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When visiting Recent Unread, I see the default theme and in the top left I'm signed in as a different user. That page at least is still being cached server-side. Once I clicked into a thread it was back to normal.

It looks like the caching issues are back. If the hosting got switched then I would guess the caching settings need to be adjusted again.

Is there any sort of server-side caching enabled? This is a performance option that basically generates a static page the first time a page is viewed, and the cache is an HTML copy of what was viewed that is served to visitors instead of regenerating the page from scratch each time.

Typically the cache should be set up so that it's bypassed for logged-in users. If it's being generated and loaded even when a user is logged in, you would see the issues reported here (that I am seeing as well) where as you click through different pages, sometimes you're logged in, sometimes not, and sometimes you are a different user or there's a different theme.

On the other hand the L4 preamp is now my default bass rig.  I played bass last weekend and had it into a DI with a Small Clone clone out in front and when I hit the first note I about wet my pants.

I've never considered taking out a full-page ad in a magazine before, but with a quote like that, you might be forcing my hand!

I see them pretty often on eBay, though they come and go. Small Bear has some sets as well, but they're extremely expensive and international shipping is a lot.

However - for a Fuzz Factory in particular, I would really not be too concerned at all. It absolutely brutalizes the transistors in a way that makes the type & specs fairly unimportant. Selected sets are definitely worthwhile in a Fuzz Face or Tone Bender, but IMO not so much in a Fuzz Factory.

Looks awesome, Gordo    I'm confused, this one runs on 9V?

This one runs on standard 9VDC. The original one from 2016 was 9VAC, though it probably could handle 12VAC if it's what you had available.

If they're this type with the clear shaft, they don't have their own LED - you actually mount the LED underneath them and it illuminates the whole shaft. So the LED would just be included as part of the PCB layout and you can chain them together however you like.

I'd love to go to Altium but I don't see it ever happening. I could pretty much use Eagle 7.5 for the next 10 years without issue. Jeez, I'm even sick of paying for the Adobe Master Suite. I've probably put over $6k into it and I still don't own the goddam software!

Is 7.5 an offline version

Yeah, everything up to 7.7 is offline/lifetime, although Autodesk has been trying to discourage new installations lately, saying stuff like "your perpetual license will continue to function forever on your current machine" (e.g. in the FAQ here) which is the Platonic ideal of corporate doublespeak. From what I've read, I believe as long as you keep the .key file and you have the download code and installation code from a previous installation, you can still activate on a new machine - all they've done is discontinue the delivery of key files for existing accounts trying to install it someplace new if you don't have them saved (ref. this forum post).

Those are generally top mounted though, aren't they? Component side, I mean. I was taking about soldering them on the copper side actually.

Yeah, that's true, the traces are always opposite the pots. It's a little more rigid that way for sure (and certainly more convenient for assembly).

I'd still say 6 pots is fine as long as you're careful about alignment, but fair warning that this will be really hard to do!

Most EHX stuff in the 70s used board-mounted pots on single-layer boards and they're still going strong. With 6 pots, you've got enough anchor points that no one joint will be stressed, but out of precaution I would recommend soldering the PCB in place inside the enclosure if possible to ensure that it's custom-fit to the enclosure (to account for any slight misalignments in the drilling for instance). As long as you use good-quality copperclad then you'll almost certainly be fine.

This looks promising. I connected the red probe of my multimeter to the + of the 9v battery, then touch the negative of the battery with the black: reads about 8.3v. Makes sense.

Then with the red still connected to the + of the battery I touch the ground of the dc power input and it reads 0.51. This should surely read about 8v too right?

That would definitely point to a grounding issue. You should have direct continuity between battery negative and DC jack ground, provided there's something plugged into the input jack (which makes the battery ground connection through the jack sleeve).

The LED is in backwards so about to fix that. However this should not really affect the circuit right?

Nope, it just wouldn't light up is all. No damage to the LED or the rest of the circuit.

Awesome! Will it still have the same control layout/drill template?
Any chance there'll be future offerings of custom printed & drilled enclosures with the nice lab series badges?

Different drill template, but similar control layout overall. Top mount jacks. I'll do a full kit of it at some point, and will probably also do 'lite' kits with the enclosure and I/O module but none of the onboard components, which would be the equivalent of the enclosure runs I've been doing before.

No logo badges though... Gibson still owns the IP and they weren't exactly flattered by our homage.

Might work out okay but doesn't the Lab Series arrangement end up with a +/- 15v supply?

I just checked  the doc on this and yes, that does seem to be the case. I didn't realize it uses a 9v AC adapter to get +/-25v and then regulates down to +/-15v. It seems like 18v supply into a 15v regulator plus an inverter would have been easier

Sorry Aion, not trying to go negative on you, just reporting my curiousity

Current handling was the main issue. The L5 was on the edge of 100mA based on back-of-envelope estimation, and could very easily exceed it if someone experimented with newer opamps instead of 4558s in their build, so it wouldn't have been the right solution. But I do have a redesign of the L5 underway that uses the DC modules!

OR is there a way to bypass the 2nd Minibooster altogether?

This is where most of the drive comes from (the first stage boosts the signal which clips the 2nd stage) so if you bypassed the 2nd stage it probably would tame things a lot more than you want.

I would say biasing is key. Try raising the 2nd stage resistor to ground from 120R to 220R or even higher.

Also make sure they're genuine/known-good 5457s... the type used to develop the original would have a Vgs(off) in the 1.2 to 1.4 range, but if they're not Fairchild/ONSemi brand (or if they are fakes) then they could be wildly different.

Maybe you can try to add a sort of Pre-Gain control, a simple pot in front of the circuit.

The gain control is a volume control after the first stage (which shouldn't really distort on its own) so this probably wouldn't do much more than allow fine-tuning of the gain range - e.g. setting the pregain control to a place where the maximum gain setting is good. Better to try biasing it differently and only try this if tweaking the bias is a dead end.

Ideally you want both the correct ratios (Q2 50-75% higher than Q1) and the trimmers to fine tune it. The trimmers don't compensate for the difference in hFE, that's a  completely separate thing.