Awesome Sustain Pedal

thingiverse

## Why After I bought a cheap electric keyboard, and looked for an affordable sustain pedals, I decided to build a good and strong Sustain Pedal by myself. The pedal uses a micro-switch on/off system and can be wired to support NC or NO contacts, but if you want to add a simple switch to change connections, you are free to do that. The two main parts are printed in ABS, and the size of those items are designed to give a good strength to the entire realization, then you need some additional piece of hardware that you can find in an ironware and electronic reseller. You need also a soldering iron and something to fix a nut. I’m European and we use the metric system, I hope you can find something similar in the other parts of the world. . A Spring , mm 1,7(iron size)x mm 18(diameter) x mm 27 (length) (0,067 x 0.70 x 1.06 in inches.) . A micro switch with reel that is 20mm length x 10mm height with a distance between the holes of 10mm. (0.79 x 0.39 inches.) . A threaded rod , of about 70mm of length (2.75 inches) metric M4 (0.157 inches). . A simple ¼ Male Jack , that is 6.35mm and a piece of cable with at least 2 wires, length about 1.5mt (5 feet). ### You need also two self-tapping wood screw, of about 2mm diameter x 15mm length to fix the micro switch, but you can also use a strong glue. ## Mounting .1. At first you need to solder the male jack to one of the two sides of the chord. .2. Put the other side into the hole on the rear of the pedal, and then make a node on the chord leaving about 2 inches (5mm) of free chord with the two wires exposed, the polarity is not relevant for an on-off sustain pedal. .3. Solder the wires to the micro-switch but DO NOT FIX IT at the moment. You can choose if you want a normally-open (NO) or normally-closed (NC) contact by soldering the wires to the right pins. I suppose the contacts will be the same of my switch. .4. Mount the spring in the related seat above and below, and fix the entire structure with the bar, the nuts and the wishers. .5. As you can see now, the rear part of the pedal and the inclined cylinder, allow the pedal to move between an horizontal position and and inclined position of about 5 degrees, and you can fix the micro-switch now, being sure that it operates in the restricted, reserved space, if the position does not match with the holes, use glue instead of the self-tapping screws. ## So Your pedal is ready to be used now, if you bought a good micro-switch and ABS as material as well as I did, I suppose it will be strong enough to stay with you for a long time. It is not heavy, so I suggest you to paste a rubber sheet under the base or fix it to another structure. That’s all folks, Enjoy ;)