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Just so you know the hardships I'm enduring. I'll update as I go along.




One incident so far, no one was hurt but it's gonna require sending a camera and lense to Canon. Got the shot though! need to process it and make it forum friendly.

[still]

While in Gatlinburg we stopped at a place called Music Outlet in Sevierville. We passed by it for the last two years but they were always closed (Sunday) We made a trip out today to hit the Lodgeware store and this place. I was met at the door by 2 labs, a golden named Hank and a chocolate by the name of Tracey. The smell of leather and wood was everywhere. Dulcimers, violins, autoharps, mandolins, and more acoustics as far as the eye could see...  The electric section was about 1/5th of the shop. It was for the most part a Country music shop. I wandered around for a bit, got schooled by a 9yo on the Mandolin(kid had some killer chops), played a rather nice tele that looked interesting with a P90 in the neck and was ready to leave. I asked for the bathroom and was pointed by towards the PA gear. As I went back there I saw a tobacco burst LP on the wall that caught my eye.



I'm freaking stoked. I *do* love me some Les Pauls. I occasionally enjoy wandering into Jimilee's territory. This one had about 7 years of dust on it when I picked it up. It's still brand new. The plastic is on the pickguard. Inspection sticker is on the headstock, and they have all the stuff to register it with epiphone for warrantee.  Yes those are pedal steel guitars in the background. They don't even HAVE the needed strings to restring it. This was a guitar that had no earthly business being there. When my wife found me she asked only two questions,

1) Is that a 7 string Les Paul ?!? (She was as shocked as I was...)
2) Have you paid for it yet, there's some cool leather straps I want you to look at.

The shop guy and I haggled only briefly. This guitar hadn't made him any money since 2000, most likely wasn't going to, and I was willing to put cold hard cash in his hand. I paid, we shook, it's a done deal. They're gonna clean it up, set it up, and have it ready for me when we pass by on our way back next Friday. I'll have better pictures next weekend. I didn't want to take it to a cabin in Asheville, NC then back to Cincinnati a week later, but then I didn't want to leave it either... but common sense prevailed.

New Seven String Les Paul Day!!!

Brian is either having a bit of a laugh or trolling us. Maybe both.
Time to breakout the secret decoder ring.

100813031124 1704120412010417: 0819'18 09201819 00 0517040010081306 1504030011.




Kindly remember:
it's just a freaking pedal

Not Bull Sh!t. Not a 1590B Short either, but actually a tall! As in 125B tall and a hair bigger 1590b rectangle. Might make you top mounted Jack fans really happy.
4.4X2.3X1.6
Mouser has them here
For comparison, here it is side by side with a few of our favourite things.



You may not judge me on that 125B. it was my first, and done with a handheld drill and no center punch. It currently houses one of Ben's excellent designs for testing purposes.

Its a great day today.
Came home and saw that wondrous purple mailer on the table today. We all know what that means!!!
New Purple Mailer Day!


My first completely designed by me board. It would be the worlds fastest verification, but I'm missing pots. I really need to make that smallbear order,like yesterday. Sad part is... even my wife knows what the purple mailer means...
I played around and got the name of the board, and our Logo in exposed copper.

Also came in today, left by the mail-person on my front porch :


Stomptown Harmonic Fuzz. Very awesome. A little quirky, but very rude. Played up some STANK on that thing. I was able to dial in a very nice Jimi too. Highly recommend dealing with him if you have the need.

To me anyways. In the batch of stuff from my EE student.
When asked... It's a diode! 

So.


Green band, FV of .271

Looks about the size of a 1n34a
I'll find out later this week, does it clip?

One of my students was taking EE at ITT until they were talking to a UK recruiter and learned that the ITT EE degree was worth only the paper it would be written on. I was gifted her ITT tool kit and I appreciate it. 1/2w 5% resistors, the wife claimed for jewelry and crafty stuff. The breadboard was large enough to have 4 power connections on it and will be quite useful. I have some more greenie meanies now....  The unopened Weller pencil iron, will be handy to have around. Caps, leds, small momentary switches suitable for the BB, and other useful things have been sorted into my parts drawers.

The chips are somewhat of a mystery.Ok so first off, it's a LARGE pic if you click to open it up. Chips are small and identifying them is easier if you have a large pic. I know the 555's are useful and the CA3080 is also *Very* useful. Already picked half a doz each of some LM741's and LM386's off there. Found also one 4558.  What else is useful?

While building up Ben's Classic Dirt+ to check out some Metal 741 MOJO I got from Gvmnt_Lackey, I realized I am out of 1n (1000pf .001µF) film caps that I got from Steve. Steve is out of the AVX ones I  bought previously, and I'm not seeing anything but box caps to take the place.  Ideas? or just stick with the 100 Epcos in my cart?

Now I did have some greenie-meanie chicklets and used those. I am not a fan of them. They are wide in spec, and are generally ill fitting in our layouts. They worked out OK in this setting and I decided to have some fun with other caps on this very simple, but very excellent design.

We can build with them. We have the technology. We can make 1590a's tighter than before. Smaller...Cheaper...BLMS.

Ok lame but seriously, Cheggit!
http://bitcheslovemyswitches.com/#!/~/product/category=5027572&id=33283018


Looks like they might even have a shorter stroke.
"Great for applications where you need a smaller 3PDT footswitch.

They're built well, have epoxy and all that jazz."


Thoughts? Ideas? Discuss.

That satisfaction when you rip open the purple mailer...


Modified O.S.P. TS project.
J201 tester for ChiBoy's Tweedybird and Blackbird
mmbfj201 converters
aballen's awesome 3pdt boards.

Pardon my ignorance - I'm learning how all of this actually "works" still.

I have a Mudbunny board I'm populating that I wanna play, and I don't have the 100k pots(on hand - order placed later today). I have a couple 250k and a 500k pot handy. I know I could use a couple resistors across lugs 1 and 3 to get the "correct" pot value . I'm of the understanding (perhaps incorrectly) that the resistor trick is only to be used in a variable resistor situation, not in a voltage divider one.
My questions:
Does it matter which way they're being used as to do the trick?

What function are these pots?
My guess is Voltage divider for Vol and Sustain as I'm seeing 9v come in lug 3 of both.
Tone seems to be variable resistor? Blending between two caps to ground?

I have a young employee that is an amazing bass and guitar player. Times are tough for his family - Christmas this year means keeping the heat and electric on. He's a a great kid, we're talking share his sandwich with you because you forgot your wallet, even though it's his meal for the day. I was going to work on a couple of pedals this month and also Jacob's looper, but I think I want to build a delay instead. Why tap tempo? Because he thinks it's freaking great. If a kid is willing to offer me half of his food for the day, I think I can spare a chunk of my play money for the month. My holiday PIF if you will - just a little late because I was not aware.

Taptation as I understand it is the way to go for Tap Tempo.  There's a proverbial crap ton of delays out there and I'm looking for input to a known working solution. Aron sells the taptation kits for $20.

Reqs:
Max 1590BB enclosure
Clean - I love my Cave Dweller but not a candidate for this
Available within the Madbean "family" - MB, JMK, 1776, Midwayfair, GrindCustoms etc all welcome. If I forgot someone, pardon my ignorance
Known working Tap Tempo

Nice:
Tails
Slam mod - I'd do an external 1590a for this 3 stomps on a 1590BB is a little tight.
Led as visual indicator of delay setting

My (limited) research has me looking into Jacob's Modular Delay + Modulating Taptation. I'm completely open to other suggestions.  The duo of boards from Jacob seems to have all of the reqs and the LED option. I "think" (boy does THAT get me in trouble sometimes) that Slam can be added by shunting Pin 3 of the Feedback pot to ground.

Thanks in advance

I was asked what was going in this box, by a guitarist...
I know my etching isn't the best, but are we really that tied up with Line 6's, Kemper's, and Axe-FX type stuff these days?

A friend of of a friend contacts me, he has a gig tomorrow night and his ZVex SHO is busted could I look at it. Sure bring it on over, we'll look at it and see what can be done. What's it gonna cost - it's a $200 pedal... I told him I have almost every part in the pedal and it shouldn't be more than $15-$20. He gets here and the insides smelled of beer and had some dried crud on the PCB.. It needed cleaned up with some electronics cleaner, a new diode, two caps, and a tranny. I asked for $20 to repair it and suddenly I'm an jerk that's "trying to f*(< him over". He said he could just send it off to ZVEX who would fix it for free. I naturally sent him on his way with a $200 brick and don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. Friend wants to know why I wouldn't just fix it for (this is the idiot) the cost of the parts.

I've repaired the occasional pedal for folks before. Price has always kinda depended on relationship. Now even if ZVEX would fix it for free (doubtful) the shipping and insurance there and back are likely to be at least $15 and you have a gig tomorrow. I don't think asking $20 for my time, knowledge, and parts is unreasonable is it? 

<edited for for clarity, edits in italics>

A madbean weener wah build:
It's been a longer time building this one. Work, school, and devoting what little free time I have to the wife have been getting in the way of tinkering. It's not done yet but will be over the next couple of weeks.
So this has some old and new parts in it. I think it's the right balance on old mojo and new mojo. Whack will be selectable between  6.8n, 10n, 15n, and 22n(ish). Volume for the boost and the whack switch have yet to be wired.

It's strange how you start in one direction


I found an old Tube TV - and had to rob it for parts.


And I got the idea for a relay for the boost feature


and needed a box for the trigger:


And then in the end you wind up moving into a different one all together.

Found an old console TV with record player and radio that the Wife and I are going to turn into a wine rack and liquor bar. When I opened the back to start pulling things out, I just couldn't resist going for the electronics. Found 3 blown caps and 2 busted tubes,gee wonder why it didn't work. Now we have zero interest in restoring it. But I did find a lot of interesting components.


RCA, Good-All, Sprague, and a Fairchild tranny. Resistors are unknown brand. Wonder what I can get into with these.

I have found some .22uf (220n) Kemet Tantalum Caps. Long lead and 2 Red Dots indicate the positive lead on them(in my experience) - So I need to check the orientation for placement the Weener Wah II. They are C3, C4, and C9. In looking over the layout and the schematic - I think the right side is the positive trace of those caps. Can anyone confirm this for me?I have 5 and need three so I can't afford them to blow. I know regular box caps would not matter - but on Tantalums it does. I'm told they stink to high heaven when you blow them and I'd rather not test placement that way.



Mojo-jo-jo. And yes that is a .0015 in C10. I know you load r's first - this is just a test fit to make sure there's room for everything.

Clay

Is there practical way to have 2 gain and 2 volumes on the Chunk Chunk? Accessible by a single foot switch? Think channel 1 and channel 2. Yeah it'd be the same tone, but you could setup a crunch preset and then a distortion one. I know I've seen switchable Gain and switchable volume on different pedals. I know you can switch and indicate a single pot swap thanks to Dano over at Bevisaudio. I know that we can go with 3 3pdt switches - Effect On/Off Gain1/2 MVol1/2, all indicated. My box for the Chunk could handle that and that might be more useful.

But now my curious mind wants to know, can you rig a single switch that swapped between the 2 sets (2 V 2 G) and had an indicator? It seems you need a 3pdt to get a pot and an LED - So a 4pdt could swap 2 sets of pots but give no indication (unless there's a way?)
 

Fixed.
(1) Pork Barrel
(2) No sound. Nothing. Seriously.
(3) Replaced Caps, swapped tl062 and JRC 4558, drank beer, waited 2 weeks, rechecked in/out wiring, foul language uttered in it's general direction, reflowed all solder joints, drank beer, swapped trimmer, burned myself, waited 2 weeks, checked pervious things again, foul language spoken in it's general direction, taken voltages, questioned it's parentage, got shocked, foul language screamed in it's general direction, posted here, beer on deck.
(4) Depth mod - removed and 4k7 inserted for now. LED did very dimly light and cycle. I used a 16 pin IC holder rather than 2 8 pins for the 3102 and 3207 I don't think that matters

v3102 and v3207 chips were sourced from Small Bear. Jumpers under them run N/S
TL062/JRC 4558 original parts from Tayda - replaced at local electronics shop. Still nothing. Voltages here

So I'm at a loss here. The voltages dropping on IC2 pins 3+7 and Q4's 0 V at the emitter definitely bother me, but I have nothing to go by other than it seems "strange". Generally no voltage is bad though right? I don't know if those test points are for anything, I couldn't see anything meaningful on the schematic, and they're not labeled anywhere so I labeled them myself.
Large pics can be found here




I've built cave dweller, afterlife, bloviator,  a fuzz and a noise gate (on vero!) and never had any problems...

Help is most definitely welcome.

So somewhere between here, guitarpcb, and aron's I had found a file that had all kinds of vector layouts for knob dials. I'm not looking for this pack from offtheroad but if you look at some of Dano's stuff over at beavisaudo he has different "scales" and such to go around the knob area on a pedal. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? My forum-serach-foo has failed in my attempts to locate them.

Any and all help is appreciated, and mods if I'm in the wrong area, please feel free to relocate it to the correct one.