Making good progress on my Klein Bottle kit build. The process has been quite enjoyable up to this point.
(http://i.imgur.com/bQ5PnuD.jpg)
I'm not looking forward to completing all of the potentiometer solder joints though. A few of these would be impossible to solder from the top side of the board without melting some caps. The closeup pic shows two of these impossible spots. I figure I'll solder as many pads as I can, then remove the whole assembly and solder the rest from the other side. I always get nervous tightening nuts on a finished enclosure because I don't always have the correct sockets to minimize the chance of scratching the enclosure.
Very nice. I have one that I'm going to put together, soon.
I've soldered all of the full sized pots with the exception of the two impossible pads that I showed earlier. Although some others were quite tricky, those two are the only ones that cannot be done from this side of the board (at least by me). If you're going to build this, and you are using the caps from Peter's Mouser shopping list, I'd recommend leaving that 470nF cap off of the board until that pot is soldered, then bending the leads of the cap so you can solder it from the top of the board.
I slightly melted one cap in my efforts to get the other spots soldered. This definitely requires some steady hands and some precise iron placement.
One other thing I've needed to fix on my build is the fact that the powder coat is thick enough on the inside and in the drill holes to leave the enclosure ungrounded if I were to just build it as is. I chiseled away the coating from the inside of the box around the output jack, and I'm planning on adding an extra washer there to help ensure that the enclosure will be grounded at that point.
Success to you on that monster. After looking at the build docs and my not so good success rate with the complicated builds I caved and spent the $350 for a finished one. Still haven't had time to play with it but the YouTube videos sold me on all the things you can do with it.
Quote from: BrianS on April 22, 2019, 11:16:41 PM
Success to you on that monster. After looking at the build docs and my not so good success rate with the complicated builds I caved and spent the $350 for a finished one. Still haven't had time to play with it but the YouTube videos sold me on all the things you can do with it.
I must tell you, $350 for a finished one is a very good bargain. I wouldn't be willing to build one of these for someone else for less than $500.
Quote from: EBK on April 22, 2019, 11:21:52 PM
Quote from: BrianS on April 22, 2019, 11:16:41 PM
Success to you on that monster. After looking at the build docs and my not so good success rate with the complicated builds I caved and spent the $350 for a finished one. Still haven't had time to play with it but the YouTube videos sold me on all the things you can do with it.
I must tell you, $350 for a finished one is a very good bargain. I wouldn't be willing to build one of these for someone else for less than $500.
That was another thing I just couldn't get past, the time involved in puttting it together and then just dreading a "No Fire Up." Troubleshooting is not my forte and the thought of over $200 worth of electronic pieces not functioning just didn't sit well. LOL. I'm sure you'll blow this out of the water though. I don't post much on here anymore but I do follow things and you put together some really nice stuff.
Glad to see it's coming along well! I had nightmares about those pot solder pads myself. It's doable without melting anything (determination is key), but you have to be a little creative with iron placement. Once I had everything bolted in I wasn't keen on taking it apart again, so I went ahead and soldered from the component side.
Quote from: BrianS on April 22, 2019, 11:31:37 PM
That was another thing I just couldn't get past, the time involved in puttting it together and then just dreading a "No Fire Up." Troubleshooting is not my forte and the thought of over $200 worth of electronic pieces not functioning just didn't sit well. LOL. I'm sure you'll blow this out of the water though. I don't post much on here anymore but I do follow things and you put together some really nice stuff.
Thanks! I seem to produce 2-3 pedals per year, so I do try to make them special. ;D
I am definitely worried about this pedal not working when I fire it up. I'm considering tracing my way through the board layout (it's 4 layers!) to find places for my multimeter probes to verify each pot and switch are properly soldered and working. I really dreaded removing the board to solder those last two pads (I had to bend one of the single-gang pots out of the way too), and I'm sure I'd hate that disassembly process a hundredfold after the jacks and stomps are wired.
Quote from: benny_profane on April 23, 2019, 12:29:11 AM
Glad to see it's coming along well! I had nightmares about those pot solder pads myself. It's doable without melting anything (determination is key), but you have to be a little creative with iron placement. Once I had everything bolted in I wasn't keen on taking it apart again, so I went ahead and soldered from the component side.
Maybe my iron tip is wider than the one you use or you had your film cap slightly north of where mine settled in. My iron would have actually touched the film cap and the electrolytic cap at the same time, regardless of my determination level in my case. Peter somehow managed to make those connections on the board in his assembly video as well, but I took the long way around and disassembled/reassembled just to be safer. Ironically, the one cap I melted isn't really that close to one of the difficult solder joints. It was just the result of an errant movement while inspecting my work.
Edit: I'm looking at the board layout now, and it seems that the hardest solder joint I made (the one right next to the inductor L1) was for a pad that isn't even connected to anything else in the circuit. Oh well.
Quote from: EBK on April 23, 2019, 12:08:12 PM
Quote from: benny_profane on April 23, 2019, 12:29:11 AM
Glad to see it's coming along well! I had nightmares about those pot solder pads myself. It's doable without melting anything (determination is key), but you have to be a little creative with iron placement. Once I had everything bolted in I wasn't keen on taking it apart again, so I went ahead and soldered from the component side.
Maybe my iron tip is wider than the one you use or you had your film cap slightly north of where mine settled in. My iron would have actually touched the film cap and the electrolytic cap at the same time, regardless of my determination level in my case. Peter somehow managed to make those connections on the board in his assembly video as well, but I took the long way around and disassembled/reassembled just to be safer. Ironically, the one cap I melted isn't really that close to one of the difficult solder joints. It was just the result of an errant movement while inspecting my work.
Edit: I'm looking at the board layout now, and it seems that the hardest solder joint I made (the one right next to the inductor L1) was for a pad that isn't even connected to anything else in the circuit. Oh well.
That is very ironic that it doesn't connect. I ended up practicing a bunch with a cold iron before committing to the solder. There wasn't much room, but I got it in there. So you're probably right that my tip is a bit more narrow. I also brushed a component and melted a corner nowhere near a tight spot: one of the led trimmers while soldering the 9mm pots. Those were the last onboard components I installed and I think I just got careless. Funny how that works out.
Regardless of method, I'm glad that you ended up getting it finished! This is a huge project! I still have to finish up the offboard wiring on mine.
Edit: Hopefully I didn't come across as glib in re 'determination.' For me, I was thinking, "Well, this has to connect, so I've gotta sort out a way to make it happen." I didn't mean to imply you weren't dedicated or any nonsense like that.
Quote from: benny_profane on April 23, 2019, 02:40:45 PM
Regardless of method, I'm glad that you ended up getting it finished! This is a huge project! I still have to finish up the offboard wiring on mine.
I still need to do the offboard wiring as well, so I'm not quite done. I'm just pausing to see if there is a reasonable way to check my work without removing the board again (looks like most of it the pot connections run through the board to the bottoms of caps, unfortunately).
Quote
Edit: Hopefully I didn't come across as glib in re 'determination.' For me, I was thinking, "Well, this has to connect, so I've gotta sort out a way to make it happen." I didn't mean to imply you weren't dedicated or any nonsense like that.
Nah, I actually interpreted that in the friendly way that you intended, so all is good. :) It didn't even cross my mind that what you said could have been misconstrued as negative until just now. ;D
Quote from: EBK on April 23, 2019, 02:54:19 PM
Quote from: benny_profane on April 23, 2019, 02:40:45 PM
Regardless of method, I'm glad that you ended up getting it finished! This is a huge project! I still have to finish up the offboard wiring on mine.
I still need to do the offboard wiring as well, so I'm not quite done. I'm just pausing to see if there is a reasonable way to check my work without removing the board again (looks like most of it the pot connections run through the board to the bottoms of caps, unfortunately).
Quote
Edit: Hopefully I didn't come across as glib in re 'determination.' For me, I was thinking, "Well, this has to connect, so I've gotta sort out a way to make it happen." I didn't mean to imply you weren't dedicated or any nonsense like that.
Nah, I actually interpreted that in the friendly way that you intended, so all is good. :) It didn't even cross my mind that what you said could have been misconstrued as negative until just now. ;D
Glad it wasn't misconstrued!
I think the pot connections should be good, so I don't think you'd have to take the board out to check again (although, I have the same worry and that's part of the reason I haven't finished my offboard wiring yet). I was concerned about the smaller pads for resistors. Since it's a massive four-layer board, soldering was slower than usual. I spot checked a bunch of connections with the passives before I installed the pots—everything seemed okay... We'll see though if that is the case.
I've finished up the soldering (I think), it it passed the does-not-'splode-upon-power-up test. I still have no idea if this thing works yet, but I will start testing it later (I'll put the knobs on before further testing).
(http://i.imgur.com/wqSMAZ0l.jpg)
Peter forgot to ship me screws for the enclosure. The fact that I had plenty laying around due to many past pedal building failures has not helped my confidence. :P
Looks great! Let us now how it goes when you get it up and running!
Definitely interested to hear how people end up using this. So many opportunities to open up time/modulation effects and create interesting textures with multi-band frequency arrangements.
Or, you know, you could get a bunch of rats and have the rats go through the other rats and create the king rat.
It's up and running, but I haven't tested every knob and switch yet. I'm not yet smart enough to use this thing. :P
I think I will need to first methodically go through each control individually to make sure everything does what it is supposed to do.
I recently finished one too. Definitely a tinkerer's pedal... have you watched this demo video yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xXUcbK6pwg
Quote from: DLW on May 01, 2019, 12:09:26 PM
I recently finished one too. Definitely a tinkerer's pedal... have you watched this demo video yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xXUcbK6pwg
I watched that video before I ordered my kit. I probably should watch it again.
The only thing I've played around with so far is connecting an envelope filter and a delay. I got some interesting sounds, but didn't feel like I understood what I was doing. I did discover that I need to order more short cables. ;)
This pedal is going to be fun, eventually.
Minor update:
I have begun methodically testing my pedal. I have so far verified everything except for the Trails switch and the n-to-n pots. The good news is that I've basically verified everything that would have been a giant pain in the butt to troubleshoot and resolder.
I'm almost certain I've verified my build. I fed a delay into a distortion to verify the n-to-n functionality and the trails switch. The trails function took me a bit to wrap my head around. It's a very cool pedal. I was surprised, but it does subtle really well. Of course, you can do some wild things with it as well.
I'm still trying to find good balances with the pre and mix controls. Might have to tinker with the internal makeup gain trims a bit too.
Quote from: benny_profane on May 07, 2019, 03:36:22 AM
The trails function took me a bit to wrap my head around.
Since you figured that switch out, could you explain it to me? I do not understand the official description of that one.
Signal Pathway:Input buffer: Splits the input into four signal paths (Channels 1-3 and dry signal for final mix).
Channels 1-3 Signal Routing:
- HPF*
- Makeup gain (internal trimmer)
- LPF*
- PRE level: Sets the volume/gain level going out the send of the FX loop. Push it up to either add gain/distortion to a drive pedal or to makeup gain from aggressive filter cuts.
* Slope of the HPF/LPF is set by the 6dB / 12dB switch:
- 6dB: Modest cuts
- 12dB: Extreme cuts (best for canceling out frequencies to assign specific bands to different loops)
- Middle: 12dB/octave HPF and 6dB/octave LPF
Channel Mixing Stages:
- Channel 1 has a variable phase circuit before mixer stage.
- Mixes the signal from the PRE level with the signal(s) from the Feedback controls.
FX Loop Send/Return:
- Signal sent to Send is controlled by the channel foot switches.
- Goes through whatever is in the effects loop.
Return buffer: Splits the return into three signal pathways for each channel.
- MIX level: Sets how much of the return is fed to master mix section.
- Feedback controls (two for each channel): Set the amount of the effects loop return is sent to channel mix sections determined by routing (n-to-n controls).
Master Mix Stage:
- All three FX channels and the clean/dry signal are mixed.
- MASTER level: Sets the output gain of the final mix circuit
Trails Switch:FX Loop Switching (Internal):
- SWITCH 1: Turns on/off the signal going from the PRE level into the first mixing stage (Channel mixing stage).
- SWITCH 2: Turns on/off the signal going from the FX loop return into the master mix stage.
- SWITCH 3: Turns on/off the signal going from the FX loop return into the feedback controls.
Trails Toggle Switch Modes:
- Middle = No trails
⁃ All three switches turn on/off with the corresponding channel foot switch. - SENDS = The FX loops remain active at all times. You can activate just one loop, but still feed that loop into the other two (and back again).
⁃ SWITCH 3 is always on; other switches are controlled by the corresponding foot switch. - ALL = Turning an effect loop on/off only turns on/off the input to that effect loop from the input. The feedback loops and the return from the loop remain active. This allows time-based pedals to decay naturally when bypassed.
⁃ SWITCH 2 and SWITCH 3 are always on; SWITCH 1 is controlled by the corresponding foot switch.
Hmm... Let me try to back into this:
When I click the Pedal 1 footswitch OFF:
If in Trails OFF mode: Pedal 1 MIX knob and 1-to-n knobs are effectively turned to zero.
If in Trails SENDS mode: Pedal 1 MIX knob is effectively turned to zero. 1-to-n knobs work as usual.
If in Trails ALL mode: Pedal 1 MIX and 1-to-n knobs all work as usual.
Does that sound right?
Quote from: EBK on May 07, 2019, 05:01:13 PM
Hmm... Let me try to back into this:
When I click the Pedal 1 footswitch OFF:
If in Trails OFF mode: Pedal 1 MIX knob and 1-to-n knobs are effectively turned to zero.
If in Trails SENDS mode: Pedal 1 MIX knob is effectively turned to zero. 1-to-n knobs work as usual.
If in Trails ALL mode: Pedal 1 MIX and 1-to-n knobs all work as usual.
Does that sound right?
I think you've got it!
Put another way:
OFF = PRE, MIX, and Feedback controls are bypassed with the footswitch.
SENDS = Feedback controls are always active; channel PRE and MIX controls are bypassed with footswitch.
ALL = Feedback controls and MIX controls are always active; PRE control is bypassed with footswitch. (This is the 'traditional' trails functionality with the added routing of the Klein Bottle too).
Let me know how that works for you. That made sense to me when I was working with the unit.
So, I basically combined the site's copy, the info from the interactive image, and the kickstarter page description up there. You sorta have to know exactly how the signal is routed before you can really know what the trails switch is doing. And I thought it'd be good to have a bit more of a collected user guide for people to reference without hunting for info.
I should've probably wrapped up my open build report much earlier by posting a couple photos to show it was officially no longer a WIP. ;)
(http://i.imgur.com/wPWK8ujl.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/mOcrOV1l.jpg)
Quote from: EBK on April 22, 2019, 04:39:57 PM
I always get nervous tightening nuts on a finished enclosure because I don't always have the correct sockets to minimize the chance of scratching the enclosure.
Your build looks great so far. One thing I've found that helps with sockets is to put a small piece of blue painter's tape around the tip, so a bit of it folds over onto the edge that can ding the face your enclosure. Even if it does leave a mark, it ends up just being a smudge instead of a scratch down to the metal.