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Thanks Brian. Frankly I like the idea of putting the regulator on the RR board and putting a resistor in R19 as that would simplify things and I would still be pushing 15v which I'm going to declare close enough for me at this point 

I will take a step back and go one step at a time as you suggest.

Cool. Hope it did not sound like I was picking on you...

gt2 has pointed out the the Cave Dweller PCB is just a bit wide for a straight plop down into the 1590A. I made a last minute change on the borders which appeared to be within spec (less than 1.4" wide) but as it turns out is just about 1/2 mm wider than it should be making it difficult to lay flat on top to the jacks.

Here's what to do. Place a piece of sandpaper flat on a table. Hold it down with one hand and then swipe the left side of the PCB back and forth about 10-15 strokes. Then repeat with the right side. It only takes about 10 seconds to do and it removes just enough to get the PCB straight down. Do not over-sand! 10 -15 strokes on each side is all that is needed! REMEMBER: PCBs are made up of a fiberglass backing. The dust is not something you want to breathe directly or keep in your work area. Make sure you use proper precaution when sanding (well ventilated area or using a mask), and dispose of the PCB shavings immediately.

If you don't have sandpaper, use an Xacto knife and trim the sides instead...the material can be trimmed fairly easy. This also creates a little mess to clean up, but it does not produce dust.

Starting today, I will be doing this procedure myself on the Cave Dweller PCBs before shipping them out to save customers the trouble.

The green highlighted area in the image below is about the amount that should be removed.

Ahh, okay I see what you are getting at now (I had forgotten about that discussion). Yes, you could run the circuit at 18v and then Vdd at 15v only (remembering that the MN3005 has a max Vdd supply of +/-15v). I don't think that is going to offer any real advantage, though, esp. considering you are not going to get 18v exactly off a charge pump. It will probably be closer to 17.5 or so. Which ever way you decide to go, do use the correct type of regulator and try wiring it the way I mention here: www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=3756.msg36736#msg36736

Get the power thing sorted out first, and try to get your BBDs passing delay. Then we can tackle the modulation

I've built one with the B variety. It sounds good but not terribly gainey. The C is the better choice and is what the stock unity uses. Most of the hFe for the G2 measure around the 550 range, IIRC.

You are going about this the wrong way. You need to install an LM7815 on the Road rage board (the T0-220 type) to get a regulated 15v supply to the PCB. R19 can be anything between 22R and 100R---the values doesn't matter too much. You do not want to supply 18v to the Aquaboy and try to regulate it on that PCB. A 78L15 is not going to supply sufficient current to power the Aquaboy with two MN3005.

You need to break something like this down into manageable steps first instead of hooking everything together and hoping for the best. Install the regulator, confirm it puts out 15v. Remove the double delay board and MN3005. Hook the power supply up to the AB board. Measure the supply pins on the ICs and the socket for the MN3005 to confirm you are getting power to them. At this stage, I would only hook up one MN3005 on the AB PCB and confirm that delay is passing, but I guess that depends on whether or not you have the clock and bias trims on there. If delay is passing then hook up the double delay board and bias. Hook up modulation last and test.

This kind of thing is too complicated to just wire everything up without doing proper testing of supply and voltages first. When you break it down like this, you give yourself a much better opportunity to debug as you go along.

What about on the other side of R6, the 1k8. Are you reading about 9v there? R6 may be the problem.

Just to be sure: you have the transistor turned 180 deg. from the drawing on the silk screen? It appears to have the opposite pinout.

Thanks for the heads up. I just checked and yeah, it looks like there is a 1mm of extra border than there should be. I played around with it a bit and found angling it a hair is enough to get it in. Sanding the sides may not be necessary if the jacks are placed close enough to the top of the enclosure...or at least I hope not.

Hey Brian, you might try changing D4 and D5 to Schottky 1N5817, or change your regulator to a 7812. I'm not sure how well a 7815 will maintain regulation with only a 1.8 volt greater input voltage. Dropout voltage is usually about 2 volts.

Excellent point. I thought about the schottkys but not the 12v. I will try those out and report back ASAP.

Cool idea!

It was actually Jacob's

[the Road Rage was updated a bit]

I'll be somewhat "checked out" for the next several days. We have a bit of a family crisis here: my mother in law is gravely ill and my wife is in Texas helping with her family. I'm still at home but taking care of the household, kid, dogs, etc. is putting some extra demands on my time, so if I seem absent for a while not to worry.

All the pre-orders have shipped finally, as well as all other orders up to, err, today, I think. The last bit of documentation for the new projects has been uploaded, too.

Some additional notes on these projects:

Those of you who have already received your pre-order will notice that the Road Rage was updated a bit. I took the opportunity to correct the mis-labeled 18v/15v pads from the last batch. Since there was a bit of extra room on the board, I also added pads to hook up a "sag" control off the -9v portion of the supply for those using it to power PNP fuzzes. The documentation has been fully updated to reflect the changes. If you have the last version but did not download the doc for it, there is a link on pg.1 of the revised doc to download the previous one.

Reminder: the new Fatpants has the IN and OUT labels reversed on the silkscreen of the PCB. This is reflected in the documentation and mentioned in the "Errata" section of the forum, too. Please remember to hook those wires up correctly.

Collosalus: I made a small error in the BOM I drew up a couple of weeks ago. C22 was indicated to be between 22pF and 47pF for setting the clock frequency. In fact, this should have said between 62pF and 47pF. I was temporarily confused (thinking about the Current Lover). 62pF is what was used in the original 117, but my suggestion of 47pF still applies. It worked just as well and is a more common value. Remember you can place caps in parallel to make their values additive if you want to experiment.

Lastly, I ran into a bit of a surprise a couple of days ago with the Collosalus. I went to start a demo of it and found that some crackling noise had suddenly appeared in extreme part of the sweep of the flanger. This was not at all present when I originally built/biased the prototype or when I boxed up the thing a few weeks ago. After some thinking I realized the source was the power supply. My testing/prototyping was done using a 12v regulated supply and my results were very quiet and completely satisfying. When I hooked it up to the PP2 this noise popped in. I also tried a 1-Spot and had the same result.

This has got me a bit stumped and I am still working on it to try and understand why it is happening. My 12v supply is rock solid and delivers 200mA or abouts. The PP2 is very well regulated 9v and gives about 100mA. The 1-Spot is probably not as well regulated but can deliver something ridiculous like 1500mA, I think. Yet, the Collosalus was most quiet with the 12v. So far I've tried replacing the regulator and the ICs but I have not eliminated the noise with the two 9v supplies. I'm not convinced yet that it is not something in this particular build, but I'm going to keep working on it and try and figure out a solution that works for my PP2. Anyway, I mention this to some degree in the documentation but I'm holding back a bit until I know a bit more. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions that would be very helpful. This is likely a temporary frustration to be sorted out. The flanger does, in fact, sound amazing when it is properly tamed.

I did do this demo (using the 12v supply) which goes through the settings to give everyone an idea on how cool it sounds, but my "playing" is also un-musical in almost every way possible.

http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?board=24.0

Welcome to the forum.

Personally, I would not build the Weener for a fixed wah because of the size of the PCB. You could get a nice fixed wah, with some amount of control, doing an inductor-less wah like the Colorsound and fit it into a 1590A or B. Or, maybe a variation of the "Light Wah" over at DIYSB. There are a few designs out there which could serve the purpose, be less costly to build and fit in a small enclosure.

C7 is in parallel with D1 and C6, providing power filtering going into the CMOS IC.

I know that's technically true, but I highly doubt that the circuit designer intentionally paralleled 100u and 100n caps to provide 100.1uF of DC filtering.     Besides, why does it connect to pin 8, which is missing from every other schematic I've found for the RL/TSF?  At this point I'm just curious.  If I do get around to breadboarding it tonight, I'll try it with and without C7 and report back.

It is very common to place a small ceramic or film cap in parallel with a large electrolytic for filtering DC ripple. Electrolytic caps are not terribly good at filtering high frequency noise which can come from poorly regulated DC wall warts. If you are using a well regulated supply or batteries, the 100n is not needed.

It's connected to pin8 of the 4049 because that is the ground pin of the IC. Look at the schematic again and you will see that pins 8, 7, 9, 11, and 14 are all grounded.

I still burn myself every time I build something. Just a nick.