Land of the Dead Trio (for CK1)

[midwayfair]

Chris had several circuitboards and very little time to box them, so we worked out a trade.

He really liked the Ghost Black from Pedal Parts Plus, so I obtained a few enclosures with that color ...



Oooh, scary!

Boneyard + one-knob Fatpants with an order switcher:


I built the Fatpants PCB (just altered my perf layout to omit the charge pump), but Chris (or someone else he got it from) built the Boneyard PCB.

I used a Fatpants instead of the on-board boost switch from the Boneyard. The rest of the +18V conversion for the FP is hiding under the PCB, as is an input buffer running off an isolated voltage. Unfortunately, I was still unable to get the Boneyard perfect and howl-free after working on it for a week. I tried everything under the sun to get rid of the whine, and though I knocked it down substantially with the additional filtering, I was still forced to limit the tone pot and volume knob range to make it easier to avoid a setting that howls. The Fatpants side sounds great, though, as usual. I used a 2SK170 this time. There wasn't room for more than the one pot, and the extra switch made it symmetrical, so the Fat pot is inside, set at 2/3 of the way up and then rebiased accordingly.

Chris had some more ideas, so hopefully this monster will be right in the future. I felt bad sending it to him without it being perfect, though, I've never had to do that before.



I didn't populate the PCB, but someone had already done the sensitivity pot. I changed it to my preference of a 50K pot with a minimum instead of the 100K pot that was already there, but that's it really. Sounds like an Afterlife, of course. The 5C3 does make a tiny difference from my preference of a 5C1, but that's it.



Chris again built the PCB, but I finished populating it. I put in a pair of OA126 in place of the silicon diodes just to be cheeky, and OA1160 for the germanium. I used a 1458 for IC1 as I thought it sounded the best out of what I had on hand, and the lack of top end really helps keep some clarity. I was pretty impressed by the clarity in this circuit, actually, though I thought the switches weren't terribly useful when the gain gets higher ... and I can't figure out the point of switching in a blue LED in parallel with a red LED, especially when the blue LED has a limiting resistor. It could have just been blue LEDs on all the time and switched in a red one to do something actually useful. It's just another one of those booteek design choices that are 

Lexa (my wife) crocheted the battery holder.

[lincolnic]

Dude. You put Manny Calavera on a pedal.

I knew there was a good reason I liked you.

[thesameage]

So, Afterlife, Klon, Boneyard/fatpants?

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Whats with the sweater? Is that to keep the mojo nice and warm?   

[mattlee0037]

Wow your hand painting gets nicer and nicer!!

[midwayfair]

Whats with the sweater? Is that to keep the mojo nice and warm?   

Keeps the battery from flopping around.

thesameage: Two out of three. The 125B is an Uproar (discontinued project).

lincolnic: So glad someone recognized him. That game was so ridiculously good, but it flopped so hard it killed LucasArts and almost took the adventure genre down with it.

[lincolnic]

lincolnic: So glad someone recognized him. That game was so ridiculously good, but it flopped so hard it killed LucasArts and almost took the adventure genre down with it.

Such a classic! I'm about to make your day, I think: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/06/09/grim-fandango-resurrected-for-ps4-vita/

[chuckbuick]

Nice looking group of builds you have there.  I dig the battery sock.

[CK1]

These pedals are killer, and the pics don't even do them justice.  Jon, as most of us know, does excellent work, and he made my life easy in getting these done for me while I'm over my head with work right now.

The Afterlife replaces my 4 knob Keeley comp clone, which I never got along with, for some reason.  Liking it a lot better so far, but haven't taken it through its full paces yet.

The Uproar/Riot is my "I need a good pedal to keep in my gig bag in case I have to play without the rest of my gear" pedal, and that's why I had Jon put a battery clip in it (the sock was a surprise  ).  Actually liking that pedal more than I thought I would. 

The Boneyard is my favorite pedal design to date, and this is my second one.  The first was built "stock" based on the first version of Brian's schem, and is my main mid-to-high gain box for gigging.  I had a few tweak ideas for this one, and Jon was able to implement almost all of them.  The Fat Pants in here is genius, and beats the heck out of the standard boost in the Boneyard.  Running a stand-alone buffer on the front of my board got rid of the whine from the circuit, since the included buffer isn't killing it, for some unknown reason.  It's currently loaded with a TL047 op amp, which is a sub, but is very close to my older unit with the suggested LF347.  I actually ordered a few MC33079s to try, as I've read that they are another notch up in terms of clarity even than the 347.  The jury is still out on that, but I'll report back if it seems like a major improvement. 

Once things calm down a bit, I'll try to do some clips, too.  Cheers!

[wgc]

Awesome!