Make FD-8 Great Again or Diy Hi-hat Pedal

I got used Roland drums, and with it FD-8 hi-hat pedal.

Pedal behaviour was unacceptable to me, so with a bit of googling and inspiration i put together this small modification, wich make this pedal quite nice. You get more precise acrtion, and also foot splash is quite amazing. To me the hardness of action from stock spring (but without rubber actuator) feels just right.

Without further ado, lets get to steps:

Supplies

Here are the materials you'll need in order to assemble pedal like mine:

used (or new) Roland FD-8 hi-hat pedal
2cm thick hard foam (i used styrodur) for pedal padding
duck tape
cable tie (i used 2.5mm wide, since there's no real load)
old credit card or similar plastic
100k ohm linear potentiometer with 60mm travel
6.35mm mono audio jack
10 ohm potentiometer
few pieces of electrical wire
piece of plywood (dim: 10x12.5x1.7cm)
hot plastic gluing gun
soldering iron and solder wire
two wood screws (i used 3.5x16 torx screw)

Step 1: Dissasemble the Pedal

First we dissasemble the pedal. Remove all the parts you see on the picture.

Step 2: Screw Wooden Plate

How handy it is, we already have holes in pedal body. Screw wooden plate on the body like shown on the picture.

Step 3: Quick Soldering

Take potentiometer and solder 10 ohm resistor on one end.

And take audio jack and solder 2 pieces of 10cm long wire on each end. You can plug mono cable on jack, to test wich connector ports to connect, by using multimeter.

Step 4: Fixing Your Credit Card

We take credit card, and make hole inside, so that she will move potentiometer's pin when pedal moves.

Position hole and bend card like shown in the picture.

Step 5: Positioning Components

Very importatant part here:

Pedal should be moving, so that in upper open position resistance should be around 20k ohm.

On closed position will be somewhere between 10 ands 20 ohm.

Adjust foam underneath pedal, and potentiometer position, so you'll get this values.

For fixing parts i used hot plastic glue gun. This thing is really genius.

Step 6: Wiring

Wiring is dead simple. Connect as shown on picture.

Parts:

1 - 10 Ohm resistor

2 - Audio jack connector

3 - Linear potentiometer

Step 7: Fix Pedal Travel With Cable Ties

Run the cable tie between the wheel and metal plate, around and around the pedal body. Spring will try to open pedal, and cable tie should block it in place, so that potentiometer will give you around 20k ohm on output.

Step 8: Setting Up Drums

So i have TD4 drum module. I googled that VH-11 gives output from 10 to 20k ohm.

I open module, and set vh11 hihat pedal. And it works plug and play literally.

Thats all. When finished go and have some fun with drums. Remember, now you have almost real hi-hat pedal.

Btw, i quickly put this guide together. Maybe i missed some info, since its hard for me to see, where i have been unclear. So don't hesitate to ask anything.