Guitar Pedal Prototyping Board

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DIY Guitar Pedal Prototyping Platform

If you’ve ever tried to breadboard a guitar pedal, you know the pain, dangling wires, floating potentiometers, a switch that’s always in the wrong place, and a mess of patch cables threatening to pull everything apart.

This project walks you through making a simple dedicated pedal prototyping station with:

  • Guitar input & amp output jacks

  • Footswitch for bypass

  • Built-in breadboard

  • Neat, stable mounting on acrylic with 3D-printed supports

When we’re done, you’ll have a clean, reusable platform for experimenting with pedal circuits before committing them to a PCB or enclosure.

Parts You’ll Need

  • ¼" mono jacks (2x)
  • 3PDT footswitch
  • 2x breadboard
  • Acrylic sheet 200x150mm
  • 3D printed brackets
  • Wires
  • Double sided sticky tape

Step 1 Plan Your Layout




Step 2 Print the Brackets

Design small, U-shaped bracket that:

  • Holds the two ¼" jacks firmly in place

  • Keeps the footswitch stable


I then took this basic sketch and replicated it using FreeCad to get the bracket I wanted.


I then exported the part as a .stl file and put it into my 3d printers slicer which turned it into G-Code. I set the 3d printer away as this part would take the longest.

Step 3 Mounting the breadboard to the base

I then marked out the position of the breadboards on the acrylic base plate using a vernier and lightly marked the surface as a guide to its placement.



I then placed double sided tape on the back of the breadboard and stuck it into position.



We now have the prototyping surface, nice and neat.

Step 4 Wiring the Core Functions

Now I wired up the essential connections so I can focus on circuit testing later. This involved wiring the input and output jacks to the 3PDT footswitch for bypass.

The basic wiring diagram for this is shown in the photo below.

I then soldered the wires into place. I used different colours to identify the input and output jacks easily.


This setup means all the hardware is permanently wired and you just drop in your circuit on the breadboard.

Step 5 Mount and Assemble

Next I needed to take the 3d printed bracket and assemble it.

I placed double sided sticky tape on the base of the bracket.

Then trimmed around it using a model knife so it is nice and neat.

I marked the position of the bracket on the acrylic base plate using a vernier to lightly mark the positions.

Then attached the bracket to the base plate


This is now completed. It is a simple build, which can easily be modified and upgraded in the future with minimum fuss.

Step 6 Start Prototyping

Now you can easily test:

  • Fuzz circuits

  • Delay buffers

  • Overdrive tweaks

  • Tone stack experiments

No more hunting for a loose wire or chasing a runaway pot across your desk.

Conclusion

If you love building guitar pedals, this setup will make your life much easier. It’s a blend of DIY electronics, maker skills, and practical workflow design and you’ll probably find yourself building more circuits just because it’s so much fun to test them now.

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