[Billy]

Nice! no more CLR breadboarding for me congratulations Mark I’m slightly jealous but I’ll dim it down when I get myself some Vari_Brite 3PDT boards!

[Billy]

Sun up

Dimer

Delight

[Billy]

NaiLED it you’ll definitely nail your led brightness with these

[Billy]

Very neat and pro looking

I’ve started removing a wee bit from pot shafts of late too

I’d be interested to know how you do it Mark I’m putting the shaft in a vise and using a junior hacksaw then a little filing if my cuttings a bit wonky

Look forward to seeing the finished beast

[Billy]

I’ll BE having a few and hopefully none of them will get fried man

[Billy]

Thankfully no LEDs were harmed in mine fortunately with such a complex layout I’d marked my cut with a red pen so I didn’t forget it haha

I like my LEDs really dim Mark as do most of the people I build for it’s actually amazing the difference between standard LEDs hence why I test using my breadboard and thought if someone doesn’t have one use some scrap vero after reading Jacobs comment in his post:

Now, I just need to find the right CLR for my big LEDs!

Anyway rectified now cheers Ray

[Billy]

No that’s why it’s useless Ray!, I’ve forgotten to add it I’ll change it when I get home

Well spotted mate there would have been a few blown LEDs  without it cheers

[Billy]

Jacob just for info you can use a coin cell battery to determine whether your LED is common anode or cathode, centre positive or negative, simply slot it between the centre and an outer pin if it lights up with the + battery side touching the centre pin it’s common anode as required for GPCB circuits and visa versa with the minus side to centre pin making it common cathode

[Billy]

Forgot to say I tick it off on the printed BOM as I go as I’m sure everybody does

But yeah when its a brand new baby you’ve got to take extra care

As Ray says the white box on the tip pads is a great idea and I’ve noticed Barry boy has made it fairly obvious with big red arrows what goes where in the build docs

That said I’m sure in the excitement of getting a build finished we’ll still get the odd T in ground pad error to keep us going, its our bread and butter innit

I’m really happy to see you all posting you are all like old pals to me although we haven’t all met

I reckon after all this madness we should pick a city and all meet up for some shenanigans and lotsa beer

Me and my 2 sons are going to Berlin like we’ve been saying we would for about 3 years after all this hopefully stops

Make sure you all take extra care and I hope one day we’ll all get together as Barry’s wee gang of desperados

Slangevar

[Billy]

The only thing I’ve started doing recently that seems to make completion much faster is I go through the BOM and make a list by value

So starting with resistors as Barry does I
list each amount by value greatest to least eg 10 x 10K, 6 x 1K, 3 x 22K and so on

Making a list like this

10K – R2, 3, 7, 9, 12, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26

Then I populate the greatest amounts first

This isn’t a new idea some BOMs are listed like this already but I found populating 4 of the same value at a time I got through my builds a lot quicker and it drove me on seeing 10 resistors soldered on quickly and as you go down the list it spurs you on when you see you’ve only got 3 x 2K2, 2 x 470K and a 100R to go

[Billy]

From Gapco.co.uk

Type M  111 x 60 x 30

Their type B is 118 x 60 x 40

So not as long or deep but almost ready to etch out of the packet with a slight brushed finish I liked the way the screw holes sit on the back but those screws were a bit of a strain to get it

https://www.gapco.co.uk/Type-M-111x60x30.html

[Billy]

Your LED in the schematic is powered from +9v before it’s inverted
You could just run a power and ground from the DC jack to your 3PDT board and use as normal

The values given were common back in the day but not so much now so just use your nearest modern value 22uf etc there’s no need to paralell values it’ll work fine

There’s 20% tolerance so you could get a 22uf that’s nearer 25uf but as I say no need to do that

I’ve built many positive ground circuits and it still confuses me, but it’s only the actual circuit that requires negative power, ground would still be 0v just positive! everything else will work from normal power the LED as you know is just an indicator so as long as it gets power to its anode and ground to its cathode it’ll work when switched being separate from the main circuit

I think it was Tonmann that said the best way to think of it is negative power it still requires 9v power and a 0v ground reference that’s how I avoid confusing myself

[Billy]

You have the IN wire on the main pcb going to the ground solder pad it should go to the pad with the small ‘T’ for tip I can’t see your OUT wire but that again goes to the T pad

Your wiring on the 3PDT pcb to the jacks etc looks correct

I’ve moved your post to the support forum you’d accidentally posted on the guides page

[Billy]

Sheet metal is fine regarding shielding and grounding I’ve used sheet metal enclosures with no problem

Wood people do use that’s more likely to give you problems you can line the inside of it with shielding tape or aluminium foil to shield it from unwanted RF noise etc

With regard to grounding that shouldn’t be a problem as long as you ground everything as normal ie switches, jacks etc your main ground comes from your DC supply whether that’s an adaptor into a DC jack or a battery everything is grounded from that rather than the enclosure some people do ground thier in and out jacks to the enclosure using the jack nuts but that’s not advisable as they can come loose you are always better grounding both jacks with a wire

With guitarpcb boards you have lots of extra grounding points for your 3PDT and in and out jacks etc which would ensure everything is grounded correctly

Some of the newer pcbs have an extra +9v pad making it easier and convenient to use the 3PDT pcbs if you want to

[Billy]

Yes Henrik

wire your resistors as shown in your image and then  a wire from each R15 solder pad to the middle common switch lugs

You can use a DPDT Toggle or footswitch or a 3PDT switch if you want LED indication of whether it’s in ultra gain mode or not

[Billy]

Great Ted

Glad you got it going

P1’s in the feedback loop so could have cut off current to Q1’s base at a certain rotation

I’ve had several Alpha A100K and 500s fail on me over the last few months around 4 or 5 usually in nice simple circuits like fuzz faces and as per usual no problems in the complex circuits it had me scratching my head

When I checked the resistance across them and at either end, perfect readings most of the time then eventually they would go to infinate at one end but not all of them

Those would cut audio out when I moved them whilst testing the circuit absolute nightmare! don’t know how many times I desoldered, resoldered  and checked them and everytime I wiggled a pot wire it’d cut out

I’m sure my neighbours thought I’d lost it the amount of expletives they must have heard

Circuit rage haha

[Billy]

Makes sense Ted could have been shorting straight to ground taking the signal with it albeit highly unusual like everything it’s still possible

[Author]

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