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I'm not sure if what I'm hearing is "expected" behaviour or not, but I have quite a lot of noise on repeats on bass notes, sample from the Total Recall going straight in to my FocusRite thingy here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdcqjmdikudd67s/total%20recall.wav?dl=0

This was Delay at 2 o'clock, feedback at noon, Mod at zero, blend at noon, level at noon.

I know it's an analogue delay, and analogue delays are noisy the longer the delay time, but I get this noise as pretty much any delay time even and with feedback down on zero. What's odd is that is that the noise is worse the lower the note. I don't really get much/any noise on higher notes.

If this is a problem, where do I start debugging it?

My first thought is the compander/expander

I did some continuity checks with the DMM and for some reason I didn't have continuity with Pin 7 of IC4 and C24 or pin 2 & 3 of the trimmer.

Reflowing the joint didn't help so it looks like there's a problem with a trace on the board. I ended up having to desolder the Belton (not a fun job, ruined the +5v pad in the process and had to run a wire to Pin 1 of the PT2399) and putting a jumper in to bridge IC4 Pin 7 to C24.

Suffice to say, now this thing sings. What a beaut!

Brian, have you had any problems with any other Moodring boards or was I unlucky? All the soldering around there looks pretty decent so I'm not sure how I would have damaged it.

I'm having some issues with my Moodring; I'm only getting dry, unaffected signal out. So, I started with the audio probe and followed the affected signal out of the Belton, through the tone control and to pin 5 of IC4. All good so far.

When I checked for signal on the way out of Pin 7, I got nothing at all.

Voltages on the "A" side of IC4 are fine, however on the "B" side I get 1.5V at Pin 6, and 8.5V at Pin 7 with a supply voltage of 9.1V at Pin 8.

Component values and electrolytic capacitor orientation for the feedback loop around the inverting input look right to me. The only thing I noticed that seems suspicious is that the trimmer seems to have no effect on the output.

Any pointers??

Thanks all!

you put a coat on, then waterslide, then put another coat on?

Yes, but only because it's metallic automotive paint; it needs sanding and a clearcoat of some sort before the waterslide in order to bring out the sparkle. For normal "flat" paints you'd just put waterslide straight on and one or more pours over the top

Is the shadow on logo part of the sticker, or is it because of the double pour on the envirotex?

It's part of the decal

Lee's a great guy, and the boards are top notch too. I've made a bunch of stuff of his and often buy the odd component too (he has great stock of decent Alpha pots with insulated caps over their base).

If you're buying kits, I'd say it's worth buying a drilled enclosure from him too if you don't have a pillar drill, they're always top quality and precision drilled.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Build went well (worked first time), had a bit of trouble sourcing parts due to a partially shipped order from Banzai, followed by a second partially shipped order after I forgot some bits the first time around.

I cocked up the drilling of the enclosure and overdrilled both the Edge switch (needed a bigger washer to secure it) as well as the DC Jack, so I had to swap the input jack and DC jack's position, which required bending one of the transistors over in order to get clearance from the jack plug. Fairly tight fit all round so careful measurements and accurate centre punch were pretty essential on this one.

Given the high parts count, I took care to orient the resistors so the tolerance band was always at the same end to aid debugging.

I slipped some m7 washers over the pots before mounting them to the enclosure in order to get the Boss style knobs nice and flush

Finish is OK, not my best Envirotex work, approach was:

- Sanding (LOTS of sanding, cheap enclosures = false economy)
- Couple of coats of primer
- Sanding again
– 3 coats of metallic red rattle can
- More sanding (ended up over sanding a couple of spots and exposing primer/aluminium, but had run out of paint!)
- Drilling
- First, lean, pour of Envirotex
- Waterslide decal after 24 hours
- Second pour

There's quite a lip around the bottom edge from the way the envirotex flowed, I still haven't figured out how to do sides properly!

What's your PSU and regulator voltages?

Could just need re-biasing (what you described sounds like your gain trimmers are too low), see this thread for some biasing tips (the docs aren't quite right)

I did my first Envirotex pour on an enclosure this week. Very pleased with the result - nice and thick, no runs, lovely glassy finish. Only slight niggle is some soot got on the finish. I didn't have a 'torch to smooth out the bubbles, so I used a lighter. Big mistake.

Anyway, I tried to get the 3mm LED through the hole I'd drilled for it, except it doesn't fit anymore. I daren't try and open it up with a file for fear of lifting the Envirotex. A drill also seems a little heavy handed, but may be the only option.

Any pointers?

W=whacko (ok, I just made that one up. It's a strange taper most known to tube-screamer tone pots)

W-taper pots generally have a notch at the midway point too. The taper is reverse log to 50%, then log from there to 100% IIRC

You generally use Audio pots (aka Logarithmic taper) because your ear responds to sound in a logarithmic way, they're generally found on attenuating volume controls (those that reduce the volume by bleeding an amount to ground) but they have other uses too.

With a linear pot, all of the change would happen at one end of the wiper, logarithmic "feels" a lot more natural as you go from 0 - 100%.

Here's a handy illustration (bare in mind that bels is a logarathmic scale too):

Interesting idea! I have a UV LED torch, and just tried it on some white water-based acrylic paint (the kind you use for decorating Airfix models – Revell 36-301 White) and it lit up super bright.

Personal preference, try a few and see what you like.

Personally, I like the 3mm ultrabright red LEDs. IMHO, the trouble with diffused and non-ultrabright ones is that it can be hard to see if they're on when there's overhead light as it can diffuse in the housing. Ultrabright generally come packaged in clear casing so you don't get a colour cast when light shines on them.

Pro-tip: I generally use bi-colour LEDs in effects that require a SPDT toggle (but I swap it for a DPDT) so the LED is a different colour depending on which way the toggle is thrown. Also useful for circuits with a second stomp so you can see when boost is engaged, for example, to save having to add a second LED.

Found 'em! M7 is the size, readily available on ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371116097402

Fuzzdog used to sell some washers that were great for slipping over pots before you mount them in the enclosure to reduce the shaft height so you can have smaller knobs that sit closer to the enclosure. I can't remember for the life of me what size they were, and based on the dimensions I've measured from the single washer I have left (13.7mm outer diameter, 7.4mm inner diameter, 1.5mm thick), I can't find anything that matches.

Does anyone have any pointers for where I might buy some in the UK, and what the proper size is?

this one?