little box

Many of the kits on the site have an option for a smaller 1590B enclosure. The 1590B enclosures are the size of the Electro-Harmonix “Micro” series of stompboxes. This is roughly the size of the MXR small stompboxes and many other companies have stompboxes this size. 

In this example we will show a CB1 (EHX LPB2 replica) kit with a 1590B enclosure option.  The first thing to notice about the enclosure is that the placement of the jacks must be on the sides of the enclosure.  If the jacks were placed in the front end of the enclosure, as is done on our other enclosure options, there would not be enough room for all of the components and PCB.

CB1 kit in a 1590B enclosure

Inside the 1590B enclosure that you received with your kit, you will find the screws for the bottom plate along with one or more pieces of double-sided foam tape.  There should be one piece of foam tape for each potentiometer in the kit you ordered.  The PCB is designed to lay over the back(s) of the potentiometer(s) as close to the front of enclosure as possible.  The foam tape provides insulation between the back of the potentiometer and the back of the PCB.

1590B enclosure foam tape

1590B enclosure inside

The photo above shows the parts placement and the PCB installed over the back of the potentiometer. 

Some things to think about when you use the smaller enclosure.

  • You’ll have to give some thought to the wiring.  All the diagrams on the site show the wiring for a kit in a 125B or 1590BB enclosure.  Look carefully and think it over before you start cutting hookup wire length.
  • Some of the PCBs sit differently in the 1590B than they do in the 125B or 1590BB enclosures.  Some examples of this are the P45 kit and the MBB kit.  It should be obvious from the “dog-eared” corners how the PCB is to fit in the 1590B enclosure.
  • If you received plastic “peel and stick”  PCB standoffs with your kit, you most likely will not be using them with a 1590B enclosure.  Save them for another project.  The exceptions would be kits with no potentiometers such as the GRO Kit (Dan Armstrong™ Green Ringer™ Replica), or the OSQ Kit (Dan Armstrong™ Orange Squeezer™ Replica) with the “No Volume Pot” option, for these you will still use  the PCB standoffs.
  • If you have a kit that has three or four potentiometers, refer to the potentiometer placement in the photos below.  The 1590B enclosure is too small to have three potentiometer across the top like we do with the 125B enclosure.  You will put the potentiometers in a triangle pattern with the LED going into the middle hole.

1590B 3 pot1590B 3 pot 2

  • For the four potentiometer kits, you should position the potentiometers as shown in the photo below.

1590B 4 pot