Drop-In Rat replacement PCB project

[culturejam]

I love Rats, especially the real ones with the nice steel enclosures. But the new-stock Chinese Rats are built kinda shitty and the parts selection is abysmal. I've done half a dozen total rebuilds in which I remove basically all the parts from the board and replace them with good stuff. So I figured why not make a PCB that just drops right in a standard modern Rat enclosure, and include some of the more popular/useful mods right on the board.

The boards arrived yesterday, and I got the first one populated and installed. I got a beat-to-hell Rat2, and  a previous owner went all Keely and drilled the shit out of it and added four toggle switches all over the place. But it was a total abortion when I got the pedal. I filled all glory holes with some 8-32 "decorative" (I use the term loosely) hardware and popped a brand new board in there. Now it's awesome.  :mrgreen:

The PCB uses 9mm vertical PCB-mount pots (available from Mammoth or Smallbear). The mods are toggled via a 3-gang DIP switch. The mods are pretty simple: three clipping diode options (LED, silicon, germanium) and the old Ruetz mod as an on/off. The LEDs are always in the circuit, but since the other diode options have a lower forward voltage drop, once they are in the circuit, the LEDs are effectively shorted. So basically you can get Rat, Turbo Rat, and You Dirty Rat tones, as well as the lower-gain of the Ruetz mod, all on one board with no drilling. The board also has strain relief holes for the wires at the top of the board, and it is setup to fit the LED perfectly to light up the center of the "RAT" logo (as per stock).

[jkokura]

That is a super rad rat build CJ. Would love one of those on my board.

Jacob

[nzCdog]

Great idea... but what a disgrace to the RAT that it needs doing!   
Taking it to the man CJ... Very cool pcb

[culturejam]

Great idea... but what a disgrace to the RAT that it needs doing!   

I really don't think the stock new Rats sound bad. I just wanted to do a board for it (I love the enclosure) with the mods I normally do included. 

Right now, I'm favoring the LM301 with a 47p compensation cap. It sounds really nice.

[spaceboss]

The board and layout look great, regardless of whether the board is a drop in.

[copachino]

Great idea... but what a disgrace to the RAT that it needs doing!   

I really don't think the stock new Rats sound bad. I just wanted to do a board for it (I love the enclosure) with the mods I normally do included. 

Right now, I'm favoring the LM301 with a 47p compensation cap. It sounds really nice.

do you have the build doc??

[rullywowr]

I f-ckin love this PCB.  It's not every day you see a drop in replacement board that is better in every way than the original by the manufacturer.

[jimilee]

I f-ckin love this PCB.  It's not every day you see a drop in replacement board that is better in every way than the original by the manufacturer.

Unless you know where CJ hides them! I love this pedal also.  I used a blue leD instead of the red....because.


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[rullywowr]

I used a blue leD instead of the red....because.


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That's awesome. One of my first mods to a pedal was converting my RAT to TB and I also used a blue LED.

[copachino]

I f-ckin love this PCB.  It's not every day you see a drop in replacement board that is better in every way than the original by the manufacturer.

Unless you know where CJ hides them! I love this pedal also.  I used a blue leD instead of the red....because.


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I have one unpopuladed but have no build doc

[jimilee]

I f-ckin love this PCB.  It's not every day you see a drop in replacement board that is better in every way than the original by the manufacturer.

Unless you know where CJ hides them! I love this pedal also.  I used a blue leD instead of the red....because.


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I have one unpopuladed but have no build doc

Is that a cry for help?


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[copachino]

yes

[jimilee]

yes

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5560115/Rat-Drop-In.pdf.zip

[copachino]

yes

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5560115/Rat-Drop-In.pdf.zip

amazig, thanks

[jimilee]

yes

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5560115/Rat-Drop-In.pdf.zip

amazig, thanks

You betcha


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