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I don't want to stink at it, but I do.  I just tried another round of enclosure etching and my failure seems to be in the transfer of the image to the enclosure.  I sanded the tops of the boxes to 600 grit and cleaned them good with naptha and denatured alcohol.  I put the toner transfer paper on the top of the enclosure and ran the clothes iron over them on the highest setting for 5 minutes.  After letting cool for a bit and running under cool water, I peel back the paper and I only get about 50% adhesion. 

Anybody who's any good at this have any advice or suggestions?  I think that there are two potential areas where I'm failing:

1) Maybe I'm not getting good contact or heat transfer from the iron, through the paper, to the top of the enclosure?  I let it sit for a minute and then I start slowly pressing the iron around in small circles and short motions.  Is there another method of heat transfer that's better than the clothes iron? 
2) Maybe the toner has transferred OK but I'm just peeling it all off when I pull the paper back?  It feels to me like it's soaked through pretty well, but what do I know? 

Appreciate any thoughts or advice.  Thanks!

I wired it up as per the drawing in the document and there was no sound in bypass. I re wired the switch like this and it works. Thought I'd pass it along.

https://images.app.goo.gl/NVohNE3kdDDEeEHY7

I did an El Guapo build and it has a pretty nasty squeal when the circuit is engaged. It becomes less severe and more like a normal fuzz when I back the guitar volume WAY off but still not quite. I triple checked component values, polarity, solder bridges, etc... Any ideas?

When  I search the formm on "guapo" nothing comes up. Is this a new board? Anybody else built it with success?

Thanks!!!!!

So I tried a few 1590A builds a while back and they didn't go so well. I had to do all kinds of baloney to get everything to fit and they still give me trouble. Eventually I'll need to make new enclosures.  Anywho...

I'm going to give it another shot with some 1590A builds and I'm looking over the build guide. I'm unclear about a couple of things... 

1) the boards are not actually mounted, correct? They're just sandwiched between the jacks and the bottom/lid of the enclosure?

2) is the goal to get the jacks as close to the top/face of the enclosure as possible to allow maximum room for the board (again, between the jacks and the lid)?

So I built a Naughty Fish a couple of months ago.  I had trouble with the Smallbear Maxon optocouplers and wound up getting the Xvive units which did the trick (there was a thread about this).  The pedal worked fine for a while with the exception of some abnormalities occasionally when I would flip the BP/HP/LP switch.  Every once in a while I would flip that switch into one of the positions and get no sound.  Then I would change it again and back and get sound again.  Just an odd quirk with the switch that I figured I could live with.

Now it doesn't work at all.  I get no sound out of the pedal at all with the switch in the BP or LP positions.  In the middle position (HP) I get the guitar signal out but with no auto-wah effect.  Just the guitar signal.  The gain and volume controls work, none of the other controls impact the sound. 

I tested the contacts on the switch with it still soldered into the board and it seems to be making contact everywhere.  Everything that is supposed to be making contact in each of the three positions is.  I tested continuity between the switch contacts and the next components in the board and everything seems to be making contact where it should.  I also swapped out the two Xvive units with two new ones and got no result, so those don't seem to be the culprits.

Can anyone think of a logical reason, looking at the circuit, why I would only get unfiltered signal from the HP position and no signal at all from the LP and BP positions?  I don't want to go through the hassle of un-soldering that switch from the board if it's not the problem.  Thanks in advance to anyone who replies. 

I built the dirtbaby delay pedal, and the delay effect is really great.  All of the controls work as expected and it sounds very cool.  My only problem is that I'm getting some distortion with the effect engaged.  If I'm playing with a clean sound through the amp and then setup the pedal to produce the same relative volume when engaged, I get some fuzz/distortion effect.  I'd really like the pedal to be clean.  Anyone seen this problem in the past or have any ideas where to look?

I'm wondering if anyone is aware of a good overall reference or troubleshooting guide for noise issues.  I have a whole bunch of homemade DIY pedals - some madbean, some vero stuff from tagboardeffects, some Anderton EPFM projects... A handful of them have noise problems - some only when the circuit is engaged, some even when it is bypassed, some sound like hum, some sound like some kind of interference (not radio, but like a scratchy pot keeps getting turned intermittently).

I was just curious if anyone knew of a good resource for best practices and general rules of thumb for troubleshooting noise issues.  Thanks. 

Anyone have any recommendations on a good looper pedal project? I'm looking to do one guitar, one amp, one pedal board - switch between multiple pedals as a "rhythm channel" and another group of pedals as a "lead channel". Thanks

So full disclosure - I built the slurpee schematic but on a Veroboard layout. So I used the schematic from madbean and subbed part values and/or swapped in pots where appropriate on the tagboard layout.


http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2013/06/ehx-bassballs.html

With this schematic:

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/EP/schematics/Slurpee.gif


Basically I get a filtered effect - the bass and treble pots work and the distortion switched in and out both work as well.  However, I get no auto-wah type effect.  The response control doesn't seem to do anything.  Here are voltages:

IC1 (1458):
1 - 4.3v
2 - 4.3v
3 - 4.2v
4 - 0v
5 - 0v
6 - 1.9v
7 - 2.1v
8 - 8.6v

IC2 (4558):
1 - 4.4v
2 - 4.3v
3 - 4.3v
4 - 0v
5 - 4.3v
6 - 4.3v
7 - 4.4v
8 - 8.6v

The two transistors in the tone circuit (the bottom two in the layout) measure:

C - 0v
B - 0.65v
E - 0v

The transistor following IC1 and the attack and decay controls (the one off to the right of the board in the layout) measures:

C - 8.6v
B - 8.6v
E - 8v

Any ideas?  I checked over and over again for solder bridges, cap and diode polarity, layout, etc.... I don't know the circuit well enough to understand why I would get the filter effect but no auto-wah.

So I have a Harbinger One build on my hands (I got one of the thin boards on sale).  I wired it up for 18v power supply and I had to sub in 2n5089s for a couple of the 2n5088s (I ran out, but I'm going to order some more soon... all transistors are socketed). 

I'm getting the audio path through the effect, but the lamp is not pulsing.  I can adjust its brightness with the trimmers just fine, but the brightness never varies.  The speed control does nothing and the on board LED never lights up.  I did some research on the forum and by all accounts this seems to mean that I'm not getting voltage to the 15v side of the equation. 

So I took a look at the schematic and started troubleshooting... and here's where it gets a bit weird... or maybe not, someone who knows more than I do can tell me. 

I started taking voltage readings and found that I was getting 15v coming out of the LM7815 where it's supposed to and next on the one leg of the lamp.  Good.  But then as I followed the trace, I found that I wasn't getting 15v at Q11, Q12, Q15, R38 and R55.  I checked solder joints, etc...  Then I disconnected it from power and decided to test resistance.  Resistance between the LM7815 and the lamp is 0 as expected.  However, it turns out that I'm measuring about 36kohms between the lamp and Q11.  I've isolated it to this part of the trace.  Between Q11 and Q12, Q15, R38, and R55 I get no resistance.  It's just between the lamp and Q11.  The meter quickly gives me a low reading and then slowly starts climbing over the course of a couple of seconds up to about 36kohms. 

I can't figure a good reason for this.  According to the layout it's a straight run from the lamp to Q11 so I don't see why I should get resistance.  Unless there's a flaw in the board?  My thought was to run a jumper along this path on the solder side of the board, but I thought I'd check here first.  It feels like a hassle and something that I'd rather not do unless absolutely necessary.  Let me know what you guys think and thanks in advance. 

Posted this in the wrong forum earlier. Apologies.

C1 in the Current Lover is listed as 39n. It's the filter cap right at the input. This can't be a critical value, right? Can I sub in 22n or 47n? Thanks

C1 in the Current Lover is listed as 39n. It's the filter cap right at the input. This can't be a critical value, right? Can I sub in 22n or 47n? Thanks.

I just wanted to point out that it looks like the 4 LDRs were missed in the BOM and shopping list in the document. Unless I'm missing something of course  (which is always possible, even likely depending on who you ask)

I'm looking at the Slurpee schematic and mods and I have some questions about the differences from the stock circuit. I'll list out all of the differences that I spotted - the firest few I think I understand, the others not so much...

1) R1 is just a pull down resistor not in the stock circuit
2) the led and r25 are just the indicator
3) d2, r26, and c15 are just enhancements or upgrades to the power supply to modernize it (as is the increase of c14 from 10uf to 100uf).
4) c3 is specified as tantalum in the Slurpee - any particular reason?
5) the attack, decay, bass, and treble pots (and additional series resistors associated with them) are mods
6) d1 is 1n914 in the slurpee as opposed to the stock 1n4148? Any reason?
7) d3 and d4 seem to be related to the Mark Hammer mods, although he didn't specify 1n4001 diodes. Why these diodes? And why not the additional change in the resistor value that he recommended?
c5 is 47n stock and 220n in the slurpee. Is this for more low end response?
9) c8 and r14 are 220n and 220k in the slurpee but 1uf and 47k stock. Is 1uf overkill in the stock version?
10) lastly, why is r9 in the slurpee circuit? There's no such resistor in the stock circuit. Does this have something to do with the bass/treble mod?

Hi everyone. I'm building a Dirtbaby and sadly I don't have a 150 ohm resistor for R6. I have a 200 or I can put a 100 and a 33 in series to make a 133. Looking at the schematic I'm guessing that this is not a critical value - it's in series between the output and the middle lug of the blend pot. But my electrical circuit theory is not the strongest, so I thought I'd reach out for some advice. Thanks in advance!

Looking at the board, there's a pad for a PC mount 9mm pot in the bottom right hand corner.  However, the peak and gain pots are all the way at the top of the board above the switches.  On the drill guide, the hole for the optional volume pot is at the top between the gain and peak controls.  It's in the middle, but offset, closer to the switches.

What am I missing?  When I look at people's builds I see the volume in the middle but on center with the other two pots.  Are people just putting the volume pot wherever they want and mounting it off-board?  I'm a bit confused about how the drill guide matches up with the board layout (or doesn't - or maybe I'm missing something obvious about the pot being mounted off-board). 

[way]

So I started scrolling through the finished build reports and I must say, I'm floored by how nice everybody's work looks.  How are people finishing their enclosures and getting such cool graphics on them?  I was planning on spray painting and then enamel painting - or even hand writing in sharpie! - on the painted boxes.  But it would seem that I could do way better.  Any ideas on where to start? 

I have some bezels (kind of like these dudes here: http://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/bezel-5mm-chrome/) and never did quite understand how they're supposed to be all put together.  Does the black plastic piece push on over the little tabs on the LED leads?  Is that how that works?  And then you just solder the led leads to wires (if not directly to the board)? 

Or is the black plastic piece supposed to slip on over your wire AND your solder join making it nice and neat?  I don't see how that would be possible - I can't see those little holes on the black plastic piece slipping over a wire-to-LED-lead solder joint.  But then again if it's not that way then you just have that solder joint twisting out there in the breeze. 

Also, if I have some old LEDs laying around is there a way to test them to figure out what the appropriate resistor is to complete the circuit properly?

Thanks again in advance!

Sorry, I tried doing some searches but I'm seeing database errors.  I'm sure that this question has been asked before.

Does anyone have any preference for wire to make up 9v patch cables to run from a power supply to pedals?  I have a bunch of these kobiconn 2.1mm plugs and want to make up some cords to run 9v from an Anderton/EPFM power supply I built many moons ago.  I figured I could use generic speaker wire for it, but there's something that seems lame about that. 

So I ordered a bunch of madbean boards and I've been trying to do my homework before I get too far into soldering stuff up.  What's the L pad on all of the board that seems to be tied to the LED neg. pad?  Most of the boards seem to have the same G, L, LED +/-, I, O layout for the off-board wires.  But L and LED neg. seem redundant to me.  Any help?