madbeanpedals::forum

Hello, This was started a long time ago, short attention span and no hurry, finally got to stomp on it today, fired up on first go 'round, no rocking before ... Aaand no magic here, just my iteration of an ultra-complcated circuit... treble booster with two transistors.

Name? A while back a friend spent some time teaching ESL to the locals in Georgia... the other Georgia... so from a list of Georgian communities i snared Tkibuti as i liked how i thought it might be pronounced. Little to be gleaned about Tkibuti other then destitute, post-industrial wasteland.

All the Russian Ge transistors i've received, PNP's & NPN's, have had low gains of no more then 30 so built this Ge Darlington Rangemaster based on the article by Steve at Small Bear.

https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardGeDarlingtonRMs/BreadboardGeDarlingtonRMs.htm

(Built with PNP's, positive ground, schematic is for NPN's)
Body control.
(https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardGeDarlingtonRMs/Fig25.gif)
Darlington
(https://www.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardGeDarlingtonRMs/Fig19.gif)

Based on this schematic my values for the various parts;

Input caps; 3n polystyrene & 27n polyester. Tried every variety of cap i had, various types of ceramic, plastic, polystyrene, to my ear no disernable  difference so used most interesting looking 3n cap i had kicking around?
Output cap; 39 polyester.
Emitter cap; 3.3uF
Emitter resistor 3k
Bias resistors 470k & 62k
Rc 1k2
Rd 20k

Collector voltage fell nicely in desired range with 2 GT308b's.

On the rats nest breadboard was crazy noisy/buzzy but with the pcb and shielded enclosure as quiet as my standard Rangemaster. WAs concerned about the noise so breadboarded a standard so i could swap in the transistor from the my previous quiet build and vice versa and the noise stayed with the setup not moving with the transistor so felt hopeful that once properly built the noise would go, success! On a further note the gain of  these Ge's seems to be enough for use in the standard arrangement, more play...

Used a battery power-switching arrangement idea from Geofex, using a 2N3904 (positive ground cicuit). http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/PNP_power_switching.pdf

Layout done in ExpressPCB then the usual tweaks in Inkscape. Sunk four sockets e/b/c/e, so can use any transistor pinout without having to contort the leads. Layout now verified, fired up nice and quiet.


Photoboards exposed ~1" away from the flourescent tubes above my workbench, absolutely no need for any special UV setup for board exposure, UV will cut down exposure time considerably but that's it, ~9min. lots of leeway, for flourescents, UV 60-90 sec.

Resolution, ruler divisions 1/64". Lacquered boards.


Enclosure madness; one of Mac Walker's terrific wedges. Cut a battery sock from an old bicycle 1" inner tube, heavy duty stick on velcro to mate it the enclosure then a rubber grommet stuck to the bottom plate to firmly entrap the battery. Battery snap was something put together for another project and never used, perfect fit for this.

Sanded enclosure with 220, cleaned with acetone-> self-etching primer-> BIN Shellac based Sealer/Primer. Then... artist acrylics and mediums, gouache paints, rocker panel paint, spray webbing, charcoal pencils, watercolour pencil crayons, permanent markers, Gun Metal Bluing, Target 7000 lacquer, propane torch, JB weld, frisket film and masking tape stencils, liquid frisket, stamps, toner transfers, collage. Applied/removed with paint brushes, air brushes, palette knives, ruling pen, pop can pen, brayer, toothbrush, scrub brush, fingers, resistor lead, sandpaper, rifflers/files, Dremel burr, xacto knife, and dental picks. Gimp and Inkscape used to organize and manipulate ideas/images etc.
Cheers! dave

So perfect! :)

Everything you do is an absolute work of art.

Quote from: midwayfair on August 19, 2014, 02:17:05 AM
So perfect! :)

Everything you do is an absolute work of art.
[/quote

Very True. Brilliant!

Quote from: midwayfair on August 19, 2014, 02:17:05 AM
So perfect! :)

Everything you do is an absolute work of art.

Yeah - what Jon said. Bravo, sir.

This is beyond words! Absolutely stunning Dave!   :o

that just kicks so much ass

The world's raw cool supply went down enough to destabilize the economies of smaller countries, and you put it all in this pedal.

Shoot.  They don't get much cooler than this one.  Nyet Nyet.

Love the banksy nod too.  Gorgeous.

Man, I dig your style. 

Another build of yours sneaks inside my "inspiration" folder. Awesome job.

Cody

DIY at is finest, that's incredible...!

This build is just flat out fantastic...

Josh

Just great as usual,
i really like your style.
Mich P.

Unbelievable. So much time spent on details...

That is one of the nicest builds I've ever seen...

Just the board is a work of art—not to mention the outside! Wow!

That's a real classic!  Great work.

Really impressive work, well done sir.

I really appreciate and respect builders who are as much about process as final product. Every step of this is amazing. Wonderful and inspiring work!

Thanks you guys for the compliments and words of encouragement, very much appreciated! Makes the journey even more fun and rewarding!

All the best,
dave

All of your builds are so inspirational, Dave. This one is particularly incredible. Thanks for sharing your process with us.

Dude, your stuff blows my mind!  8)

Mindblown as always. You should do custom work and charge 500 dollars for that stuff, I'm sure someone with the paying power would buy it, they would be amazed as much as we all are. Incredible stuff.

I really like your finishes very unique!

I might have to try the hand painted look myself as I can't spray in my place. Is the etching primer you use a spray? Is it available in a brush-on form?

The etching primer i've been using is a spray, toxic stuff so i prep a bunch of enclosures in the summer when i can spray outside in my shed. Did come across a brush on version last week at an auto restoration site near here and i'd like to give that try, expensive but a can would go a long way as what you use actually goes on the painted object instead of having a big mess/waste of overspray.

ed; Just add that for the BIN primer i spray with a single action airbrush (easy to clean), smells of alcohol but nothing nasty. Tried their spray can but it sprayed very poorly and again big waste in overspray. And whatever i'm spraying use a respirator designed for chemical filtering.

http://www.caswellcanada.ca/shop/por-15-self-etching-primer.html

And thanks again guys!
dave

This thing should go in a museum! I would not dare to stomp on that piece of art. Just fantastic!

Oh. My.

Brilliant. The detail level on this is on par with masterpiece rating. I think this should be in a museum, not on a pedalboard. Fantastic work, and absolutely stunning execution.

Jacob

I think it's awesome that you had Pussy Riot mentioned on the pedal. I saw Steven Colbert interview them and they were just really funny and articulate.

Creativity at it's finest mate, love this  :)

Builds like this make me glad I have no pride in how my builds look ;)

This kind of post is the reason I don't put my stuff up....sheesh. You're a freakin stone cold artist!

I was thinking of making my new slogan:

"Looks Ugly, Sounds Good"

Absolutely fab! What everyone else said....! :o
Cool, cool, cool....

Very kickass, indeed. I have two of those Mac Walker wedges I need to get going!