Just came across this site here: https://aionfx.com/
How can they be that cheap? Only thing i can come up with is that they use the cheapest parts around.
But would that make a good/safe pedal?
They arenāt that cheap. The full kits seem to start above $80, which is the price of some Boss pedals
The ones under $20 are PCB only and thatās in line with PCB prices (plus some markup).
Cheap components wonāt make a pedal unsafe. They may make them fragile (for knobs, switches or cases) or imprecise for other components: some resistors, for example, can have a 20% tolerance, which can make a big difference depending on where they are in the circuit.
Cheap capacitors may stop working after several years of use. Obviously, as itās a kit, you can easily replace them.
The reality is, most analogue pedals are built with components that, individually, costs pennies.
The cost mainly comes from construction/assembly, cases, knobs, printing, and packaging.
Itās a different story for digital pedals, although the components in those are also not always expensive.
Cheers,
Keith
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Iām not seeing super cheap prices. What were you looking at that seemed low cost?
I looked at the fuzz ākitā - turned out to be just the PCB for $12.50 - no parts, no enclosure. That feels about right for a 2-layer FR4 board of that size including the back-end costs of doing business. Hopefully they are not luring folks in then hitting them with extra āhandlingā costs to make the profit.
I see a full kit is around $100. Compared with a quick check on Amazon, comparing the overdrive will get you $25 to $40 on Amazon for a completed product. Parts, board, and a painted & silkscreened enclosure should probably be $40 minimum unless you can buy in large bulk quantity. So, adding profit and business costs, this seems about right.
Since the buyer is doing their own assembly, this is really just a soldering exercise. The bare boards might be of use for someone that wanted to experiment with the circuit and not need to disassemble an existing pedal to do it. I have bought things like this for that reason.
I only see two manufacturers I have never heard of. The parts are the same youād see in any commercial product. Prices on things I recognize are pretty much what I think youād see to buy a single piece from a distributer with retail sales side (like Mouser or Digi-key).
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Buying parts and building pedal always seems so easy but unless you are ready to really go down the rabbit hole with commitment and learning with time, patience, money and frustration sometimes
Thenā¦
Here are just a couple of my bins of electronic componants I have for different projects. Pay what the companies charge and be stoked they know all that magic.
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Ok. Thank you all for the quick and helpfull replies. Iāve again learned a thing or two.
Quick question: seeing thereās a clone of the (i donāt know why) famous klon centaur, would it be advisable to order a kit there or go with the notaklon from jhs?
Basically itās soldering vs not soldering.
The two things Iād weigh would be:
- is the design close enough to the Klon to suit me (does it sound the same)
- Cost difference to risk me making a mistake on the assembly
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How would you know?
Cheers,
Keith
Did you see the video of Joshās daughter building the Notaklon with the coworkers son? I was not even looking to buy one and almost did. 
that is always a problem. youād need to see if anyone has run a comparison. A well performed comparison on top of that
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Yep, Iāve seen it and considered it. Until I came across that other site.
Now, i donāt know.
Or maybe i willā¦ ughā¦ choicesā¦
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IMHO, DIY pedals make sense if you want to learn to build electronic circuits and enclosures. Saving money, especially after buying the tools necessary to do the job, is unlikely.
YMMV
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It has that extreme rarity factor because not many were built and, also, a degree of mystique because the maker, Bill Finnegan, āgunkedā the circuit board to hide the circuit and make it difficult to copy.
Of course, that was in 1994, over 30 years ago.
The reality is, the Klon Centaur is an analogue circuit drive pedal that was built, as with any similar analogue drive pedal, with electronic components that (individually) cost pennies.
Of course he used components that were available at the time and some of those exact components are no longer available. But equivalents are.
But the guitar world, being steeped in myth and superstition, has anointed the Klon with all sorts or magical properties even though when Mr Finnegan selected the components, he almost certainly didnāt consider any of them to be āmagicalā; they were just what was available in the catalogue at the time.
The Klon circuit has been thoroughly deconstructed, analysed, and reverse-engineered. Itās a well-designed circuit but thereās nothing particularly unique or āmagicalā about it.
Is it better than, say, a Blues Driver? Probably not.
But, through scarcity, mythology, and the power of magical thinking, the price of original units has gone through the roof.
Just like when Josh from JHS demonstrated he could make an $80 Digitech Bad Monkey sound indistinguishable from a Klon Centaur, and the price of those on Reverb shot up to several hundred dollars, until Josh released a follow up statement telling everyone to not be so stupid.
You can get all sorts of Klon Clones these days, and I suspect that, in reality, most of them do a really good job of duplicating the original circuit.
Cheers,
Keith
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I dont have my new places set up with any exahust system set up. I forget how it was before i had all the conveniences of my old home and establish garage and shop. And I took a number big wiffs of solder smoke night before last on a project. I have felt like crap ever since. I am beginning to belive my daughters engineering professors have the right idea in the new solderless direction they are all trying to move. I have not been on board but maybe I am starting tonsee the light.
Ok. Thatās something to consider. Iāll have another look a the notaklƶn.
As well as, I guess, R&D and the fact that youāre (often) creating a product for a niche market with a very limited potential for shipping a large number of units. That kind of stuff drives prices up. People are often outraged about the price of āboutiqueā pedals - $300 for that?!? For $20 worth of parts?!? Well, thereās the reasonā¦ 
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The other question is does it really matter if it sounds identical or notā¦ as long as it sounds good. The internet does like to pick at tiny differences that donāt really matter 99% of the time!
If someone has all of the kit and the know-how to make a pedal then I can see the satisfaction in doing it but unless itās something youāre going to persist with then itās not going to be cheaper at all if you donāt have all of the tools already. To me thatās a whole other hobby that as much as it kind of interests me, I donāt have time for
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I doubt that even two original Klon Centaurs would sound the same in a side by side test.
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Agree with you there, cos Iāve got a load of pedals Iāve built. Iāve always had the tools to do the work ā¦ so that wasnāt costly ā¦ but itās definitely not a cheap alternative to pedals if you use quality parts.
The one example I can think of where it was worth the cost, was a clone of a Boss CE-2 Chorus Ensemble. Built properly, with minimal tweaking, that beastie sounds as lush as the original. I still have it, and also have an original Japanese issue CE-2 I picked up for a silly low price on FB Marketplace. That pedal can go for ridiculous prices cos of bloody ācollectorsā ā¦ so being able to knock one up out of parts and enjoy everything the damn thing is good for, was well worth the effort and cost.
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