Early Klon de-degooped schoots

[torg]

So the other day I got Klon Centaur early PCB from Nik @Ceriatone and I think you may like to have a look as well.

Nik bought early Silver Centaur to clone it's enclosure and kindly de-gooped the shit outta it to confirm values...

...but

This is early example and it's slightly different to the board traced by Soulsonic years ago - both spec-wise and layout-wise. It's not ground breaking difference but it's there.

Ones I'll be allowed I will post the list of component differences. At one point CeriaKlones will be also available to purchase

The board will stay with me for few days until I'll finish my work with her and then will head home back to Malaysia

Enjoy

[madbean]

Wow, that board got murdered!

I won't be surprised to find some differences. IIRC, Martin said the actual PCB layout had some minor changes and it seems the Klon has gone through a few small value evolutions over the years. Anyway, thanks for sharing!

[torg]

The main differences are lack of 100k on the output and 2x68k divider on the switch. Other than that all electro's are 1uF and 15k R11 is missing There's two more changes but I was asked to keep them private for now. I'm sure Nik will make them public sooner or later.

And yeah, board layout changed to the one known from Martin's work before #300 serial. That's the space below IC2 where 100k and 68k resistors ware added

[juansolo]

I'm not really sure anyone is that bothered any more about the Klon. Maybe it's just me, but I simply don't care... That's not to say it's not cool what he's done, just that I'd probably rather it'd have been some other circuit rather than the bloody klon again.

That said, I'd love to get hold of one of his enclosures so I could re-house Cleggy's original Sunking, just to mess with people.

[pickdropper]

I think the Ceriatone one will get people excited again, possibly for the last time l.

I'm also curious how many will be passed off as real Klons.  I hope he put some sort of tell in the mold that lets people know it's a repro.


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[culturejam]

That said, I'd love to get hold of one of his enclosures so I could re-house Cleggy's original Sunking, just to mess with people.

The enclosure is the whole point this time around. People will be buying for the vanity.

[mremic01]

What;s the serial number on this guy?

There are 3 versions of the PCB and it looks like this is v2. The 10k is there at the input, but there's no 100k at the output. I was 99% sure that that 100k was the only thing added in v3, but it also looks like one of the 15ks is missing, so maybe he added that in v3 (I had thought it was a v2 addition). I also see some metal films where I'd expect carbon films.

The PCB that Ceriatone posted for their kit looks like it's based on v3. You can build any of the three version on a v3 board, and they all sound the same.

To be honest, I'm pretty disappointed to see yet another competitor appear. EHX kind of killed the klone market, but then it resurged due to the Soul Food's cheapness. Rockett pretty much killed it with the Archer, then started cheaping out on their diodes and lying about it. My sales are already pretty low. Guess it's time to focus on something else.

[drolo]

some cows can't be milked indefinitely :-)

[alanp]

Maybe I'm becoming less prone to hype as I get older (combined with the New Zealand tall-poppy tendency), but I never really cared about the Klon to begin with. It was always more of a mildly curious, "What is all the fuss about?", rather than the forum impression of "ZOMGWTFBBQPWNSAUCE! I NEED ONE IN MY LIFE!"

[torg]

I'm not really sure anyone is that bothered any more about the Klon

Yeah, de-gooped klons pop out way to often to make people engaged. Maybe it's just me but I'm always excited on things like one added cap in Canadian Marshall JCM800 horizontal input, or slightly different layout in Rev B board on Silver Jub, or two cap swap in 60's VOX tonebender... But then again - I'm a geek, not DIYer... Plus I do appreciate that Nik trashed 2k£ investment just in sake of confirming things. He could easily clone the box without doing what he done

Part of the reason I've stopped sharing my findings and general forum presence is your-alike attitude. It's sad, as it takes time and often cost a lot of money...

What;s the serial number on this guy?

There are 3 versions of the PCB and it looks like this is v2. The 10k is there at the input, but there's no 100k at the output. I was 99% sure that that 100k was the only thing added in v3, but it also looks like one of the 15ks is missing, so maybe he added that in v3 (I had thought it was a v2 addition). I also see some metal films where I'd expect carbon films.

The PCB that Ceriatone posted for their kit looks like it's based on v3. You can build any of the three version on a v3 board, and they all sound the same.

To be honest, I'm pretty disappointed to see yet another competitor appear. EHX kind of killed the klone market, but then it resurged due to the Soul Food's cheapness. Rockett pretty much killed it with the Archer, then started cheaping out on their diodes and lying about it. My sales are already pretty low. Guess it's time to focus on something else.

Serial is unclear - it's #200+ region

Could you shed some more light on V1, please?

Maybe I'm becoming less prone to hype as I get older (combined with the New Zealand tall-poppy tendency), but I never really cared about the Klon to begin with. It was always more of a mildly curious, "What is all the fuss about?", rather than the forum impression of "ZOMGWTFBBQPWNSAUCE! I NEED ONE IN MY LIFE!"

TBH I have never built the klon, I'm here for the info mainly but than again - I'm a geek. I may actually build it now just to tick it off, call it a day and move on

[juansolo]

Didn't mean to piss on your chips man. Sorry about that.

Have at it, and I'll keep schtum.

[torg]

Didn't mean to piss on your chips man. Sorry about that.

Have at it, and I'll keep schtum.

I'm not really touched bruh I don't really like vinegar on my chips but it just makes me wonder. Sometimes it takes a lot of labour, days / months of data collection and it's really fuzzy feeling to be feed-backed in that fashion. But I do understand that people mainly don't get as excited in minor circuit changes as me, and I get as well that this is DIY forum where things that turns me on doesn't really matter.

Needless to say - I'm really sorry if I came across as an over-sensitive twant.

[juansolo]

Come here, gimmie a hug...



I can be a bit of a dick about the klon. Many years of hype/worship/nonsense have jaded me somewhat. I sometimes need to wind myself in a little.

[torg]

Yeah, it's mainly made of drama and astatine

[mremic01]

Could you shed some more light on V1, please?

You can read about it here: http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/20210-builder-profile-klons-bill-finnegan

Bill talks about as if there were only two versions, but there are clearly three. Somewhere out there is a guide I made for identifying which PCB is which, but I can't find it. Here's the gist of it:

V1 has no 10k on the input. There's also no ground plane. Bill says he added a resistor for more lower mids, which is the 15k that is missing on your V2. I assumed this was added between V1 and V2, but it looks like it was actually added between V2 and V3. It doesn't have the 100k at the output. Bill didnt' mention that in the interview, but the PCB is labeled with an extra letter (C?, I forget). V1 has a 560E in line with the solder pads that run to the DPDT. There's one less solder pad labeled W.

V2 (the version you have here) adds the 10k at the input and an extra W solder pad to run to the DPDT. According to Bill, there should be some ground planing added. Instead of the 560E in line with the W pads, it's oriented vertically, along with the rest of the resistors under the middle IC. From your degooping, it also looks like a few other resistors were moved around, but there's nothing I can tell that's radically different. The 392k looks like it's in a different spot. The color bands are hard to read, but everything I can make out looks like the Chittum schematic, except 12k and 5k1 are 12k1 and 5k11 in the real thing. These photos look like that's the case, but it's hard to really make out. I posted about that on freestomboxes a while back and got made fun of. Now I feel a little vindicated. Is there one extra metal film resistor? It should be a 1k carbon film in V3.

V3 is the PCB we all know and love, traced by Martin Chittum. Again, the only things he got wrong were the 12k and 5k1. The real values are so close that it doesn't matter, but I used to be so anal-retentive about this circuit that I got some 12k1s and 5k11s and those are what I use now.

So all the electrolytics are 1uF? I built one with 1uF film caps in all those spots and don't hear any loss in bass, even with a bass.

Are the two 68ks totally absent or were they soldered directly to the switch?