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But it has to be pronounced "tam-ber".

What would be a good timeline as your suggestion, seeing that you have more experience with international shipping and pitfalls?

Also, I would not like you personally to spend too much time on it, I think your time is much better spent on pumping out great projectys that we're all anticipate with sweaty palms (ain't that right, folks...?).
So, as you generously offered in PM to me to  build a replacement looper for me if needed, please don't do that!
I'm happy to receive the parts and put it together myself, it's after all what we love doing!
And no need to send me an enclosure, as I can bend my own alu enclosures here. Makes the shipping cheaper.

Okay, this is progress. Let's do a drop dead date of one week from today, May 8th, to allow for a surprise delivery. If it has not shown up by then I will send out everything you need minus the enclosure as you stated. It actually should work out to a fairly small package so I will send it Priority. That way it will be there within a week's time and we will have tracking for it. That's good for me so let me know if it works for you. 

Thanks for taking the time to offer your perspective. I'm listening, and it is valued. While I won't get in the middle of personal correspondence between you and Jacob I believe I have heard both sides now and understand how this situation came about. My commitment is in moving forward to bring this to a resolution.

I think the best course of action here is to set a reasonable date by which we will consider the shipment lost. My understanding is that the shipping method used was estimated at 4-6 weeks for delivery and today is the expiration of 6 weeks time. If I've got that wrong let me know. I think it would be good to provide a bit more of a buffer just to be sure but not more than a few more days before calling it lost. And, at that point I will work with you to fix the situation.. Is that agreeable?

Well this just showed up today. It's pretty cute with its little fakey knobs there.

Just to clarify:
cooder - it's absolutely fine that you decided to post this publicly. I understand and empathize with your frustration. We will make sure you get the prize and I did PM you earlier about how that will happen if this package gets lost.
Greg - You need to back off Jacob. The package was mailed. There is no point in re-hashing all this stuff from the contest. We all know what happened, both the good and the bad. And, I do run a business so I say with confidence that international shipping is always a gamble having shipped thousands of package worldwide every year. I personally spend at least a couple hundred dollars a year replacing lost shipments. It just happens sometimes.

Stephan,

I'm sorry you have not received the looper. However, I don't know what blame you can place on Jacob here. If it was mailed then there is little to nothing he can do to speed up delivery. That's entirely in the hands of the international carriers. I don't know how the Canadian post works, but with USPS you can get some basic info with a Customs #. For example, with a 1st Class shipment to NZ from TN I can track up to at least the point of departure from the last US sort facility (usually Miami). After that, you get zip and it's basically time to hold your breath and hope it gets there. And sometimes things take a long time for no reason at all. Hell, I just got back a package I sent to France last August.

So, I do think Jacob needs to give you the Customs # if he hasn't already (I don't know why he would not have). With that you should be able to check at your local Customs office in case they have held it for some reason. And, let me extend to you my guarantee that this will be made right one way or another. I completely understand your frustration and you have been very patient considering.

FYI: the contest threads are archived as a matter of process, not to prevent further discussion. I've done that with every contest sub-forum after a matter of months so there is nothing unusual with that.

Mine arrived today. It's great! I had to go with cowboy tolex. I included a pic of what I have in mind for it.

I don't have time to pick through this thread ATM but I will because I am interested in the opinions being expressed. My quick and dirty take:

Of course, I hate violence. True civility is being able to ascend from it even when it is being perpetrated on you (or your community). But, I also understand the reasons for it and it is important to recognize root causes, esp. in Baltimore and elsewhere. As much as I do not want to see people destroying communities and attacking police, I also think that police have to stop.fucking. killing people indiscriminately and getting away with it. And we need to address the out of control corruption that is happening. I'm not talking about legitimate defense of themselves or others when it comes to dealing with real bad guys...the ones that pose and immediate and unarguable threat.

But, the level of violence and oppression police forces are exuding on communities across the US is disgusting. The militarization, the willingness of officers to protect their buddies that are committing civil offenses and abusing power, the hair triggers..it's just got to stop. It's a subject I've been following for a few years but I can't claim to have the answers either. It does seem to me that we need another layer of civil oversight on police forces by the communities they protect. That's kinda the only thing I've been able to come up with.

Anyway I will read some more of the posts when I have more time. I'm okay with this continuing to be a discussion as long as everyone follows the normal rules of conduct we have here.

This looks terrific. I like the concept quite a bit.

When you have noise the first thing to do is audio probe the circuit to see where the noise is introduced. You need to check the base and collector of Q1 and the base and emitter of Q2. Since the boost does not seem to cause your noise you can skip that.

FYI: higher wattage resistors tend to have less noise, so I do not think that is the problem here. Until you audio probe, we won't know for sure.

Do you have an external LED indicator for the LFO? If so, try shorting the + side of the LED to the - side to short the 4k7 resistor to ground. Does that start the lamp?

Sorry, I meant check the 18v reading on the second 1n5817 diode. 9v on pin8 is correct. But, since you are reading 9v on pin8 and 15 on the regulator then the voltages are fine. Don't worry about the thing with touching the DMM to pin1...probably just created a voltage divider with the DMM or something.

Which version is this...the 2015 or the one before?

I would take some cursory voltage readings at least. See if you are getting 18v to the audio section and 15v to the LFO. You can measure this by checking pin8 of the charge pump and the output pin of the 15v regulator.

There are a couple things that could cause the LFO to stop working. Obviously, dodgy solder joints especially on the dual gang pot. One of the three 1uF electrolytic caps in the LFO section could be toast. Or, it could be something else. One trick you can try after verifying the voltages is unlpug the DC power, wait a minute or two then short the output pin of the regulator to ground then then input pin to ground drain all the caps. Then plug the DC power back in and see if the LFO starts to work.

I use the 1N4742A:

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Fairchild-Semiconductor/1N4742A/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMtQ8nqTKtFS%2fD313Kx94AdFJGMlPg6CdPg%3d

I'm going to keep giving updates so you guys can be informed on where we are at with the upcoming pre-order/mega projects.

The Freekout is completely done. Some of you might know that the Frequency Analyzer used a 40vDC power supply, but we will only need 18vDC. I really love this effect...it's a very musical sounding ring mod.

The Rustbucket is still giving me a bit of a headache. While the circuit itself works properly there are a couple issues I have still yet to resolve, namely that I don't like the way the sensitivity control is behaving (just not very smooth in how it attacks and releases). The second issue is that powering it with the same method as the Freekout seems to introduce some "ringy/harmonic" noise that is not present when I use the first method I tried (18vAC split into +/-15v rails). So, that's something else to be solved. I don't think it is a current supply issue since voltages are rock solid no matter which way I power it.

The Dirtbag is getting its final comparison build to test out the differences between the BL3208 and MN3008. Both versions run at higher voltages but break them down differently depending on the chips used. Finally, I have four of the new, supposedly lower noise v3205 which I will at least try. I don't foresee officially support the v3205 on the DB3 but it's worth knowing if they are viable. I built something into the circuit design to test these out, too.

The Lowrider will be that last thing to sort out. My prototype had a couple of mistakes on it, but I know what they are so if that's the only issue then I expect it to fall right into place.

Anyway, that's what's on my plate before the pre-order goes live, so there you have it.