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I drew this up a few weeks ago. It's a noise gate along the lines of the Zuul, but not a clone. It does have an "input key" jack similar to the Zuul, which is the best part about that. The rest of it is adapted from the THAT app notes.

It's only in the early stages though. I was planning on breadboaring it but I need to make an adapter board for one component.

Hey Brian. Any news on this gate design you have been working on? I know this is old but I haven't been able to find it on the website or forum

The ma ratings are per output and there is nothing else plugged in at the time of the test.

It is weird

Here is a video link. The 3 jacks on the right are all 500ma. They don't seem to register the input and the led doesn't turn on. These jacks work fine for other pedals as you can see.


The 7 jacks to the left are all 300ma all work fine on the Archibald.


https://youtube.com/shorts/Dlxx-g84gc0?si=ZRA8pvMfvA0NSHIR

Hello

As the title says, my Archibald only works on 300ma power supply, not 500ma. Does anyone know why this might be?

I have been troubleshooting this thing for a while as it intermittently works and doesn't work. Today I finally figured it out. I have a power board that has 7 jacks @ 300MA and 2 @ 500ma. It works depending on which I use.

At 9v the 300ma dc input jack measures 9v as it should. However the 500ma measures about 2.4v.

The build doc says it should work on 500MA (and should work better) so i'ma bitconfused. Plus itused to work in the 500ma jacks as these also goto 12v.

Does anyone have an idea why this might be?

Having the same issue 14v on 1,2 like .4v on 3 what did you do to make yours work?

Hey. I did nothing special. I went through the schematic checking continuity with each part and that I used the correct parts.

I think I had an ic backwards and an electrolytic capacitor the wrong way.

Worth the effort. Love this pedal. Even got it to self oscillate by playing with the trimpots.

I managed to get mine working and it sounds pretty good.

The voltage on ic3 is still off however but it works fine. Although I can't get it to go into self oscillation. I wonder if these are connected somehow.

Hey Ya'lls
I'm getting signal into that "stress" LED, but no sound when blend is all the way delay...getting some analog noise (normal amount) when engaged. The beginnings of my problems start at IC3 pins 1, 2, and 3. 1 and 2 are somewhere north of 14v and 3 is jumping around. 4 is zero, 5, 6, and 7 are at 7.5, and 8 is 15.07...the A side of IC3. Any and all ideas are appreciated.
Thanks
Geek

Hey how did you go with this?

I just built the Skoolie and am having similar problems to you. My voltages on IC3 are roughly the same as yours. Pins 1 and 2 are around 14v but my pin 3 is about 0.4v.

Would be great to hear how you have gone with this and hopefully can share how you fixed it.

ISSUE SOLVED

After all of my trouble shooting, I plugged the pedal in to see if one of my half-baked ideas would work...and the pedal worked as it should.

My half-baked idea was not the fix, I think it may have been a glob of solder I dislodged while continuity testing.

Anyway, I got it going and an quite happy with it. I might have to do a build report.

I've continued trying to find the source of the problem. I did some continuity testing around the problem area, but it seems there is continuity everywhere there should be.

Here is a picture, yellow indicates continuity (please ignore my hand written notes).

Since everything is connected, would the issue be a faulty part? It seems to me there is too much voltage around q4 and not enough around q3-5. I'm guessing there is an issue preventing the voltage from q4 from getting to q3 and q5. Does anyone know why this might be?

I took some voltages and this seems to confirm that the problem is around q3-q5

Q1

• E - 1.71
• B - 1.38
• C - 8.58

Q2

• E - 1.82
• B - 1.99
• C - 7.45

Q3

• E - 0
• B - .07
• C- 9.1

Q4

• E - 8.45
• B - 8.95
• C - 9.07

Q5

• E - 0
• B - 0
• C - 8.95

IC

• 1 - 1.3
• 2 - .07
• 3- 4.71
• 4 - 4.71
• 5 - 1.95
• 6 - 0
• 7 - 0
• 8 - .04
• 9 - .02
• 10 - 0
• 11 - 8.96
• 12 .07
• 13 - 0
• 14 - 0
• 15 - .09
• 16 - .07

Here are some pics of the PCB

https://imgur.com/a/JgTHXJv

Hello again, I'm back with another issue that I'm struggling with. Can anyone help please?

I recently built the Keepressor (Keely compressor from PCB Guitar Mania). (build docs https://pcbguitarmania.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Keepressor-Building-Docs-1.pdf).

The pedal "works" but not like I had expected. I built a dyna comp which compresses like I expect it to. This Keepressor is very subtle

With an audio probe I have found something that might be an issue, although Im not sure what do do about this.

The signal seems pretty strong up to the base of q3. When I touch many of the parts after this I get signal for an instant which disappears.

D3 - the signal is fine on the cathode.
D4 - signal for a moment on the cathode
Q3 - signal fine on the base, distorted and metallic signal on collector
Q5 - signal on base for a moment, distorted and metallic, but consistent signal on collector
R20 - signal disappears
R21 - Signal fine on one end (connected to pin 3 volume), but on the ohter side same problem as above.
C12 and C13 - Signal disappears

I have checked all of the parts (twice) and they are correct. Transistors and capacitors are oriented correctly.

I had the c5 issue mentioned in the build docs but have fixe this. Once fixed the pedal now works and definitely compresses. The issue is that it is really subtle and most knobs don't audibly do that much.

The pedal sounds ok, but it's a bit of a waste of a compressor at the moment as it is barely noticable. Not like the dyna comp which is very in your face at hight settings.

VOLUME: At full volume the pedal is about unity volume.
ATTACK: turned fully CCW has a mild overdrive sound, that I quite like. Compresses slightly more CCW.
SUSTAIN: seems to work like the sensitivity on a Dyna comp, although it only compresses about 1/4 of a Dyna comp
CLIP: I have no idea what clip does, except for a mild volume boost.

It looks like you used a pair of B2K pots where there should be B25K pots.

Take a look at the intensity and throb controls.


Also, be careful bending the legs of the pots, after 5-10 wiggles back and forth, they'll break.

Hey as an update. You were completely right, it was the pots that were the issue.

I put a 25kb in the throb control and a 50kb in the intensity and it works great. Thanks for picking this up. I can't believe I missed it.

I know the build docs say 25kb for intensity but I only had a 50kb. It sounds pretty good when I tested it so figured I'd leave it. Tacked a 50k resistor from lugs 1 and 3 (which I think should bring the pot down to close enough to 20k) but I couldn't really tell the difference so just went with the 50k pot.

Hi again

I recently put together a Total Bender from PCB Guitar Mania which is 3 tone benders in 1. I managed to get it working with mk3 as a PNP. Link to previous post (https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=34523.msg330029#msg330029)

However I have managed to break it and am hoping that someone can assist.

There was too much pressure on the fuzz pot so it only worked at around 10% and 100%. I reflowed solder on the legs of the pot and pushed it out to relieve pressure, however I think i removed the PCB trace rings around the pot so the connection is poor.

An audio signal does come out but it is very faint. An audio probe shows that the fuzz pot is the likely culprit as the audio signal is great until c3.5 on the schematic which is just before the fuzz pot. The signal on fuzz pot and q3 is very quiet.

QUESTION

To repair this, would i essentially solder jumpers from the 3 legs of the fuzz pot to the relevant components? I.e.:
- leg 1 to c3.5
- leg 2 to base of q2
leg 3 to positive end of d1?

Below are pics of the schematic and the PCB. I tried to solder jumpers as discussed but I think i got the legs wrong on the pot. It now does not work at all. Is it 1,2,3 from left to right with the pot facing you?

Also does it matter which leg of c3.5 I solder leg 1 of the fuzz pot to?

Further on the schematic i see d1 and base of q3 are connected. Could I solder leg 3 of the fuzz pot to either of these?

https://imgur.com/gallery/dCfYa70

Damn you are completely right! I checked everything else but missed the pots. Hopefully I have some 25k around.

Thanks for that.

Yes I did realise after bending for the picture that it looked a little unstable.