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And the Pale Horse.  I'm out of black pcb stock and only had 2 of the BLMS 1590B's so I think I'm over my black phase.  This features a completely trashed circuit board but it works and is stable so it's a keeper.  The faceplate saved my butt because the 1590 looks like swiss cheese underneath it.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this is it...





This is a shot of the board mounted DC jack.  If you follow the drill guide it centers it in the hole.  I just added a bevel to dress it up a bit.

This one will be picture worthy.  Went together very nicely and my only issue was never having used an LM308 in a can before (sounds very nice).  I assumed the tab would be pin 1.  Whoops...pin 8.

The variable HCC stuff is pretty clever, being able to blend different clippers and such.  As rats go this has some nice twists.  I can see using this and the Pale Horse as a tag team on my board with the PH handling less gainish tones and the the AD doing the lead stuff.  The big take away from the VFE projects is the relay switching.  I'm going to have to rethink my switching, at least on my pedalboard regulars.

Got the Pale Horse done and I'm in the process of etching a faceplate and I can box it up.  This one was a big challenge but only because I buggered up a few things going in.  My drill template must have shifted because I had the whole main board too low in the case and there isn't a lot of room between it and the switch board.  I spent some time with a round file to resolve that.

I had better luck with 7/16" holes for the jacks.  The jacks spec'd in the mouser BOM have a little lip around the outside plastic washer that sits proud of the case if you use anything smaller.  It also gives you a bit of wiggle room to stuff the board in.

I had a ton of power issues until I figured out that the .1uF PWR cap on the IC pin 8 side wasn't making a good connection.  I tore the crap out of the board trying to dig it back out.  It's all good but was a bugger getting under the pots to get at it.  I was getting a gated sputtering sound (yes I socketed the 5484) and with the drive below about 75% the pedal would go silent.

In the end the board looks like a deep fried turd but the pedal sounds REALLY nice.  I'm not a fan of the board mounted jacks and dc but the switching is excellent and it's pretty cool having a board that can be configured for any imaginable power situation.  You can set the input impedance to make the pedal much more responsive to guitar knobs if you play that way (I do), and the range of sounds from the tone controls is pretty impressive without being overly sensitive.  Nice sounds to be had at all gain ranges.

I've run into this before and it's usually been a weird solder joint.  The toughest one to figure out wasn't solved till I pulled a chip (which was known good so I wasn't concerned with it) only to find that a leg had broken off and was randomly making contact.  In other words...it's going to be something goofy like that.

The WORST is when you fix it, but you don't know what you did that fixed it....

Minor point, I think.  If I was going to use the momentary for gain punches it would likely be dialed in that way for the whole set.  Mind you in church a "set" is usually only 4 or 5 tunes.

That was a question I had though.  If you had access to the code I'd offer up my services to redo the chips or burn replacements.  This, of course, with my newly found ninja level PIC burning skills :-)  Understandable that Peter doesn't push the code out into the wild but I'm used to working under an NDA (in real life I manage/engineer a data center) so I'd throw it out there if it's a viable option.  I suspect he keeps his cards close to the vest though.

For some reason I was expecting seconds. A few generic colors but some really spectacular colors too i'll up some photos.  Some killer stuff here.

I've had the same luck with Smallbear. Hard too prove they're seconds.

I will be going home to 5 deliveries today.  Madbean (including the VFE boards), Mouser, Smallbear, Bitches Love My Switches, and PPP (blem cases).  Talk about the planets aligning.

Terrible news.  I was always blown away with that guy's work.  Search for Quackillac and VC Flanger to see board layouts that are pure artwork.  I seem to recall him talking about issues from time to time.

I've experienced a lot of healthy people fighting to die and a lot of sick people fighting to live and it's very frustrating not to be able to help.

This is a great crew around here and I echo everybody else's sentiments.  PLEASE don't suffer alone.  As a society we've come a very long way in our perception of sexual orientation.   Here's to progress in our perception of mental health as well.

And thank you Chuckbuick from so many of us for your years of inspiration.

The trio are as clean and simple as it gets. Stellar work inside and out. I love the peppermint candy look of the fuzz. Color me impressed.

Woo!

Agreed, that looks VERY cool.  The trim under the knobs looks so cool.

Thanks folks.  I have some thin yellow pcb stock but figured the FeCl would stain it too bad.  Shot the board with a few coats of lacquer to give it some contrast and avoid the copper oxidizing.

+1 on the stazon ink treatment.  I really like the way it looks.

I finally got a half decent etch on a face plate.  It's a little fuzzy but I'm calling it a keeper.  The speckled look is just reflections. My only complaint is the bevel for the tap tempo indicator.  The countersink bit got a bit grabby and I figured I better quit while I was ahead rather that risk blowing thru the hole.  This is the third in my drolo builds, the Twin Peaks tremolo.  Very cool pedal and went together without any issues.