Building The BYOC Silver Pony, Part 1
BYOC is a company called Build Your Own Clone, and they manufacture and package kits for guitar pedals and such. I’m on their mailing list, and recently they sent out a notice that they had decided to discontinue their Silver Pony kit. They would sell off their current stock, and that would be it. So, I went right to the site and placed an order.
This pedal is interesting because it’s a clone of the silver box Klon Centaur. The Centaurs are much sought after, and used ones trade for insane (to me, anyway) prices. The pedal has a long and interesting history, at least if you’re a pedal geek. They’re no longer made in their original form, but are available in an updated version called the KTR. I’ve never owned one, or had a chance to check one out at any length, so I figured it was worth the gamble. BYOC has a pretty convincing comparison video, and their version sounded amazingly close to the original.
So the order comes in, as you see it. Instructions are available as a download, and I thought it best to look at them on my laptop. I don’t own a color printer anymore, and for this, I need to see the colors! The hardest part for my aging eyes is checking and matching the resistor color codes, which are tiny bands on tiny parts. Very time-consuming. But everything on the list was there, so I got to work.
To build a pedal like this, you “populate” the printed circuit board in stages. Resistors are first. Once each is in its proper place, you turn the board over and start soldering. The solder pads are also small, so I did the soldering in a few stages, working from the outside in. I didn’t want to overheat the PCB or any of the parts, so it’s important to make the solder joint in a few seconds. Shiny is good.
I didn’t get a photo of the forest of resistor wires, since I was busy soldering and snipping, but in the last photo you can see that everything went in as it should. Also, my soldering job is super clean, and yeah, I’m bragging a little.