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DIY Effects


JackLondon

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Another day, another janky filter preamp. This one is testing the cheap Tayda C taper dual pots, which so far are "working" but seemingly limiting my preferred tuning options a bit. But in any case the board will go on free share at OSHpark very soon and I also have done a more DIY friendly layout with all through-hole caps that will likely take a month or two to vet thoroughly.

PW23B_SMD2.JPG.1038497a76123d68157fc8b866cd2c68.JPG

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On 04/06/2021 at 20:32, paul_5 said:

Looking to ‘bass-iffy’ a Klone Centaur Clone that I built on veroboard a while ago. My change in guitar playing means that I’m not really using overdrive anymore, as it’s running at 18v I might put an active DI in there and retire my DHA VT1 from active duty.

Change of plan - valve overdrive with a 3 band eq, clean blend with an active tilt EQ. Had a play with it tonight, and it sounds pretty good - might need to play about with the crossover frequency of the tilt...

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13 hours ago, paul_5 said:

Change of plan - valve overdrive with a 3 band eq, clean blend with an active tilt EQ. Had a play with it tonight, and it sounds pretty good - might need to play about with the crossover frequency of the tilt...

Nice - I use a tilt filter all the time mixing bass, be useful to have one with some 2nd order harmonics from the overdrive on the pedal board - the concept sounds like a winner!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 15/06/2021 at 07:31, Passinwind said:

Another day, another janky filter preamp. This one is testing the cheap Tayda C taper dual pots, which so far are "working" but seemingly limiting my preferred tuning options a bit. But in any case the board will go on free share at OSHpark very soon and I also have done a more DIY friendly layout with all through-hole caps that will likely take a month or two to vet thoroughly.

And here the new one with through-hole caps is, tested and working right off the bat as designed and modeled:

PW23B_4_5_2.PNG.21639e1ff1bbddef4ed6cdff6f572404.PNG

 

At this point I have five working boards to sort through in order to decide on the open source release spec, but this latest one looks to be the likely front runner. The Tayda pots have turned out to work fine so this needn't be a terribly expensive DIY build.

 

Edited by Passinwind
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  • 2 weeks later...
3 hours ago, SumOne said:

First time at this so this time next year I might have built a Chunk Systems 00Funk Envelope Filter clone (JedsPeds 'Funkin for Ja Morton' kit).

20210721_182247.jpg

that looks like a logical way to start.

Solder the smallest (i.e. shortest in height from the board) components first - diodes, then resistors, then sockets, then blue 'box' capacitors and LED, electrolytic caps, then finally the pots.

Make sure that the pots are turned to full counter-clockwise before you solder them so as to minimise the risk of excess heat damaging the internal track.

 

Also, keep your soldering iron tip CLEAN!!!

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On 21/07/2021 at 22:02, paul_5 said:

that looks like a logical way to start.

Solder the smallest (i.e. shortest in height from the board) components first - diodes, then resistors, then sockets, then blue 'box' capacitors and LED, electrolytic caps, then finally the pots.

Make sure that the pots are turned to full counter-clockwise before you solder them so as to minimise the risk of excess heat damaging the internal track.

 

Also, keep your soldering iron tip CLEAN!!!

 

Plugged in and.....nothing! I would have been quite shocked (perhaps literally!) if it had worked though. 

 

I put a diode in the wrong place and burnt the pcb while de-soldering so I think it could be that, or I damaged the diode. Bought a new diode but still nothing. 

 

Or it could literally be any one of the 100 or so shoddy solder connections so I think I'll give up on it for now. 

 

I do have an enclosure decorated by my daughter though so suppose I should do my part and get it working at some point! 

20210724_195943.jpg

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I’d stick some more solder on the soft switch and the pots - looks like the joints are a bit scant.

 

Also, did you get the 3.9 zener in the right socket, they look identical to the 1N4148s? Happy days that you’ve socketed the ICs though.

Edited by paul_5
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4 minutes ago, paul_5 said:

I’d stick some more solder on the soft switch and the pots - looks like the joints are a bit scant.

 

Also, did you get the 3.9 zener in the right socket, they look identical to the 1N4148s? Happy days that you’ve socketed the ICs though.

Yeah good spotting- I de-soldered the switch and pots to take them off when I thought I'd just buy another board but might as well take them off and keep them (but am leaving them in place for now). The 3.9 Zener is what I put in the 4148 socket to start with - I'm guessing my heavy handed removal is what's damaged something. 

 

I won't give up just yet but will look with fresh eyes tomorrow. 

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26 minutes ago, SumOne said:

Yeah good spotting- I de-soldered the switch and pots to take them off when I thought I'd just buy another board but might as well take them off and keep them (but am leaving them in place for now). The 3.9 Zener is what I put in the 4148 socket to start with - I'm guessing my heavy handed removal is what's damaged something. 

 

I won't give up just yet but will look with fresh eyes tomorrow. 

I'd also solder the leads from the board directly to the sockets when testing the board - twisted joints aren't the most reliable. Once you know that everything is FUNKtioning as it should, then you can desolder the sockets and fit the switch - I tend to leave the ones on the board alone, as they are a tad more fragile.

 

Don't know if you've got a diagram for the 3PDT foot switch, but here's the one that I use:

 

Wiring-Up-A-3PDT.thumb.jpg.b363ff2cc6bbebad9a9754962f497f27.jpg

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My 00Funk clone build has stalled for the time being, something's not working and I think it's where I burnt the pcb trying to remove a diode, or the other mistake I made was accidentally resting the side soldering iron on a component while I was soldering the pots on to the other side....or it could be any number of things! I'm thinking it might be best to just buy the pcb and on-board components again but will step back from it for a bit.

 

I'm not letting that hold me back though! It has given me a taste for this hopefully simple mod: I've got a VT Deluxe and one slight issue with it is that all of the LEDs are red, I would like them to be different colours to make it more obvious what is on - particularly the A/B inputs. Given that different colour LEDs = different voltage drop I'm guessing this isn't just a case of being like changing a lightbulb though, but with Red being 1.63-2.03 volt drop and Green being  within that range at 1.9-4 .00 (or Orange being close at 2.03-2.10) would it be possible to just make that swop without having to also change other things like the resistors? 

 

image.thumb.png.84983fed8985f6bac9c2705dcb765934.png

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it is possible! The thing will be matching the brightness - if you can find a parts list you might get the exact LED type as they vary in brightness a lot - I'm not at all clear on the technical aspects - but I know that a lot of circuits you vary the a resistor value to get the right brightness.

 

Working on commerical PCB's can be difficult as they aren't as forgiving as DIY PCB's - easy to lift the traces and often very dense.

 

If you've got the bug maybe build a kit from pedalparts or similar: https://shop.pedalparts.co.uk/Bass-Friendly/cat847125_2466416.aspx

And also troubleshooting builds is part of the fun (really?) - checking all the solder joints and the orientation of parts and then tracing the signal through the circuit and seeing where the issue is (you can tap into the audio and see whats happenning).

 

Someone that knows what they are talking about will be along in a minute with some better advice!

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2 hours ago, SumOne said:

My 00Funk clone build has stalled for the time being, something's not working and I think it's where I burnt the pcb trying to remove a diode, or the other mistake I made was accidentally resting the side soldering iron on a component while I was soldering the pots on to the other side....or it could be any number of things! I'm thinking it might be best to just buy the pcb and on-board components again but will step back from it for a bit.

 

I'm not letting that hold me back though! It has given me a taste for this hopefully simple mod: I've got a VT Deluxe and one slight issue with it is that all of the LEDs are red, I would like them to be different colours to make it more obvious what is on - particularly the A/B inputs. Given that different colour LEDs = different voltage drop I'm guessing this isn't just a case of being like changing a lightbulb though, but with Red being 1.63-2.03 volt drop and Green being  within that range at 1.9-4 .00 (or Orange being close at 2.03-2.10) would it be possible to just make that swop without having to also change other things like the resistors? 

 

 

You should be OK swapping red, green, yellow or orange - but you will probably need to tweak resistors to get even brightness, especially as you don't know the efficiency of the existing ones.

Blue may not work as they need more volts, and even if they light they would probably be very faint.

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1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

You should be OK swapping red, green, yellow or orange - but you will probably need to tweak resistors to get even brightness, especially as you don't know the efficiency of the existing ones.

Blue may not work as they need more volts, and even if they light they would probably be very faint.

Thanks, I'll open it up and to try to see if there's any clues about what the existing ones are. 

 

Oddly enough, I must have an American doppelganger as  I just found that someone else was considering this about 9 years ago and didn't seem to get resolved but then someone resurrected the thread it a few weeks ago to see if it has been done (it doesn't seem to have been and Tech21 gave a warning to not try it yourself!)   https://www.talkbass.com/threads/changing-led-colors-on-vt-bass-deluxe.893889/ ....still though, I'm keen!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/08/2021 at 19:30, disssa said:

Currently not.

 

Here my latest creation:

century_front.jpg.96e3057d41f848542c33787dff1e1fa2.jpg

 

It is the Preamp of the Peavey Century 200H. Sounds really like the original amp

 

century.jpg.afda34b5e727969ce16d5313956da521.jpg

 

I've always wanted to develop a pedal version of my old Peavey Standard (not my photo), sans reverb. One channel clean and the other with drive is awesome! Maybe I'll commission you... :D

jhaen9gcuz3duhb5iykk.jpg

Edited by bartelby
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  • 1 month later...
On 15/08/2021 at 18:57, bartelby said:

 

I've always wanted to develop a pedal version of my old Peavey Standard (not my photo), sans reverb. One channel clean and the other with drive is awesome! Maybe I'll commission you... :D

 

Nice Idea. I'll do some research to see how complex this preamp is.

Meanwhile:

I created a pcb after original factory schematics tu build the preamp of the Gallien-Krueger 800RB:

800rb_front.jpg.0dffdf4da85d0cd023adb01935d04fef.jpg

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I decided to give Tayda's inexpensive UV printed enclosures a try:

 

 PW3BLPF_TaydaBoxes.JPG.d14701fa89caf9c9f3863ad05f5c3012.JPG

 

Time from ordering to receiving them in my mailbox was nine days, not bad at all.

 

I'm  also trying JLCPCB for some test HPF boards, which shipped three days from order date:

 

PWHPF.png.b3fb652bb2afdb6a2caa74a2cfa70e98.png

 

Those boards are just upwards of 2" x 1" and could even fit in a bass pretty easily, I reckon.

 

 

Edited by Passinwind
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On 11/08/2021 at 19:30, disssa said:

Currently not.

 

Here my latest creation:

century_front.jpg.96e3057d41f848542c33787dff1e1fa2.jpg

 

It is the Preamp of the Peavey Century 200H. Sounds really like the original amp

 

century.jpg.afda34b5e727969ce16d5313956da521.jpg

Interesting. How did you get round the Saturation pot needing different value gangs (10k and 1k reverse log)? Did you find spares of the original part?

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