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Messages - madbean

#3031
General Questions / Re: Pig Butt Switch
February 02, 2017, 01:44:04 PM
#3032
You will probably need a solder sucker to get solder out of the pad.
https://www.amazon.com/WEmake-WM-SP4-Solder-Sucker-desoldering/dp/B0002KRAAG

An alternative would be to gently heat the pad with your soldering iron to melt the existing solder in the pad and push the lead through of the component that is supposed to go there.
#3033
Quote from: midwayfair on January 30, 2017, 07:39:43 PM
As soon as I hit the Post button, I thought to myself "I am such a negative person sometimes." Thanks for calling me out on it.

I don't really see it that way. Truthfully, it's not easy to justify every design decision after-the-fact because the process on this one spanned a few months. We did a proto, it had a few problems, we tweaked around those and once it sounded good that was the stopping point. Most of the time-to-production was mired in other less fun details in getting a pedal business going. Anyway, Forrest is great at coming up with really interesting circuits without bogging stuff down, and I'm pretty good at identifying and fixing problems. I tend to throw everything-but-the-kitchen-sink in my ideas and Forrest talks me off the ledge and makes it a better product. We work pretty well together that way. And, Dave writes the checks.

Haha, I'm kidding. We don't pay ourselves.

And, not to discount Dave's input because it's pretty huge and he's got a great ear. Plus he does a lot of things I definitely don't want to do!
#3034
Quote from: midwayfair on January 30, 2017, 04:37:16 PM


2) Was C3 added so that the amount of bass present at the clipping diodes was higher than that at the output, or was it to prevent any possible DC voltage on the diodes if the pedal was plugged into something else that wasn't built right?

- I actually remember discussing C3 being extraneous but the consensus was that there was a slight alteration in tone without it.

3) Someone mentioned the Darlington front end being limited by the DC resistance. It's fully bypassed by the fuzz pot, so the higher gain is absolutely being used. But while we're on the subject, was the DC point set by the 2K important enough that you couldn't use the fuzz pot as the emitter resistor? ;)

- We originally had that but it turned out there was a bit of scratchiness with the Fuzz pot turn so it was changed to what you see now.

5) I am still amazing the 8 Bit pot actually does what it does.

It's our fuzz unicorn.

#3035
Derivative F(x) will be the Chinese offshoot. Plot twist: we'll move to China to start it.
#3036
Quote from: diablochris6 on January 30, 2017, 01:58:27 PM
That's a great looking (and sounding, based on demos) circuit, Brian.
Now that the schematic for your board is on FSB, it is time for you to start selling Clusterfuzz kits!

Thank you, but Forrest deserves the kudos. He is a fuzz master, haha.
Yeah, I dunno about kits. We kinda talked about it at some point but never really got anywhere with it. Maybe we should revisit that now that the pedal is traced. I'll bring it up.
#3037
If you are getting unity without the high gain pedal but it drops off with it then it might be an impedance issue. Here's what I would try: socket R2 and R3 and make them 470k. Now try the high gain pedal again. If you still have some volume drop, increase R3 to 680k or 1M. This combo will give you higher input impedance and a little more output with increasing R3 but not so much it will cause distortion.
#3038
Someone asked me about building the original Aquapuss on the current Aquaboy 2016 board. You need to make the following changes:
Add a 470pF cap in parallel with R1
Make R6, R7, R8 and R10 47.5k instead of 47k
C14 100n instead of 82n
C2, C16, C23 and C7 10uF instead of 1uF

But, as I was going through that I noticed that C16 is actually backwards on the board. The "+" side should point toward IC3 pin7. So, please reverse C16 on the Aquaboy 2016 build. I will update the doc for this, too. Obviously, it will works the wrong way around, but we should change that to ensure the cap doesn't fail in the long run.

#3039
Quote from: jubal81 on January 29, 2017, 11:59:10 PM

Nice trick with the fuse, BTW. You get the advantages of the crowbar and if polarity is reversed, nothing burns up. Mind sharing which one you use?

Yeah I wasn't really hip to that before but Jerry suggested we do that for all our pedals. This is the one we use:
http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=MF-R010virtualkey65210000virtualkey652-MFR010
#3040
You're missing a 1k resistor between the Tone pot and the 2n2 cap, I think. The first position on the rotary is no clipping diodes, then LED, 2n7000, 1n194 and finally BAT41. Good work!

IIRC D12 came directly off the 9v supply rather than after the PTC. I seem to remember we had an issue with noise otherwise. But I might be mis-remembering that.
#3041
General Questions / Re: Burst capacitor
January 29, 2017, 10:38:53 PM
Good eye. Backwards. Probably the IC's are fine, but replace that cap.
#3042
Quote from: nocentelli on January 29, 2017, 09:36:26 PM
Quote from: madbean on January 29, 2017, 08:11:55 PMC1 (from Tagboard) is 680pF on the CF, FYI.

Is the rest of it correct? ::)

I'm not a member of FSB so I can't view the image but if you post it here I can check.
#3043
Quote from: Donleo on January 29, 2017, 07:11:58 PM
Clusterfuzz is up on tagboard

C1 (from Tagboard) is 680pF on the CF, FYI.
#3044
What you are describing is a pretty typical problem when using companders to reduce noise from BBDs. The compressor portion of the 570 has a limit to how well it can respond to fast/loud dynamics at the input signal and maintain a consistently smooth output. Upping the voltage supply does not alter this limitation (AFAIK). And, it may be your 570 simply has better tolerances than the 571 so it is more responsive.

However, you can experiment to see if you can attain a better response. Socket C10 and try 100n or 470n there. This will shift the balance between "response" and "ripple". Here is a great explanation: http://electricdruid.net/noise-reduction-with-companders/

One thing I've bee meaning to try for a long time is using a different method of compression in an analog delay (like optical or OTA based) and just use the 570 for expansion and noise suppression. I don't know if anyone has ever done that.
#3045
Open Discussion / Re: Saw this over on DIYSB
January 28, 2017, 01:38:07 AM
Confound this tiny box
It makes me sad and confused
Maybe I should drink