Messages

Yeah, those Dales are hot. I had a huge batch of 10k Dales but decided to stop using them in case I ever do a big run of mojo type builds.

Anyway, nice looking pedal you got there!

Jon has made a crucial point: durability from the manufacturer. Ideally the durability of pads should be the same across the board when specs are identical. But, this is definitely not the case. Like Jon said OSH Park is pretty much king here. I have gotten hundreds of boards from them and I've only ever lost a pad via desoldering on I think...three boards? Pretty unbelievable. Silver Circuits, whom I use for making my larger boards, is very similar. I very rarely ever destroy one of their boards. iTead and Elecrow, whom I use for smaller boards now, are more susceptible to lose a pad I've found. However, it also depends on how you go about it. If you you space out how much you heat the pad they are very durable. But, if you overheat the pad it will come off. So, if I am desoldering one of those boards and I cannot get the solder out within one or two tries I will wait a couple minutes for the pad to cool down. That gives much better results.

I tend to like decent sized pads myself, and I think the diameters and drills I have on the MBP boards work pretty well. Small drills are much harder to desolder IMO. But, then again, the quality of your tool has an impact. This new Hakko FR300 I got pretty much eats solder for breakfast whereas my older Ayuoe one had a lot less suction power.

R15

The fabricated and single sided PCB components are labeled a little differently. He's got the parts correct to omit if he's building the fabricated board.

Sander, a pic of how you have it wired would be helpful here.

Well that is just strange because I have not had a problem at all with the L05, and definitely no unwanted oscillation. The LEDs should only light up when the dwell knob is quite high and normal feedback oscillation occurs (to serve as a volume clamp). Any chance your brick or PT2399 is hosed? What if you remove the two LEDs altogether?

Put that sucker in there. Mica caps do tend to be large since they are often rated for higher voltages. If the leads are further apart than the holes, bend them both inward and then down to fit in the 5mm hole spacing.

Definitely not. The 470k/100k form a voltage divider to supply the bias voltage to Q1's base. If you were to use 100R the transistor would not amplify, most likely.

That could happen for another contest, I think. I don't see any of the other guys objecting but we'll see. Thanks for the suggestion, Greg!

The first batch of Clusterfuzz pedals are being built. pickdropper has put in a tremendous effort in making this first batch roll out. We are getting our dealers lined up and getting the pedals in the hands of the right people to start building up some buzz. And, hey: we are only one year behind schedule! But, that's what it took to get here, so there it is. We've been through so much product development it is hard to believe we are finally almost ready.

Here is a custom jig Dave and Jerry made for lasering the sides on the enclosures. Pretty awesome, huh?

They are totally different. The Harbinger 1 just went out of stock and I will get some replacements most likely in Dec. The next batch of boards is already full, so no room to rerun the Harbinger this month.

The Quadrovibe II is sort of a "deluxe" version of the first one. It will actually replace the Double Flush trem because it covers all those sounds plus a lot more. It has vibrato and tremolo options, as well as envelope/automatic/manual control over the LFO and also square and triangle wave options. It is really neat! I should have a demo of the QVII in a couple of weeks. It likely will come out in Dec. or January.

Cool, your enthusiasm is much appreciated! The Hot Toddy is what I came up with taking inspiration from the new Strymon Deco (although it does not have the same features). I've actually already built up the proto and it sounds really good. Just needs final tweaking a small amount of debugging.

Fall contest is now live! Check out the rules/prizes, et al right here: http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?board=72.0

I've managed to put the Collosalus into a 125B layout. I'm thinking of making this the next run of boards. But, there is one compromise: the charge pump section has been eliminated. So, you will need to either power it from 18v or use a Road Rage or similar charge pump to power it (it does have the 15v regulator on the PCB). Additionally, a smaller board means I can reduce the price a little, too.

Any opinions to be offered?

I wish I could do layouts that good...totally serious! Beautiful.

Not to derail, but there is another method for tails I've tried which works great. You can use this with a DPDT and make the other set of contacts switch an LED on and off. It doesn't pop. All you need to do is replace the coupling cap from the input stage to the delay stage with the little circuit shown. This will work on most PT2399 delays. If, however, you have another op-amp stage between the input and PT2399 (like a sallen-key filter) then you make the two resistors 1M and attach them to Vb instead of ground. In that case the circuit replaces the coupling cap and the biasing resistor of the second op-amp.