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Here's a small version of Merlin B's U-Boat.  I originally designed this over a year ago as a single PCB.  Before I ordered PCB's earlier this year I was searching through some info in the TH Customs section and found the original circuit had issues.  Thomas H did a lot of work sorting it out and deserves props for that work.  So thanks to Thomas H and Merlin B for all the great work.

With that all sorted and having to rework my original design I decided that I wanted PCB-mounted pots and switch.  Which meant stacked boards to keep it in a 1590A.  I really dig drolo's stacked PCB designs so I also thank him for the inspiration.  It seemed like an easy thing to do.  But it really wasn't.  But a lot of hours and head-scratching later I came up with this.

Here's a TC Electronics Integrated Preamp that got shrunk down a little bit.

"How about a Mad Professor Stone Grey with too many clipping options?  How about 4 clipping options on a rotary switch?  With the ability to switch them between symmetrical and asymmetrical, too?"  These are the kind of questions I ask myself when I have too much time on my hands and I'm going through Eagle withdrawals.  So how about it?  Totally unnecessary.  The germanium diodes just make it a low-gain OD that is just kinda bland.  The silicon diodes sound about the same as the transistors.  But I guess I sort of expected that.  The LED's are a bit different.  About the normal difference you would expect between LED and silicon in any other distortion circuit.

Clipping aside, it's a great distortion circuit.  There is a stripped-down, through-hole version in process to be released later this year for Grind Customs FX.  Here's a bit about that.
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=21664.0

Here it is in all of it's overdone glory.

This is a Mountainking Megalith clone.  I had never heard of it until I saw the project in Etcher's Paradise (Sounds Like...Doom).  I checked out a few vids, next thing I knew I had a PCB.  Thanks for posting this project MB. 

I've had a couple wedge enclosures for a while waiting for something cool to put in them.  The top of the enclosure was powder-coated red like the side/bottom.  After drilling I covered it with chrome decal stock.  Then I put on the clear decal with graphics printed on it.  I originally planned to print the graphics on the chrome stock but it is pretty thick and my printer wasn't having it.  The adhesive from the clear decal on the chrome gives it kind of an oxidized aluminum look

Here's an OCD clone with optional LED clipping.  I think that pretty much makes it a Madbean Ego Driver.  Other than the clipping option everything else is stock.

CDO is when your OCD is so bad you have to alphabetize it.

First was the FX56 American Metal.  Then came the FX56-B Super American Metal.  And now here is the FX56-C Ultimate American Metal.  It is built on a GCFX Helvete (HM-2) PCB.  The American Metal and HM-2 share the same circuit topography, just different component values.  I haven't had a chance to compare it to my HM-2 clone yet but that's on the to-do list.

It's been a while since I've finished a build.  And it feels great!  This is a GCFX Shred Dominator PCB designed by Yours truly.  The plan with this PCB design was to make it fit in a 1590B with top-mounted or side-mounted jacks.  Rej built his proto with side-mount and I'm happy to say the top-mounts just fit.  The new GCFX Helvete (HM-2) PCB uses the same footprint and control locations as this one so it will go either way as well.  I'm hoping to get my Helvete finished tomorrow.

*** NOTE - The 1590B drill template in the build docs are for side-mount jacks.  I'll get info for top-mounted jacks soon. ***

Thanks again to all who participated in the Metulz Trio group buy.  If you missed out and would like a PCB head on over to Grind Customs FX website and pick yourself up one there.

So here's my re-build after the big loss of data.  When looking back through my Photobucket account I realized I only finished 5 builds in 2015.  I knew I slowed down last year but that was surprising.  Maybe I'll get it going a bit more this year.  Here they be.

Insight.  My take on the Zendrive. 





NPH Drive.  My take on DougH's Hwy 89.





Nano Amp.  My take on the MXR Micro Amp.  The box was PIF'd to me by wgc.  He did the really cool swirl powdercoat job.  Thanks again, Billy!





Liquid Mercury.  Drolo's awesome Liquid Mercury tap tempo phaser.  Great project, man.  I had fun doing this build.







GEQ-5.  This was my entry for the 2015 BOTY contest.  There were a lot of great entries this year.  Hats off to all that participated.

Here's a GPCB Disturbance.  I had no 1N34A's so I went with D9E's.  Other than that it's built to standard specs from the build docs.

I'm joining in with the others who started projects for the Fall contest but couldn't meet the deadline.  I didn't start working on designing the PCB until Nov. 10th so that kinda set me back.  Then some calibration issues, Thanksgiving weekend, blah, blah, blah.  I've got a ton of excuses, but no good reasons.  Enough of my whining...

So it's an A/DA Flanger designed from Moosapotamus's schematic and also using his great series of vids to calibrate it.  I mounted the Volume pot externally.  I included pads to add the jack for the external Manual foot control.  I searched for vid examples of people using them but didn't find any.  I decided if the rest of the world isn't using it then I probably wouldn't use it either.  So I omitted it from the build and cannot say for sure that that feature works.  But without the jack wired I had to jumper the Sleeve and Switch pads to make the Manual pot work.  I thought I had FUBAR'd my PCB but I just needed to simulate that unplugged jack.  Only a few minutes a foul language there.

I'm gonna post a few pics of my populating procedure for those of you that are curious about working with SMT. 

First I get her all wet with a flux pen and put down some solder on one pad of each component.  Usually the right side pads as I hold my iron in my right hand and the components in my left.  I prefer .015" diameter solder for SMT parts.


Next I grab my part with tweezers, heat the pad with the solder, and place the part on the pads.  Like through-hole stuff I start with the shortest parts first then work through to the tallest ones.  I wait to add those pesky through-holes parts until after all the SMT stuff is finished.


After all parts are tacked in to place I go back over the board soldering the remaining pads.  Then I added the socket for the MN3007.


Toss in some pots, a switch, and LED and she's ready to go on the test rig.  The Speed pot pictured here was later replaced with the correct "C" taper pot.  And IC9 was rotated to it's proper orientation.  Chip Quik FTW!


After that it's all the usual buildy stuff.  Drill some holes, tighten some nuts, yada, yada, yada...




6 pots, 1 toggle, the usual jacks and LED and only 9 short wires.  I loves me some board-mounted parts.


Thanks for checking it out.  I was bummed it didn't make the contest deadline but I was stoked with all the entries.  I'm always inspired by the stuff you guys build.

Here's an MXR Envelope Filter with a few mods.  The Emphasis pot works backwards.  CCW is full effect, CW mixes it out.  So it's more of a De-emphasis control.  The effect is pretty quacky overall.  I did have a problem with it not working at first.  After a little reading on the web I found that there could be a problem with the Texas Instruments CD4069's not wanting to bias like other brands.  I swapped out a resistor in the voltage divider that biases IC2 (referring to the Tonepad MXR EV schematic) and it came to life.  So that could maybe fine-tuned a bit more.  I'll try to dig up the links for info and all the relevant mods tomorrow.

Board-mounted everything for less wiring.  Always a bonus for me.

This is my 3rd build using clear adhesive sticker stock.  I'm liking it.  A lot less fiddle-f'ing around than waterslides.  Plus I didn't need to clear coat after printing.  I don't know how well it will stand up in the long term, but being a build for myself it seems like a good time to experiment.

First is a Mayo built on my Big Red Bell SMD multi-muff board.  I was gonna use some 2N5133's but the ones I have only measured approx. 100 hfe so I went with good ol' 2N5088's.  The cap tombstoned up against C12 is a cap the Mayo uses that I didn't catch when I designed the board.  I'm not a huge fan of mayonnaise so I opted for cottage cheese.  It's the healthy alternative. :wink:







Second is a Green Russian.  I used the MH Iron Bell "color" control, MHIB treble bleed caps on the Sustain and Volume controls (C18 & C19), Mad Professor Fire Red type transistor clippers (D21 & D22 - BS170 and 2N7002, respectively), and 2N5089 (MMBT5089 in SMD speak) transistors.  Maybe a roided-out Green Russian.  My cold-war isn't over, man. :evil:   I'm not sure how accurate my Russian is on the labels.  It's was the best that Google and I could come up with.

A quick note about the transistor clippers.  The way Mad Professor has these set up they are essentially being used as regular diodes.  I'm not recalling all the details and I don't want to mis-inform.  I can't find the info right now, either.  But it started with one of midwayfair's build docs and took me down a bit of a rabbit-hole on transistor clipping that some you may be interested in reading.  Thanks for posting that, Jon.  If you can chime in with a starting point that would be awesome.  In the meantime I'll see if I can find it again.

Here's a muff done up to MH Iron Bell specs.  SMD, of course.

The board is a multi-muff with part placement corresponding to Juansolo's muff spreadsheet.  Thanks for continuing to update and share that, bud.  I added a Color control and Gain and Volume treble bleed caps a la MH Iron Bell, MP Fire Red type transistor clipping (which are actually more or less diode clippers), spots for through-hole trannies and diodes, and an additional set of Tone pot pads for a standard triangle orientation, 3-pot muff layout.  It uses Alpha 9mm board-mounted pots.

Here's some pics.

Here's a Boss HM-2 clone I did in SMD form, of course.  First off I want to give a shout out to the3secondrule for helping me sort out the schematics for this one.  Thanks again, Jeremy, you were a big help.

I added a Mid control and did a few of the Wampler mods (some simple component value changes) to reduce fuzziness.  The mods weren't major but they were a little help.

Now I've never used an HM-2 so I can't do a direct comparison, but this isn't quite what I was hoping for.  I was thinking of something a bit more compressed, maybe.  I'm not very good at describing pedal tones so that may not be the best word for it.  But I do have an Amptweaker Tight Metal clone and I guess that is more of what I was expecting.  This is not quite on par with that. 

Anyhow, here's some pics.  I was going for a Swedish metal thing, in case you can't tell.

So this is an evolution of my MRP-8 board which was a devolution of a more ambitious but failed 8 stage project.  The additions to this one are an extra 4 phase stages and a 2P4T rotary switch to switch between 2, 4, 8 and 12 stages of phasery goodness.  The other side of the rotary is tied to the stage indicator LED's.  Also added was a Width control a la Mark Hammer and a Mix control.  I don't know and have never corresponded with Mark Hammer.  But after working through these Ross Phaser boards I feel like I know him a little.  I certainly owe him.  If you're out there, Mark, thanks a bunch for all the info you've shared.

Now a few things that aren't so bitchin' with this build.  My implementation of the Mix control is a little flawed.  The idea was CCW would be full wet signal and CW would be full dry.  CCW is about the normal mix of wet/dry and rotating CW gradually cuts the signal but then the dry signal gets really loud and ultimately spits and sputters.  Seems like it's on the right track but it still needs to be fixed. 

The second big issue is that getting SMD LM13600/NJM13600's is tough.  Mouser got a couple hundred 2 weeks ago and I got some (back ordered the rest).  More aren't expected until late November.  BTW, yours are in the mail, Jason.  And for whatever reason 13700's do not work in these boards.  I haven't tried them in this build but they did not work in the MRP-8.  Also, I can't find my 13700's to experiment with.  Sorry, Rej, but I think they may have accidentally got tossed.  I'll check in with you soon about that.

Parts shortage and Mix issues aside I'm pretty happy with this phaser.  But enough of my words.  Here's the pics:

Here's a SMD version of culturejam's Game Of Tones.  I call it the Imp in reference to it's small size and, of course Tyrion Lannister.  That would be Tyrion and his buddy Bronn a la Pulp Fiction on the front of the pedal.  Credit for the art goes to the WWW.

The board uses board-mounted pots and LED.  I ditched the clipping switch to make it 1590A friendly.  It has 4148's for clippers now but I may swap them out for LED's.

This was also my first attempt at using solder paste.  It was a little hard to regulate the amount of paste I laid down on the pads but I think a little practice will go a long way.  It cut the board populating time in about half, which is pretty darn cool, I think.

Do you ever find yourself a little bored and killing time with Eagle?  Well, I have.  And here is the result.  It's an MXR Distortion+ with plenty of clipping options.  You've got your schottky, silicon, transistor and LED clippers with a switch to go between symmetrical and asymmetrical for all of them.  Or it can run with no diode clipping.  Nine different clipping combo's, hence the name Distortion 9.  I also threw in a Fat switch as an afterthought.

It was originally meant to be all board mounted (except the Fat switch) switches and pots to fit in a 1590A.  But I underestimated the width of the switches and they wouldn't fit in line.  So I spread it out for a 1590B.

Here's my SMD version of the MB Poindexter.  This thing is pretty much completely nuts.  At low gain settings it is still a pretty high gain fuzz.  At high gain settings it's like a chainsaw is cutting the cones out of my speakers while Dan Auerbach repeatedly kicks me in the head. 

I'm not getting a whole lot of octave effect.  Maybe Q3 and Q4 are too mismatched?  It's also quite noisy but I found some stuff in Madbeans build doc that might help with that.  If I tweak the knobs just right I can even pick up the baseball game .  Running my compressor in front of it quiets it nicely.  But I still dig it, quirks and all.

Here's a little Ibanez SD-9 clone I whipped up late last year.  Just got around to building it this weekend.  I took the suggestions of duhvoodooman and guitarmageddon and utilized the unused half of the op-amp for a little volume recovery.  I'm not sure if I did any of the other mods they suggested as it's been about 8 months since I did the PCB layout and I'm not always good about making notes.  But I'm thinking everything is stock values.

Here's a couple Madbean builds I did a couple years ago but never posted here.

Chunk Chunk.  Pretty straight forward build.  The wiring could've been prettier but it is what it is.




Lowrider.  When I did the graphics I had it in my mind that the controls would have the Clean between DOCT1 and UOCT1 so when it came time to build I had to ditch a couple board mounted pots and wire them so I could swap them around in the box.  Did I learn my lesson about paying more attention to those kind of details?  Of course...not.