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Aquaboy DX

Started by aballen, April 04, 2013, 10:10:28 AM

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DutchMF

Got my ABDX board in the mail today, man it's big! Gonna have some sweet solderin' time tomorrow!

Paul
"If you can't stand the heat, stay away from the soldering iron!"

aballen

Awesome man, its a great sounding pedal.  Calibration is a PITA, I think thats why its considered a "genius" build.  The rest was fairly easy.

I have to say its a real achievement by Brain to make it work with so many different BBDs and voltages.

I threw together a summary of my "variables" and I thought it might be useful to keep a running list of summarized setups so I threw together a google doc.  All this information is in the build doc, just a bit more scattered.  It is open to public editing, so if you go with something a little different, once verified, please put your setup in the doc to share.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtnklCWjdMa-dFZTZUw2YUlqV0NWMmxBY3hDSDR6YkE&usp=sharing


DutchMF

Thanks for posting that, it's going to be a big help. I got to resistors, diodes (more on that later...) and sockets in one session today before my wife pulled me away from it and shoved some dinner in me.... I love her!

While rereading this thread, I realised I have pull D3 from the board  ::) And that after reading the docs alt least 4 times! Now to find me some BBD's!

Paul
"If you can't stand the heat, stay away from the soldering iron!"

aballen

Yup. And there is another thread about r50 and R51 affecting the modulation.  So if you are running 15v you should look that one up too.

MattOcaster

Tim3 to finish this puppy off :)
Check out my Blog :D
www.SonicTitanFx.com

aballen

Ok, to wrap it up, a few final pictures.

I managed to get my Aquaboy in a 1590B, not a BB, very tight, but doable.  Take a look at how close it was.


Here you can see the switch is just barely touching the pot condom on the right, the jacks are quite tight as well.  To make this work I had to wrap my Road Rage in electrical tape and tuck it under the board below the mix pot, right next to the rate pot which is why you don't see it here



Given the pot spacing I really did not want to attempt graphics, I think it would have come out to cluttered or busy looking.  My wife was kind enough to take the paint pen to the enclosure.


Here is the final product


In summary, I really like how it turned out.  It has a nice warm tone, very analog.  The repeats distort just a little, thats how I have it trimmed.  I belevie running at 15V really does make a noticeable difference.  I compared it to my favorite delay and I can tell there is more headroom.  It somehow sounds more "airy" to me.  Not like a reverb, but the repeats seem more open somehow, deeper.  This could be the differences in the pedals themselves, or just my perception.  It sounds so good I'm not sure I will use the modulation.
 
This will be my May entry to the build contest.  I hope the build thread was informative.

jimilee

That's awesome, although that is a bb, a 1590b is smaller than a 125b
Pedal building is like the opposite of sex.  All the fun stuff happens before you get in the box.

Parra

Awesome! it looks amazing, i never get tired of white and chrome over blue!

nzCdog

Well done!  Your wide did a great job of the lettering too... now you can finally enjoy it!  ;D

aballen

Jimmy you are correct about this.  What are those small bear enclosures... 1590BB, but deeper?

Quote from: jimilee on May 19, 2013, 11:13:37 AM
That's awesome, although that is a bb, a 1590b is smaller than a 125b

jimilee

Quote from: aballen on May 20, 2013, 10:39:53 AM
Jimmy you are correct about this.  What are those small bear enclosures... 1590BB, but deeper?

Quote from: jimilee on May 19, 2013, 11:13:37 AM
That's awesome, although that is a bb, a 1590b is smaller than a 125b
125bb
Pedal building is like the opposite of sex.  All the fun stuff happens before you get in the box.