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Bump for help.

I just finished Brian's standard PNP Rangemaster build. Sounds good and works like it should with a battery.

I'd like to use the other board I have for the NPN so I can use up these transistors.

Can anyone confirm that all that needs to be done is turn around the capacitors and the diode, and swap the battery leads, or does anything else need to change in the harness?

Hey, Luke, did you figure out what do do about using it on a dark stage?

reading light on the pedal board, maybe?

Yay! Just saw the optical comp. Very excited about that one. I can't find an OpComp PCB period anywhere, much less one for a 1590a. Pretty much definitely getting one of those (and a Cave Dweller ... and maybe a phaser ...) as soon as the BOMs go up.

Is Mauser our only reasonable source for 1/8th resistors? They have a "size" column in their order forms ... what's the right mm size for the 1/8th watts we should use?

Thanks for the help, guys. I took shawnee's advice and separated the input and output wires as much as I could (taped them to the enclosure) and it seemed to help.

The circuit I was having trouble with was a Red Llama. It's a little quieter now, probably the best I'm going to get with a gain circuit. I would shorten the pot wires, but the volume pot's is designed to be wired directly to the switch in that design, so I really don't think I'll get much mileage out of resoldering it.

I use 1% metal film resistors, film caps, and box caps in place of electrolytic caps when I can.

Actually, my wife suggested making jewelry with the extra capacitors I got (I ordered a couple bags of 200 instead of individuals ... oops).

The Green Ringer is a pretty reasonable usage. I might try that.

What are some tips for getting a pedal quieter?

I know "twist offboard wiring" is a common one (though I don't quite understand why it would help, since all that wire is inside a metal box). Do isolated jacks help? What am I trying to isolate in the circuit?

Since the pedals are already in a big metal box, I don't think adding shielding will help. I've got my guitars pretty much dead quiet and I'd like to get pedals about the same.

and you DON'T want to use them in a drive/distortion pedal.

What's a ("good" or "bad") use for 'em? Any experience using them as substitutes in circuits where they don't necessarily belong?

(These are the generic Ge diodes from Small Bear.)

Looks infinitely cooler than my stutter trem.

Cool sounding box, too.

Eh ... actually, I've decided not to press my luck and to just fix everything to the right polarity and use a battery. It's not a box I intend to use very often, so I don't *need* to use a power supply.

I'm going to leave the thread up, though, because I'm curious.

Edit: This problem is solved. On Brian's board, for an NPN transistor, all you have to do is connect the +9v to the board where the -9v would have gone, and wire the switch and jacks as normal for any other negative ground effect from there.

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I've googled myself silly and I've found a bunch of forum posts with dead links. I'm sure someone here has done this, so any help is appreciated?

I'd like to convert the MadBean rangemaster board I have to NPN. I have an NPN transistor, I've flipped the 47uF caps (the positive side is facing the pot connections), and I've connected the +9v wire to the board where it's marked for -9v and moved the -9v to board ground and the jack like normal. I am not using a battery although I could change that if I absolutely cannot use a daisy chained power supply with this.

I've left out the diode thus far because (a) a lot forum posts have said that it is unnecessary if there's no danger of plugging in the wrong power supply (I don't have any positive ground connectors anyway), and (b) Fuzz central (http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/rangemaster.php) in their NPN board used a reverse germanium diode because he said the silicon ones won't work. I have germanium diodes. Do I need to use one of those, or will it work without one?

Otherwise, I followed the PDF instructions for wiring up the harness.

If I plug this in right now, will anything explode (particularly my tantalum caps)?

I am not getting a reading on the top side of the caps (the side closest to the pot) and that worries me. This would be a kind of expensive project to lose the parts from.

I'm trying to fit a red llama into a small enclosure, but the 1590A seems to be just a hair too shallow to fit a jack over top of the board. I *think* the enclosure that an Xotic EP Booster is in is taller than a 1590A and that would fit the bill, but I can't find one like that. The only other thing I've seen around this size is the 1090NS, which is even smaller than the 1590A.

When all those mini pedal boards go live, I'm going to become a very poor man ...

Can I add a road rage to an optical tremolo circuit (a Trem Lune-type in this case), or do I have to change something in particular on the tremolo board (like the input resistor) to accept the higher voltage first?

If this is much more complicated than changing one or two values, I'll skip it and use the road rage in something else.

Thanks!

Somehow I missed that in the Trem Lune. I guess I was watching the wrong clips.  

I'm not sure there's any way I can fit that circuit in a 1590B though, not even if I use all mini pots and transfer it to perfboard. I guess I can cut some controls ... Taylor's Tap tempo is definitely too big.

OOOH it will fit in the smaller enclosure! http://nickfuckinggill.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/photo0050.jpg

Is it possible to build an optical or TR-2 style tremolo to actually stutter? I'd love if someone at least pointed me in the right direction. Stock models never actually get that deep, and at least a couple forum posts have indicated that they won't.

I did find a schematic for the Vox Repeater, which presumably I can mod to be like a Hummingbird, but I was wondering if there was anything else out there to consider.