Naughty Fish – Vactrols and 125B Drilling

[benny_profane]

I have two questions about the Naughty Fish project:

Vactrol: There were problems in the past with the Macron VTL5C3, and the Xvive reissues are currently recommended. I got a pair of coolaudio VTL5C3 vactrols. Have others had good luck with those, or do they suffer from issues like the (newer) Macron devices?

125B top jacks: I prefer 125B enclosures with top jacks over 1590B enclosures with side jacks. Would anyone who has oriented I/O jacks this way be able to share their template? I'm mostly concerned about clearance over the vactrols. To be on the safe side, it seems that there is more than enough room to shift the board down completely to ensure there's no interference. But I'm interested in what others have found to work.

[Caedarn]

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125B top jacks: I prefer 125B enclosures with top jacks over 1590B enclosures with side jacks. Would anyone who has oriented I/O jacks this way be able to share their template? I'm mostly concerned about clearance over the vactrols. To be on the safe side, it seems that there is more than enough room to shift the board down completely to ensure there's no interference. But I'm interested in what others have found to work.

Funny, I've just started this project, and want to do the same: 125B with top jacks.  I had planned to just populate the PCB, then see if it looked like it would fit. But I also wondered about the Vactrols.

[Bio77]

That's how I did mine.  I used Lumbergs, don't remember if I had to modify the bottom plate.  I can check later and post.

[benny_profane]

That's awesome! Thanks for posting. Did you change the top drilling pattern at all? By that I mean did you shift the board down or leave it stock per the build doc.

[Bio77]

It was over a year ago, so, my memory is fuzzy (luckily my phone is half filled with pedal pics  ).  It looks like the knobs are pretty close the top, but I might have brought them down some.  I do remember that the center pot is a 9mm.  Also, I used an outty DC jack, if you look close I had to bend down the ground tab to get clearance.

I can look around for the pdf of the graphic tonight and know for sure.

[benny_profane]

It was over a year ago, so, my memory is fuzzy (luckily my phone is half filled with pedal pics  ).  It looks like the knobs are pretty close the top, but I might have brought them down some.  I do remember that the center pot is a 9mm.  Also, I used an outty DC jack, if you look close I had to bend down the ground tab to get clearance.

I can look around for the pdf of the graphic tonight and know for sure.

Thanks! Yeah that'd be greatly appreciated!

[Bio77]

So, looks like I moved the knobs down enough so that the DC jack had clearance.  I didn't bend the ground pin after all.  I didn't modify the back plate.  However, the clearance of the Lumberg jacks is right above the IC and the vactrols.  If I did another one of these I'd probably place the Jacks as close as possible to the bottom of the pedal to have more clearance.  If you go to far, you can always remove the lip from the back plate to get it to close.  Here's some pics.

[Bio77]

Here's the drill template I used.

[benny_profane]

That's tremendous. Thanks so much. Did you happen to make a template, or did you measure directly on the box? I spoke too soon!

[Bio77]

For the jacks, I used one of Bugg's 125B templates.  They are all the same in most of his build docs.

That's tremendous. Thanks so much. Did you happen to make a template, or did you measure directly on the box? I spoke too soon!

Ha!, looks like we're on at the same time.  Good luck with your build!

[benny_profane]

For the jacks, I used one of Bugg's 125B templates.  They are all the same in most of his build docs.

That's tremendous. Thanks so much. Did you happen to make a template, or did you measure directly on the box? I spoke too soon!

Ha!, looks like we're on at the same time.  Good luck with your build!

Thank you. I'll be sure to report back with my results.

[Thewintersoldier]

So, looks like I moved the knobs down enough so that the DC jack had clearance.  I didn't bend the ground pin after all.  I didn't modify the back plate.  However, the clearance of the Lumberg jacks is right above the IC and the vactrols.  If I did another one of these I'd probably place the Jacks as close as possible to the bottom of the pedal to have more clearance.  If you go to far, you can always remove the lip from the back plate to get it to close.  Here's some pics.

that jack clearance is like a duck's butt...water tight

[benny_profane]

Even though the project has been deprecated with the release of the mini mu, I wanted to update and say the top jacks worked! The clearance over the IC, not the vactrols, is actually the tightest.

[Philthy]

I did mine in a tall 125B and added a top-mounted loop aka the meatball. Would recommend that. Your input/output jack can then clear the 3PDT.

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=30424.msg293625#msg293625

[Bio77]

Even though the project has been deprecated with the release of the mini mu, I wanted to update and say the top jacks worked! The clearance over the IC, not the vactrols, is actually the tightest.

Awesome, glad it worked out! Let's see it