trim of some sort... so I suppose it all works out? No battery though right? Nice Job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 28, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 28, 2011 I am pretty sure the cool cats are all the same. At least the basic layout anyways. You could fit a battery in there. I clip the leads off for it though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Salsage Posted May 28, 2011 Members Share Posted May 28, 2011 nice work. Thanks for posting this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members katillac Posted May 28, 2011 Members Share Posted May 28, 2011 Great work! I love re-housing threads! What type of pot did you use for the volume (ohms and log or linear)? Did you put that in across the terminals of the trim pot, leaving the trim pot in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted May 30, 2011 Author Members Share Posted May 30, 2011 Great work! I love re-housing threads!What type of pot did you use for the volume (ohms and log or linear)? Did you put that in across the terminals of the trim pot, leaving the trim pot in? I used a 250K LOG pot across the terminals of the trimmer. I just left it in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Belva Posted May 30, 2011 Members Share Posted May 30, 2011 I have some of the Dan minis. Great sounding but fragile. I need to apply this to the ones that have broken pots on the top. I'll have to measure resistance and get some that are heavier duty. I'm also partial to having the jacks on the long sides rather that on the back where the pots are originally on your cool cat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ncsu08ms3 Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 This write up is AWESOME! Saved, I'm going to try and apply this to my CTO-1 & CO-1, but maybe house them together in the same enclosure wired in series, we'll see how ambitious I feel when i get around to doing this, thanks again! Phillip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members grunge782 Posted June 29, 2011 Members Share Posted June 29, 2011 Awesome thread. Just wondering, where do you purchase your enclosures and howd you get that sparkly green look ? It looks very clean and well done . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted July 6, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 6, 2011 Awesome thread. Just wondering, where do you purchase your enclosures and howd you get that sparkly green look ? It looks very clean and well done . Pedalpartsplus.com They have TONS of awesome colors to choose from and its actually pretty cheap to have them done. It's under $2 for standard colors if I remember right. Thanks for the compliments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phillbis Posted July 7, 2011 Members Share Posted July 7, 2011 Excellent tutorial! Just scored a Cool Cat Fuzz v1 for $19. I've got my order placed at Pedal Parts Plus and plan on rehousing my Fuzz and TOD v1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted July 11, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 11, 2011 Excellent tutorial! Just scored a Cool Cat Fuzz v1 for $19. I've got my order placed at Pedal Parts Plus and plan on rehousing my Fuzz and TOD v1. Awesome! Let me know how it goes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members shooto Posted July 12, 2011 Members Share Posted July 12, 2011 GREAt thread! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phillbis Posted July 14, 2011 Members Share Posted July 14, 2011 Woohoo! Got a package from Pedal Parts Plus today! Looks like I'll be soldering and cursing this weekend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted July 18, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 18, 2011 Woohoo! Got a package from Pedal Parts Plus today! Looks like I'll be soldering and cursing this weekend! HAHA, There WILL be cursing I am sure. Have fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Phillbis Posted July 18, 2011 Members Share Posted July 18, 2011 I did start on this on the weekend. You weren't kidding about how long it takes to do this! This does take some patience. The desoldering is a chore for sure. I started using a 40 watt iron but switched to a 25watt and just decided to take my time. I ran into one obstacle during my rehouse. The legs on the tone pot were broken. I do have a spare pot from a strat build that should work. My main issue is that this pot is a bit bigger than the others but it should fit. I'll post pics once I'm made the change. Also, I'm very impressed with the pedal parts powder coated enclosures. They look great. I also saved some time by purchasing the predrilled enclosures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jshaffer20 Posted July 26, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 26, 2011 I did start on this on the weekend. You weren't kidding about how long it takes to do this! This does take some patience. The desoldering is a chore for sure. I started using a 40 watt iron but switched to a 25watt and just decided to take my time. I ran into one obstacle during my rehouse. The legs on the tone pot were broken. I do have a spare pot from a strat build that should work. My main issue is that this pot is a bit bigger than the others but it should fit. I'll post pics once I'm made the change. Also, I'm very impressed with the pedal parts powder coated enclosures. They look great. I also saved some time by purchasing the predrilled enclosures. I had trouble with a couple of the legs in one of the trems I did. I fixed it somehow but I cant remember what I did. I regular sized pot will fit just fine. pedal parts does a great job on the enclosures. I will definitely be ordering more from them soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members robinbowes Posted September 16, 2012 Members Share Posted September 16, 2012 I'm in the middle of a Dano re-house (a CTO-1). There's actually a slightly easier way to do this. What I did was to leave the jacks soldered to the IO board, but cut the board into three pieces: - one bearing the input jack - one bearing the output jack - the middle section bearing the DC power socket I used a new DC power socket and wired it to the bottom of the input board. You can then mount the jack sockets in the case and use the existing connectors to hook them up. The only additional connection that is required is to join together the ground connections of the input and output. It's pretty easy to do and looks pretty tidy inside the case. R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spentron Posted September 17, 2012 Members Share Posted September 17, 2012 I'd be tempted to just take everything out, grind that stupid lip off the top edge of the enclosure over the knobs, and put it back together. A real "what were they thinking" on that one, the rest isn't bad... save the rehousing for the plastic Danos that really, really need true bypass or something. On some of the colors, add repainting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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