Messages

diablochris6: Thank You for answering my post.
I had no clue as to the nature of of the CD4049. In the future I shall research the IC's I plan to use.
As far as the "pins" I suspected that was what it meant, the led connection was screaming at me, but I wouldn't listen. I guess what I needed was to quit over thinking.

I am trying to do all my pedals from schematics, to help learn how to read them, then bend them to my will. Not always with happy results. . I would straight up follow the SD, except I like to use a 3p3t + led boards in my builds.

1.When I compare the two schematics, I find that the pin connections of the CD4049UBE don't quite match up.
2. Looking at SD schematic, I am COMPLETELY confused at the little circles with the word "pin" in them. Do all those "nodes" connect to each other?

I do realize these may be questions I should know. Please bare with me. I am reluctant to publish any pics, as I do not own the art work.

3tonesnd, yes, I covered it with many thin coats of clear coat, then Turtle Wax.

Thanks for the compliments guys.
mjg, yes I etched the board myself. The couple of times I'd tried prefboard, when I had to remove a part for troubleshooting, I found it to be a major pain in the keister. I used waterslide decals (which I had some trouble with my printer not wanting to play well with others) for the graphics. I love the way the "80's" pinks and blues look against the bare aluminum.
Matmosphere, I refereed to it as a clone as to not to take credit for the design.

I spent most of the hiatus trying to complete at least one working pedal. After many many mistakes, all of which I learned from, I've finally have one. Its a clone of the Bazz Fuzz with an added blender to tame it for the Bass.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the latest offering from Nelson Audio...The Scuzz Bucket.




And the required gut shot



I like the way it sounds, but man is it scuzzy. I made a few layout mistakes, but I had a working PCB, so I went with it.
Operator 217 is a nod to my daughter Liz, which is 217 upside down.
I would like to thank everyone who replied to my many posts asking questions.

Thank you Gentlemen. I guess I'll re-strip it and rough her up

I've been trying to put a clear coat on an aluminum box, I get it to look good, then it doesn't take much (handling it to put in circuit) to scratch it off. I trying to protect the box with the finish, but if the finish is fragile...
What may I be doing wrong?
I wet sand the box to 1000 grit, the put a ton of THIN coats on it. Is there a clear primer or something?
What do others do? What brand CC do you use?
I would like to get a hard clear finish when I'm done.
TIA

OK, I used decals once on my first project, the Testors sheets. that was 2 years ago, and I didn't have a working printer, so I used my buddy's HP inkjet. Perfect results. Today I tried the new Epson inkjet I bought recently and I get vertical streaks. Image prints perfect on regular paper. Tech support from both companies was rather lacking, to say the least. 
Who Uses decals, and what setup do you use i.e. file type, operating system, printer.
Needless to say, I am quite miffed.

Thx for the replies. I believe I found my problem. I had a couple cold solder joints

May one wire a trim pot backwards? Signal in 3, with 1 &2 wired together. Wouldn't this just make it run "backwards"? I screwed up etching the pcb with the trim pot backwards. The circuit worked fine on the bread board with the pot the right way, and except for the pot, its the same. It sounds good when I just pluck a string for input, using my audio probe for output, but when I remove the probe, and try to play my Bass, it sounds like doo doo.
The circuit in question is a Bass Fuzz with a blender

Thank You

I have been working on a version of the Bass Fuss, adding a blender so I can mix in some dry. I read that Phase Inversion *could* cause some problems.
Playing by ear, its sounds great at either all fuzz, or all dry. It *seems* to drop a tad in the middle. Still sounds good, just a little less umph. Then again, I could just be looking for trouble.
How can one tell? Would the inversion be very noticeable to the ear?
I do not have access to an oscilloscope, and I did, I wouldn't have a clue what to do with it.
TIA

Thank you Madbean, that was the problem. I wonder why the little cap worked before?

Just don't know the fix

Consider this Bass Fuss...



I have good strong signal at the collector of Q1. Pass the 120pf cap, not so much, and rotating to pot does nothing to increase the signal on pin2. I swapped both cap and pot.
I have bread boarded this circuit a couple times with these values, so I wouldn't think that's it. I must be on the right track, but keep missing the train.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
TIA

I have bread boarded it, and it sounds fine to me. I just didn't want to waste an etched PCB that was laid out wrong.