DIY Effects

[pete.young]

Apologies for the delay, had to wrestle my multimeter back from Son #1, who is building some kind of weird Midi switcher for his Strymon delay, using a Teensie board.

Here's the circuit diagram. My understanding is that R1 is the pulldown resistor for the input cap C1, and R6 is the pulldown resistor for the output cap C4.

One side of C1 is connected to ground, the other side gives open circuit. The -ve side of C4 is connected to ground through R6, it's showing IM on the highest setting of my meter which is the value of R6. If that all checks out, what should I look at next?  I think a check of C4 is in order, but I have to start unsoldering pots to get at the connections for C4.

 

[bobbass4k]

3 minutes ago, pete.young said:

One side of C1 is connected to ground, the other side gives open circuit. The -ve side of C4 is connected to ground through R6, it's showing IM on the highest setting of my meter which is the value of R6. If that all checks out, what should I look at next?  I think a check of C4 is in order, but I have to start unsoldering pots to get at the connections for C4.

The input side of C1 should be grounded when it's in bypass, as the bypass switch wiring that fuzzdog uses grounds the circuit input in bypass (to prevent noise bleed). But it shouldn't be grounded when the effect is engaged - if it's reading ground in both switch positions then you likely have a problem with your switch wiring. 

[pete.young]

9 minutes ago, bobbass4k said:

The input side of C1 should be grounded when it's in bypass, as the bypass switch wiring that fuzzdog uses grounds the circuit input in bypass (to prevent noise bleed). But it shouldn't be grounded when the effect is engaged - if it's reading ground in both switch positions then you likely have a problem with your switch wiring. 

With the switch in bypass, it's showing about 0.5 Ohm on the 200 Ohm range. With the switch engaged, it's gone up to about 1.2 MOhm on the 2M range, which is the highest this meter has.

[Stub Mandrel]

What reading do you get across C4?

[Passinwind]

Another DIY onboard preamp, a two bander that is meant to be mounted to a Noll/MEC concentric tone pot:

While I wait for the pots to show up I can at least test the rest of the build, so I've hardwired in external pots and mounted this one in stomp box for the moment. I may well throw this into my open source design stew along with a few more things I;ve been working up while on house arrest. I'm curious as to how many of my fellow DIY'ers are comfortable in building with surface mount parts? For those who are, how fine pitch do you go with hand soldering? Many of my newer designs use 1210, 1206, and a few 0805 pieces, and SO-8 opamps. The 0805 ones make me a little cranky on a bad day, but for the most part they're no real problem even without using a magnifier. The board above is ~1.6" by 1".

I'll finally have some pedal builds to show soon as well. I've been playing with some old DSP boards that came in a grab bag along with all kinds of other goodies. Finally got around to listening to one the other day and was very pleasantly surprised by how good it sounds.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Passinwind said:

I'm curious as to how many of my fellow DIY'ers are comfortable in building with surface mount parts?

Not a pedal but how about this?

[Woodinblack]

I used to do surface mount electronics back in the day for a living, but don't have the tools for it at home, so I tend to avoid it

[Cathode_Follower]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Not a pedal but how about this?

That's one steady hand you have there sir!

[Passinwind]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I used to do surface mount electronics back in the day for a living, but don't have the tools for it at home, so I tend to avoid it

Heh! I've been avoiding getting the right tooling, as I really don't savor going deeper down this rabbit hole. It seems unavoidable these days though.

[Stub Mandrel]

57 minutes ago, Cathode_Follower said:

That's one steady hand you have there sir!

And a 1mm diameter soldering iron tip!

[Stub Mandrel]

10 minutes ago, Passinwind said:

Heh! I've been avoiding getting the right tooling, as I really don't savor going deeper down this rabbit hole. It seems unavoidable these days though.

I did one experiment with heating a board up under the grill for a chip whose pads were totally under the chip. It actually worked! But you need to  treat all the pads with solder paste using a cocktail stick, luckily it only had about six pads.

I think a good way to do large chips would be solder paste and a rework gun.

More than one person has actually made their own reflow oven.

[fuzzonaut]

I'm definitely not comfortable in building with surface mount parts and surely won't get into it! I mean, even a very tight PCB layout is already a challenge for my poor eyes and shaky hands. 

That's one of the reasons I like Deadend FX stuff, speaking of which, here are some of my latest builds to catch up and bore you a bit, as I haven't posted here in a while.

Deadend FX GOLLUM (Spaceman Rumblefuzz), pretty cool fuzz that slays on bass!
I used to have the Broughton version and think that the added boost is very nice and gives the fuzz more bloom and doom.

 

And 2 oneknobbers, a Meathead (M-13) Dark on a Fuzzdog PCB and a Rounding Error on a MAE PCB that has been lying around for a while. The switch on that one is for different input caps.
 

 

PedalPCB Parentheses Mini, kinda like the EQD Life Pedal V2 without the expression control.
Because I can't handle two foot switches on a 125B, I opted for a wider encloure, resulting in more wiring.
So yeah, it's not super tidy in there ....

 

This something Dunwich designed: a Bass Boost/OD that doubles as an (power) amp. I've seen a few of them in the wild, but never got around to order one from the master himself before he hung up the soldering iron. Fortunately, Nick was kind enough to hook me up with a PCB, what a great guy!
The bass boost is killer and if used as an amp, it sounds surprisingly good with my old Italian 2x12" from the 70ies that I use at home.

 

Last one to round it off is also from Deadend FX, the Big Ear, another Spaceman recreation (Wow Signal)

Sounds wicked, although I still need to fine tune it a bit.

 

[itu]

A friend of mine has used a kettle for baking surface mounted components. Easy as that. At least tens of boards.

[Stub Mandrel]

5 hours ago, fuzzonaut said:

 

I used to have a book of comic art with examples of that guy's work, but I've forgotten his name.

Can you tell me what it is?

P.S great looking builds BTW, but I've run out of TLRTs!

Edited May 11, 2020 by Stub Mandrel

[fuzzonaut]

11 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I used to have a book of comic art with examples of that guy's work, but I've forgotten his name.

Can you tell me what it is?

P.S great looking builds BTW, but I've run out of TLRTs!

Cheers! That's the great and amazing Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, known as Moebius.

What's a TLRT though?

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, fuzzonaut said:

Cheers! That's the great and amazing Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, known as Moebius.

What's a TLRT though?

Giraus/Moebius, that's it! Thanks!

TLRTs are 'those little reaction thingies' in the corner ------>

Edited May 12, 2020 by Stub Mandrel

[Sibob]

Hey all,

Is anyone aware of a boost kit that doesn't start from unison, that starts from -∞ and then also boosts past unity.
Might have a little project that could benefit an output volume control that goes from fully cut to a little boost (doesn't need to be crazy).

Thoughts?

Si

[itu]

@Sibob

https://schalltechnik04.de/en/instructions/vong-filterung/5

Take a look at the EXPLANATION part in the middle of the page. Would this fit?

[Sibob]

12 minutes ago, itu said:

@Sibob

https://schalltechnik04.de/en/instructions/vong-filterung/5

Take a look at the EXPLANATION part in the middle of the page. Would this fit?

If I could just have it's boost section, then yes......but it's to go in another pedal, so needs to be little
Cheers though

Si

[bobbass4k]

58 minutes ago, Sibob said:

Hey all,

Is anyone aware of a boost kit that doesn't start from unison, that starts from -∞ and then also boosts past unity.
Might have a little project that could benefit an output volume control that goes from fully cut to a little boost (doesn't need to be crazy).

Thoughts?

Si

 What you want is a super hard-on with a standard volume control instead of just bias, enter the EQD black eye - https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=116920.0

Or the LPB, I think fuzzdog does a kit for that, basically you're looking for any boost with a standard grounding volume output control.

Edited May 14, 2020 by bobbass4k

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, bobbass4k said:

What you want is a super hard-on

Isn't that what we all want?

[bobbass4k]

7 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Isn't that what we all want?

A man can dream.

[Sibob]

15 hours ago, bobbass4k said:

 What you want is a super hard-on with a standard volume control instead of just bias, enter the EQD black eye - https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=116920.0

Or the LPB, I think fuzzdog does a kit for that, basically you're looking for any boost with a standard grounding volume output control.

Gotcha, yeah I have a couple of SHO's at home that I've built, but as you mention, they go from unison as opposed to having a grounding volume output control.
Just checked out the LPB, and I reckon that looks perfect, cheers.

Si

[Cathode_Follower]

Not a pedal as such, but just finished this 8x9v transformer-isolated psu, fitted in a re-purposed lighting-controller housing.

[Passinwind]

On 10/05/2020 at 14:24, Stub Mandrel said:

I did one experiment with heating a board up under the grill for a chip whose pads were totally under the chip. It actually worked! But you need to  treat all the pads with solder paste using a cocktail stick, luckily it only had about six pads.

I think a good way to do large chips would be solder paste and a rework gun.

More than one person has actually made their own reflow oven.

My friend who runs an audio gear repair shop just down the street is a certified teacher for SMT soldering, and has extensive experience with computer motherboards and all sorts of other arcane stuff. We've discussed a barter arrangment to get me some  scary knowledge but it's hasn't happened yet. He' s repurposed a toaster oven, among other things.