@barry
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Mammoth only supplied a few PCBs of ours as kits.
I fully endorse PedalPartsandKits who do an excellent job drilling the enclosure so it is suited to each and every board while also making sure all the parts are included. PedalPartsandKits take the extra time to individually hand drill each enclosure to be aligned perfectly to suit each and every unique board we carry.
Additionally purchasing parts for me is always done through the likes of Mouser, Digikey, Small Bear and PedalPartsPlus who are all in the USA and have excellent prices. I realize Mouser has a slight “filter learning curve” but it is really pretty easy considering the vast amount of items they carry. Any oddball pedal stuff if not available at Mouser or Digikey can almost always be found at Small Bear and PedalPartsPlus. Mouser now offers a 1st class shipping option as well.
I do not have a link.
That said these would be super easy to create in Publisher for sure which is a low bar learning curve.
The extensive guides for beginners are on the Guides Page. Since all builds are almost exactly the same we simply do not repeat this large amount of redundant information for multiple reasons. That said it is always available to anyone and unlike other places we have a dedicated forum to help. Go to our Guides Page by using the big Red button on either the Form Home Page or the actual Home Page of GuitarPCB
See image below:
To answer the first question:
We just upgraded the design to v3 which was entirely cosmetic. I simply did not add a second board photo yet as I have been in the hospital. That said onto the build questions:
The V3 layout only has some some components moved around to make more space for the transistors to fit but no part numbers were changed. The In and Out wiring is exactly the same and all parts are populated exactly the same using the board silkscreen as your layout guide. We would have gladly clarified this before building or during building since we are here to help and do not assume we are going to berate you.
Our unique In/Out wiring scheme additionally is exactly the same for all pedals. Again beginners can find these Guides on our Guides Page for reference or even print them out since they are a “one size fits all”.
Probable Build Issues:
- I cannot tell exactly from the photos provided but you cannot lay the solder side of the board against an enclosure without some type of non-conductive protective barrier (electrical tape) or the bulging solder joints will short out against the enclosure. Likely why you would have “crackly noises” and other issues.
- You absolutely must Bias a Fuzz pedal for it to sound correct (this is a fine adjustment) so it is not really considered a beginner pedal however it is not that hard to do. You must take voltages using your DMM and testing the Collector with the Red probe and place a black probe on any ground and take a voltage reading and simply adjust the trimmer till you get the required reading. (again see our Guides Page).
Here is a copy and paste from the actual build doc:
In order to have this circuit sound like a Tone Bender, you must use transistors in the recommended gain (hFE) ranges and bias the circuit. There is a 20K trimmer potentiometer on this board designed to help you adjust the bias. Using your digital multimeter (DMM), measure the voltage between ground and the collector pin of Q3, and turn the trimmer to the right until your DMM reads around -7V. The board layout has each pin of the transistors marked if you look closely enough (zoom in or print this document). The bias can be adjusted up or down by a volt or so to your personal liking. There have been reports of some original vintage tone benders having the bias as high as -8.5V, while other germanium fuzz pedals like the fuzz face were biased at around -4.7V. In addition to a slight change to the tone, a larger negative bias value will increase the circuit’s output level, which may factor into where you decide to set the bias.
As you can see this circuit will not function without Biasing. This is the same for any PNP Germanium Fuzz project available on any site.
If you need further help after checking over the Guides on the Guides Page we will need voltage readings and just ask the basic questions of what you do not understand about biasing or whatever.
I hope that helps.
You are hearing the benefits of the buffered signal so you can hear that noticeable enhancement by using the Apollo Tremolo kill switch for your effect bypass. This is why keeping the pedal on all of the time and instead bypass the tremolo using the Kill Switch can be so beneficial. This is also why we did not adjust the GAIN of the buffer keeping your buffered signal the same as everything else so you may use it all of the time. It is not considered a boost of volume but a boost of great tone if you will which will actually vary greatly depending on how many feet of cable, quality of cable and the number of true bypass guitar pedals you use between your guitar and amp.
The wiring is correct.
As Billy mentioned there was production error (unique to this board) and since it only required rerouting two wires (board In & board Out) to correct the signal orientation we adjusted the wiring diagram to make it work. Follow the Wiring Guide and barring any other build issues the pedal will work fine.
Also be sure to check out the Guides Page.
Aside from the orientation confusion of In/Out of the uniquely specific SWAH most questions would likely be answered there including info on the T Pad wiring we use on all of our boards.
OK so I re-posted this properly to our Support Forum instead of it being in our Guides Pages so I hope Puschel finds this.
In response I think it is important to establish the basic pedal is working first.
- What are the Voltage Readings for the transistors? – All 3 leads please D, S & G.
- What transistors are you using?
- Where did you acquire the transistors?
As for the switch you can test the switch pattern by using the continuity checker on your DMM.
Also in this thread by GEOFEX and R.G. Keen you will see further explanation regarding different JFET characteristics as well as the ideal Vgs range for phasing being -2.40 at minimum and -2.60.
I hope that helps.
If you are looking for 2N5952 Small Bear may have the them..
or better get a matched set from PedalPartsAndKits.
Thank you for supplying the detailed info.
Short suggestion is to use a matched set of 2N5952 to work in conjunction with the stock phaser components (Vibe or Phybes). This board has been around for 10 years and will absolutely work fine if built per the BOM.
For a lengthy explanation please read Mark Hammers 2nd post in this thread which exactly covers everything.
I will Copy and Paste the info here for reference:
The FET has 3 pins: the drain, the source, and the gate. When a voltage is applied at the gate, the path from drain to source (which is the pins connected between ground and the capacitor in each phase shift stage) changes its resistance. If the FET is able to change that resistance over a very wide range of possible values, then the sweep of the phaser, from lowest to highest point, will be very wide. If a voltage at the gate goes from, let us say, +3.5v to +5.6v (this is just an example, and not the actual voltages) produced a change from 3k to 1.4M in one type of FET, but only produce a change from 44k to 300k in another type of FET, the first one would give a wider sweep than the second one.
In the Phase 90 (which is what I guess you are building, since you mention 2N5952s), the combination of the FET and .05uf caps allows the notches produced to go as low as around 145hz. Look at the schematic, and you will see that there is a 22k fixed resistor in parallel with the FET in each phase shift stage. Remember that when two resistances are in parallel, their combination can never be higher than the smallest one. So, even though the FET may be able to have a drain-to-source resistance of several megohms, when combined with a 22k fixed resistor, the combined parallel resistance will NEVER be any higher than 22k. If the FET only had a narrow, and low, range of possible resistance values for different gate voltages (e.g., 100k to 300k), then the parallel resistance would not change much (from around 18k to around 20k). For example, 100k to 300k, in parallel with 22k and using a .05uf cap, would mean that the notches produced would never go any lower than 155hz (not a huge change at the low end) but never really go above 353hz (for the upper notch at highest sweep point), only about 1.3 octaves. Not much movement in the location of the notches at all.
Because it is the combined parallel resistance (the FET plus the fixed resistor) that sets the resistance range covered, in this case, that is good news for you. If you find 4 matched 2N5457 (or any other) FETs, and they don’t sweep over a very wide range of resistance values, you can simply change the 22k resistors for a different value. In our example of 100k-300k, if we changed the 22k resistors for 47k values, the resistance range covered would be 32k – 40k. Use 100k instead, and the resistance change is now 50k-75k. So the bigger the value of the fixed resistor, the more usable range can be gotten from even a FET with very limited resistance range.
One thing you can see is that every time I increased the parallel resistor to change the range, the actual resistances went up. With 7k, the lowest notch would be at 42hz. This is much too low. Changing the cap to .015uf, though, moves that lowest notch up to 142hz, which is very close to stock.
This board version is not officially released yet so you are not reading the correct document. Get with me on details you need depending on chip.
The idea is it is mounted with the components facing up so that the input/output jacks line up with the input/output wiring. This makes everything close and symmetrical with the enclosure. If you wired it with everything face down the Wiring to the jacks would be a great deal longer in order to reach.
While you can do it either way if you look at our guides on the Guides Page all of our boards are typically mounted with the silk screen facing up so that jacks are easily accessed and you can see what each component is and test or troubleshoot a lot more easily.
What exactly are you running before the Sunn, more detail please.
What happens you just use the Sunn by itself with only two good cables straight into your amp.
The Sunn itself by circuit design has plenty of available Volume.
Where did you obtain the transistors?
If you do not use something like the Paramix you will have Phase issues.
I suggest looking into the Paramix. It will add blend to any amount of circuits you wish to place in the loop without a mess of phase cancellation problems every time you switch a circuit combo.
1/2 watt is fine other than fit. With that in mind besure to re-flow any suspect solder joints. Especially dull grey instead of shiny. Check that every capacitor matches the BOM and that they match the exact location on the board.
Finally visually inspect and verify every resistor with an online calculator.
This was already answered in the first thread you posted.
Look at the right hand side bar for a list of recent threads “Recent Topics“.
