bobbass4k

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1500454580' post='3337819'] That's all that's soldered in at the moment - I've measured the voltage drops as suggested by Julian at Schalltechnik (very helpful chap) and I get 0.7 Gate - Drain/Source and 1.3 D-S/S-D The D-S/S-D are a volt higher than they should be so I suspect that I've overheated the transistors. [/quote] How are you measuring the D-S voltage drop? It isn't as simple as it is for the, G-D/S, internal capacitance can skew the readings. Try shorting source and gate and check the reading again, 1.3 sounds about right to me, as long as it's not fully short or open its probably fine. Like static, it's actually pretty hard to kill a part with heat. I'm not sure where this perception of smt parts as delicate faberge eggs comes from, but it's really not true.

I work with smt pretty much every day, I've never actually seen an smt part (or any part actually) killed by static. ESD precautions are generally overzealous, and with good reason, but handling them with esd tweezers and just not licking them or rubbing them on the dog will usually be more than adequate.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1493366030' post='3287742'] It's probably been asked before but... what is it all? [/quote] Gah, I was hoping no one would ask... From L-R, Top to bottom (with vague description) - Bare with lots of small knobs - Sequencer that puts out CV to drive the LFO on the Pitch Pirate/Phaser/A few others Orange - Auto swell, a la Slow Gear Purple/White Knobs - EQD Bit Commander Clone Bare/Multi Coloured Knobs - Very quirky gated fuzz, based on the 4ms noise swash but with a few tweaks Half Bare/Half terribly painted - Tweaked Mantic Vitriol/DOD Grunge clone Blue/Black Knobs - EQD Sea Machine Chorus Clone Bare/Blue,Red,White Knobs - Tweaked Mid Fi Pitch Pirate Red/Painted by a shroomy donkey - Digital Delay with super deep modulation/gain section and momentary oscillation Black/Old PA knobs - Rusty Box clone Bare/Blinky - Rattle Crow clone Blue/Black knobs - Tweaked Mastotron Clone Pink/White Knobs - Heavily tweaked Rat Big Purple -Uber phaser/Lovetone Doppelganger clone Black/Perverb - DBA Reverberation Machine Clone Black/Orange paint - Tweaked DOD FX25 Clone Bare/2 knobs - Phat Phuk B Clone Bare/Green Knobs - Tweaked Forest Green Compressor Clone I think that's all of them...

I'm still alive! And i have an idea too.

Finally put something back together after having everything in bits for ages -

Bitsbox are great, reliable, fixed postage cost and no minimum order quantities. They're more expensive if you're stocking up and you'll struggle with more unusual/obsolete ic's/transistors, but if you're buying last minute for one or jobs (as I invariably do) they can't be beat.

I hear galloping riffs and foreboding sunsets. In 7/8 of course.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1475905595' post='3149613'] To mark my big pedal swap, I started to make a new board yesterday. Just needs the power socket hole to be drilled in the side, then prepping and painting. And pedals attaching of course. [/quote] That's some lovely work, how are you gonna secure the pedals? Seems like it would be a tad inconvenient to velcro, tie wraps through the holes?

I call her "Matilda" (not really) - Christmas Mode - Descriptions available upon request - there's a lot of them and I'm a lazy, lazy man.

Inside circle is boost/cut, outer circle is q factor/centre frequency. The inner knobs follow resistor colour bands (couldn't get any brown though so I had to settle for dark red for 1), though because I preferred the way it looked, the outer circle is reversed... The sweepable centre frequency meant marking the frequencies each band covered would have been super complicated, I've calibrated the bands to cover a fairly comprehensive range, so really it shouldn't matter, red is low, grey high, everything beyond that is down to the ears.

Latest project - 8 band EQ with adjustable bandwidth/centre frequency on each band. I've always wanted to do something with an octagonal enclosure, and when I decided to do an 8-band EQ, well, it was just so obvious. No stomp as it's intended to be a desk bound recording aid (nor would it fit with the pattern i was going for anyway) - And because I love making the OCD crowd perspire - Very much in keeping with my usual "sausage casing full of weasels" aesthetic. I [i]can [/i]wire neatly, but I have other things to do, and it's pedal wiring, not an art exhibit.

It's interesting, you get a range of opinions on working with smd from hobbyists, some won't touch it with a 50ft clown pole, others don't see the fuss. Of course the latter group usually don't see the problem with burning pads off too... I wouldn't make a habit of it, but it's a good skill to have. Looking at the guma board it's not too bad, an soic-10 and 2 sot-23s. If you've never done it before though, practice first. You can get smt adapter boards and sacrificial parts for cheap enough, they should make good practice. Get some smd tweezers too (esd safe and heat resistant) - tool wise that's the bare minimum.

The available current is the main reason I've stuck with it so long, it's rated for 3A, and I've only experienced mild noise that I would attribute to the PSU when I've breached about 1.2A draw. But it's a single output brick (for those unfamiliar, it's basically an unbranded Diago power station), and regularly running 15+ pedals off it as I am now is a messy headache, I'm on 4 daisy chain cables at the moment. A modular system is a very appealing concept to me. Also, I'm currently powering all my testing needs on my DIY stuff with a 9V battery through an adapter, having a PSU permanently on the desk would be incredibly handy, and I'd rather bring the JS that I know and trust up to the bench and replace it with a high quality system on the board than buy a cheap adapter for testing.

The time has come to retire my stalwart Johnny Shredfreak PSU. This £10 power brick has been on my board for nigh on 8 years, and every time I've looked at £100 mark power bricks I felt like they weren't offering anything I wasn't already getting, but I think it's finally time to go "pro", as it were.... Trouble is, I have no idea what's out there now. Last time I looked 3/4 years ago, the voodoo labs pp2 and the t-rex fuel tanks were the kings of the mountain, but there seems to be a lot more out there now. Obviously I'm doing my own research but I would be a fool not to tap the BC hive mind, are there any hidden gems I should be looking at? My total requirement is about 800mA, but i have 6 pedals that are 25-35mA and 3 that are 35-60mA, and 2 that are about 150mA, so the 100mA per output a lot of them seem to offer is very restrictive. 9V AC for the whammy would be awesome, and I know one of them used to have it, but I can't seem to find it now. I thank you in advance for your shower of wisdom.

Gah, I listened back to mine last night and I didn't realize that key change between the first and second parts was so painful, I don't know what I was thinking there, would fixing that be kosher, as it may require some minor compositional adjustments? ..and i I might also address the terrible lack of bagpipes while I'm at it.

Ahh, nothing quite like getting something done with plenty of time to spare and really taking your time to get it right - [url="https://soundcloud.com/bobbass4k/of-azure-skies-and-hazy-eyes"]https://soundcloud.c...s-and-hazy-eyes[/url] As the notes say, recorded in an afternoon, mostly live, so presented very much "as is".

I was planning on it, but i was sleepy, and i thought i'd leave you all with the tantalizing mystery... By vauge colour descriptions because I find thinking of witty names for them all horrendously exhausting... Gold with blue knobs - Animato clone with various mods (input cap selection, gate, on board blend) Blue with black knobs - Mastotron clone with a few tweaks Purple with White knobs - EQD Bit Commander (super synthy octave up/down fuzz) clone Badly painted blue/yellow - Distortion/fuzz of my own design, though I'm still checking i haven't accidentally ripped it off... Black with purple knobs - Heavily modded DOD FX-25 Bare metal with frenchy coloured knobs - Mid-fi deluxe pitch pirate clone Green - Ross phaser clone "Tremolopun" (I tried giving them all names at one point, it didn't last) - Tremulus lune with various mods Bare metal with lots of tiny knobs - This is a basic sequencer, up to 8 steps though it can be set for any number except 4. The above four all have retro-macgueveryed inputs for their opto-couplers/OTAs to be driven by the the sequencer instead of their LFO. It works great with the opto ones, the OTA ones (the phaser/filter) are a bit more hit and miss. Red with technocolour knobs that looks like it's been painted by a donkey suffering an embolism - Digital Delay with really deep modulation, started life as a DBA Echo Dream, but I had to heavily mod it to get it actually work (as far as I can tell the original design shouldn't work...) Black with yellow paint - DBA Reverberation Machine clone, basically just a reverb brick with a really nice, grainy, unpredictable gain section Orange - Noisegate to tame all the ridiculousness.

After a fair old while without a fixed setup, here's my current, messy, and now largely DIY setup -

As that Gibson article says, the majority of any perceived differences can probably be attributed to tolerance/temperature response differences, an old cheap ceramic with a -20/+80% tolerance could easily be twice it's supposed value, and over twice the actual value of another identical one. With PIO specifically, I believe they were commonly used in the "vintage (60's/70's)" era because they were the best high voltage option available at the time and so were used in amplifiers, and so they put them in tone sections of guitars/basses because it's just what they had around. Like most of these things, the motivations at the time were nothing to do with tonal quality and everything to do with expediency/cost...

May I suggest that the commas in the title be rearranged? Or at least the content of the thread revised to avoid disappointment.