Adventures in building the "ultimate" FC external switch box(es)

lqdsnddist

Axe-Master
Some of you have seen some posts I was putting into the "Show off your FC6/12 pedal board thread" but it was politely asked of instead make a new build thread, as that thread was intended for finished products. Fair enough.... Was going to just hold off til I had a finished product, but a few people have inquired about the build and said they enjoyed the progress, so figured I'd create a new thread outlining a bit of the process to date...

I bought a FC-6 when my name came up, and I was going to go for the 12, but figured it was maybe a bit bigger than I needed in many cases and also more expensive, plus, the FC-6 was available today.... So I got the FC-6 and it was awesome, amazing how much you can do with 6 switches but I of course thought it would be great to be able to do more with external switches. Lot of people did I"m sure. Well, finally that FW update came out and gave us the awesome "stand-in switch" feature, so I said 'game on!... lets build something cool'

Thought about a couple of ideas as I really didn't like just sticking a metal box to a pedal board.... I'm not going to pay someone like $30-40 for a custom switch box with two $2 switches, a $5 enclosure, a $1 stereo jack, and about $.05 worth of wire, I'll just build my own (nothing against those who offer them, or buy them of course, just not my style).

Being maybe a little OCD, I really am 'bothered' when I see board that have the switch boxes, DIY or bought, that don't have the same spacing as the FC switches. Silly I know, but I like the 3" apart, 4" between rows spacing. So, anything I built needed to keep that same spacing, and again being OCD, I wanted to keep the same angle between the rows too.

So I grabbed some cardboard and came up with a little "add-on" I could build which kept the same spacing and angle as the FC top plate, and added only about 1.5" width. Was going to do it with a 3rd switch but what I found with a wired mockup was that I'd hit the second row switch when trying to hit the 3rd row as they were too similar in height. No doubt this is why the FC's have only 2 rows ??

First mock-up
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Pretty cool right ? (for cardboard at least...)

But, I was thinking "man.... I can have up to 4 switches... do I only want to use 2 ?" So I then got the idea to make the add-on box twice as wide

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And since there was wasted room at the top, I thought wouldn't it be cool to have a couple of expression knobs. I thought I'd make some sort of cool foot roller type pot, ala a Boomerang pedal, but that proved to be a little difficult so ended up scraping that foot idea, BUT, one thing I did realize is I liked the 4 switch box at a bit of an angle.. Just felt better than moving to far left or right in a parallel plane, so I was going to built it as kind of a wedged shape, but then I thought "hey... would be cool to have this external so I can take it or leave it"

Thinking was, sometimes I want to carry the box, have the space, and I can use it, simple as plugging in a few cables, or if I don't need it, I can take just the FC-6 on its own, use MLM and still change layouts etc... maybe take one EXP pedal. I really like this concept more than sticking everything onto a board and always needing to carry 4 exp pedals, etc and having a monster board

So then I made a little nicer cardboard mock-up and found that having the rubber FC feet looked really cool, and I also got the idea for a more traditional knob on the top. I really wanted a knob, and not a foot pedal, because some things like motor speed in the tape delay block have a "0" setting at 50%, so its nice to have an easy visual of what is 50% and be able to adjust up or down, and with a detent pot, you can get back to the 50% setting, which you can do with an expression pedal really. Only trick will be it needs to be a recessed or low profile knob so it wont get stepped on hitting the switches. I wanted it big too, so I can visually look down and see it

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Seeing as it was working well, as I again wired it all up and it was amazing sturdy for cardboard, I set out to build the real deal. Was going to do it out of folded metal, but cost and difficulty made me choose wood. Basically I worked with hand tools on my living room floor as its way too hot in Florida to do it in the garage. Cheap wood, wood glue, sanding away any mismatched parts, easy-peasy, no fancy tools needed

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Basic design, which probably wasn't even needed, was a cut out a side, then built a frame by using a FC end cap as a mold and glued it all together for each side

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I'm sure I didn't need the "bracing" and don't know if its even needed, but I can stand on it with my 180lbs and it holds up fine, so it is sturdy, and that is never a bad thing

When it was all somewhat assembled it looked like this

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I really liked the FC end caps too, but alas, FAS doesn't sell spares, and I got no offers cheaper than $100 for an unused set.. See, a lot of people take them off as they mount the FC flush to a pedal board so they have them sitting around. I didn't want to spend $100 plus shipping for a $5 wooden box so I came up with an alternate idea

Found some wooden trim that was 1/4" tall and 3/4" wide, which is really similar to the profile of the FC caps, and it was like $0.39 a foot at Home Depot, so figured I'd just glue that on, and as the FC caps have a little inner edge, I could match that with a bag of Popsicle sticks I found in the kitchen. Still finishing up this part, but I think when it is all painted and I fill in some gaps with wood filler, sand it up etc, it will look pretty good

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Of course, the FC has those cool LED ring lights, so I wanted a way to achieve those. They wouldn't change color to reflect status, but I figured it would be cool to have a blue one for my effects layout button, red for my scenes layout etc. Looked at some switches with LED rings but they were the wrong size, too thick, full circles etc, so didn't have many options

I got an idea of just cutting some little holes, filling it with hot glue (for the diffusion) and taping some colored PAR can gel samples of the proper color to the back side, then lighting it up with an LED or two in the box. Plus some foil to reflect as much light as possible. Was really, really hard making the 4 little grooves as I did it with a Dremel but it actually does work pretty well

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But..... the less than perfect look of things kind of bugged me, and I just don't know if I can do it to match the FC LED's so I think I'm actually scrapping this part. It does work, and looks pretty good for some hot glue, but still....

I think what I'm going to do now is just buy 4 5mm, or maybe 10mm LED's and some little trim cup style holds and just mount one above each switch, so I will still have the color associated with each switch, like Green is Presets, Red brings up scenes etc.

This has been working awesome with the FC6, as now I can have 6 switches for any layout, and easily change between layouts with dedicated switches, plus, with the layout +1 option, I can now tap my Effects switch once for effects layout 3, tap again for effects layout 4, and I don't need to use a FC switch for the "more" function.

Can even do more stuff with the hold functions too, but really with 4 switches I can access my effects pages, scene page, preset page and looper page, and I still can do MLM on the FC6 itself.

Basically for about $20 in total material cost, I've got a FC-10, with the cool option to be able to go back to a FC-6 when size is a factor, and I also can do some external expression options too, if I want to plug in 3 exp pedal and one knob, or not plug in the knob and use 4 pedals etc, Again, very flexible.
 
Last but not least, wanted to show just how simple it is to wire these external switches. Get a $2 momentary switch, doesn't matter the polarity as you can change in the Axe settings. It is as simple as connecting 4 wires, and even if you do it "wrong" your switch 1 will just be switch 2 lol

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So that is the progress to date..... still needs some paint, some LED's, and maybe some labels, plus I'm not 100% sure if I want to do 1 big exp knob and two little ones, or just keep it simple with one.....



Then, since this project is almost done, and I had spare wood, I've just started on building a little two switch style box, ala the very first cardboard concept I built, and stealing an idea from the pedal board thread, I realized I could use magnets to attach it to the side of the FC-6, so then I could have a little 2 added switch box that takes up just an extra inch, or I could have a 4 switch box, plus knobs, OR, I could even connect two switches Axe itself, and then use both the two and four switch boxes together!

Pics to come
 
Very cool. So you're not going to sell these for "like $30-40" ? ;-)

If anyone wants just a Hammond aluminum enclosure with 2 switchesfor $30-40 sure, as that takes just a few minutes of work to put together lol

Now when I’ve got to measure, hand cut, sand and glue an angled box together I’d be well under minimum wage doing it for $30. Fun to build in a DIY manner, not so fun to build in a production manner!

If someone could lend me some proper shop tools like a band saw, belt sander, spray gun etc, I think they could actually be cranked out pretty easily. Cutting by hand, sitting on the floor, with a $2.99 Harbor Freight hacksaw doesn’t seem to lend itself to mass production lol
 
When in doubt always add lights (and toggle switches)..... can’t have too many lights or toggle switches on any project. Lights and toggle switches are cool! Even cooler is those missile launch style light up toggle switches lol
I found a couple 3PDT latching switches with an integral LED ring, but no momentary yet....
 
I found a couple 3PDT latching switches with an integral LED ring, but no momentary yet....

I’ve seen those, you can actually take them apart and take the LED module out of them. Issues with them is you need like a 21mm mounting hole and the switch is held on with just that clear plastic lens/nut, so I don’t know how durable it would be, since it’s just thin plastic taking the weight of each press. Additionally, the thickness of the led module, plastic ring etc becomes problematic at least for me, with a wooden top, as I could barely get enough threads on the switch shaft to tighten the nut.

Probably work well for some applications though, and they have some cool dual color red/green, red/blue ones which could be great for a standard latching switch
 
Cool bit of progress with a new design I’m working on since I had spare wood left over. Building a narrow little box, ala my first design, which will have just two external switches. It’s made to sit flush with the FC, without a side cap, and then the side cap goes over the box. It attaches with magnets and is really quite solid.

This seems pretty cool as it can go on either the left or right side, and being magnetic, isn’t a permanent mod to the FC.

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Bar magnet inside the enclosure and strong enough to hold through the wood. I think I’ll add a little bottom lip and foot though just to make things a little more solid
Cool and it gets you your sides back.. not $100... lol

What do you think to a kit, which comprises a metal folded case with correct mounting points to the existing tapped holes that are left when removing the original sides?

2 switches.

A TRS connector, and a suitable amount of wire...

I could investigate a laser cut powder coated case...
 
A little lip that attaches using the existing holes for end cap certainly would be an effective way to go as well.... maybe even easier than a magnetic option to do, though not quite as swap on the fly....

I found you can actually keep a cap on and still attach to it since there are the holes for the FAS logo, but then you don’t have the matching end cap
 
So now with the power of the drill press, and an easier way to drill accurate holes (up to a limit, it’s a cheap HF tool after all, so no sub-millimeter precision for $54 lol) going back to the “led” ring lights again.

Sketched out the design and drilled best I could, I think it looks pretty decent, uniform enough I hope.

Basically just need to sand it down, paint, add the real LEDs in the box, then find a little metal plate to attach it to the FC using the empty holes from where the end cap went.

Think I’ll do the bottom switch with effects 1/2 layout tap, then the top switch scenes on tap, preset select on hold. 3 most used layouts all just a button away.

FYI, I found this 48” long, 1/8th” thick aluminum ruler at HF for $5. Fantastic price for 4 feet of nicely finished aluminum so actually was going to use that for the top lid part. Didn’t work out.... too thick to bend accurately and too thick to work with. Drilled easily enough but took forever with a file to shape the holes. Wood is like a million times more forgiving LoL

Aluminum would be better and look cooler, but just tough if you don’t have the proper tools to really cut it all, bend stuff etc. maybe one day I’ll have that type of shop setup

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I've been wondering when someone is gonna start producing these type of extensions for sale. I love my Roadrunner EXT4MFC on the AFX2... sits flush against the side of the MFC.
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/the-first-ever-extension-module-for-mfc-101.60819/page-2

Looks like @Roadrunner doesn't plan on offering FC extensions though. Who's gonna produce these type of units for sale?.. either four switches, or combo of 2 switches and 2 pots would be awesome. Anyone? Fractal maybe? seems like a logical accessory to produce and sell.
 
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