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I'm sourcing parts to build the VFE Bumble Bee and Choral Chorus. These ICs are sold out everywhere. Are there suitable alternatives you recommend?

I apologize if this has been answered before. I am kind of new to building pedals overall if you couldn't tell from my whacky posts I just stumbled on the VFE pedals and these sound absolutely amazing.

The two that stand out to me at the Bumbleee and the Coral Chorus. Is it still possible to buy these PCBs? How does one get the "software" for the VFE? I'm guessing the "VFE" is a chip that has software flashed on it?

The mouser BOM for the VFE boards shows most of the parts out on DEEP back order. Is that just because Mouser sucks? I've found DigiKey generally has everything in stock 100% of the time, but some of this stuff looks pretty niche.

Thanks!

I've built an audio probe but am putting this one on the shelf for a week or two. I had a back log of pedals that were were ready be boxed up and decided I needed some time away from the DMM. I just finished a King of Tone clone with original MA858 and 1S1588 diodes and it sounds great. And I'm in the process of finishing a Univibe clone.

Once I get those two done I'll put a pin on building anything new so I can focus on the DMM and I'll resurrect this thread in a week or two if I run into trouble. Thank you for all of your help!

I dunno if my scope is jacked or the pedal is jacked? When I put a signal from the looper across the input of the pedal and measure at pin 1 of IC6 I get nothing but junk on the scope. Any suggestions for what I'm doing wrong?

I have tried it set on AC and DC. I have 10x prob on. I'm using Channel 1. I've tried auto and manual capture. I messed with horizontal and vertical and trigger. I've adjusted the bias to max or min and I'm getting squat.

Also, maybe I wired my jacks incorrectly? Could someone take a peek?

Great idea! What would be a good signal generator to purchase for pedal and amp work like this? I have a Rigol 1052e hacked to 100Mhz.

Ahhhh! Okay so I don't have a signal generator (yet) so I'll have to use my guitar. Here's to hoping it works! Will report back.

I measured the voltages again this time grounding my black probe to the ground lug of the jack. Now I have verified all of my voltages are within 5% of what's on the spec sheet provided by MadBean.

I tried hooking up my oscilliscope (Rigol 1052E, hacked to 100Mhz) but I have no idea what I'm looking for on the screen to measure the BBDs and timing chips. So I tried to just plug the pedal into my amp and all it produces is a loud hum, no signal. I may have hooked up the jacks wrong as they are stereo jacks and I always get the wiring backwards.

Hello team MBP,

I'm in the middle of testing out my voltages on the ICs before I rock my box. I stated off with the 4558 ICs since there were so many of them. I'm not even sure I am taking these readings correctly. What I've been doing is putting my red probe on pin 4 and using my black probe to read across each pin. I.e., Pin 1 connected to Pin 4 gives me Xvdc.

My voltages seem to be all over the place on some of these ICs. IC1, IC4, IC5 all appear to be okay. IC3, IC9 are wozzed up.

IC3 P1: -9.3vdc
IC3 P2: -12.6vdc
IC3 P3: -12.8vdc
IC3 P4: -14.8vdc
5,6,7 all fine. pin 8 reads 0vdc to ground.

IC9 P1: Varies
IC9 P2: 7-8.6vdc
IC9 P3: varies
IC9 P4: -15vdc
IC9 P5: varies (7-9)
IC9 P6: varies (8-9)
IC9 P7: 8-9vdc

I could totally be doing these readings incorrectly. But any help would be appreciated. I did try to google the heck out of how to measure and test 4558s but all of the videos are in Hindi ...

Thanks! My resistors should be in spec. Readings from the regulator:

Pin 3 across pin 1: -15.09vdc
Pin 3 across pin 2: -29.08vdc

I got a 270 ohm @ 2 watt resistor. But, can someone confirm that the voltages I posted most recently appear to be correct?

I'd like to keep moving forward with the build if I am within the margin of safe operation.

1/4 watt

I just took the readings as followings:

Pin 3 across pin 1: -15.09vdc
Pin 3 across pin 2: -29.08vdc

I think that looks right. Do you think I should still increase the size of R57 in this case? Shall I move on to taking IC readings bows?

Is stabil another word for voltage regulator (3 pin component)? All of the caps I'm using are rated for 35v or higher.

I am now reading -15vdc (black probe on pin 3, red probe on pin 2) across pin 3 and pin 2. Is that good?

I replaced the diode and now the voltages are even lower. I'm reordering my pins based on the graphic you shared. I measured all of these from the pin to ground.

Pin 3 (closet to top of the board): .8vdc
Pin 2 (middle): .45vdc
Pin 1 (bottom): 0vdc

When I measure across pin 3 to pin 2 I'm getting 25vdc.

Any thoughts on next steps?

We'll I thought that would solve it and to a certain degree it did but still no dice. At least I'm not popping the R57 resistor now but I have little to no juice flowing to the regulator.

I have +34vdc from the EHX to the jack and to the board. But at the regulator I'm getting the following (no idea on correction measuring approach here):

Pin 1 (closet to top of board): -.05vdc
Pin 2: -1vdc
Pin 3: 0vdc

This ^ is with the board powered on and in bypass or on mode. LED is operational.

I'm measuring with the positive probe on the pin and the negative probable on a grounding point on my bench. Is that right?

Any ideas what I'm missing?

I verified continuity along the entire power path from looking at the circuit Trace/ I have confirmed continuity between power to the board and r57. I'm getting about -2.6vdc there across the resistor (-1vdc on a single side). At D1 diode I'm getting about -29vdc. At r60 I'm getting 0vdc.