Weener Wah - Inductor placement/pinout?

[Ryan]

I completed a Weener Wah build and it looks beautiful. Seriously, one of the most attractive-looking PCB's I've ever worked with.

With a little pin-bending I was able to get the inductor out of my Crybaby (crappy I know but I figured just to start) to fit in the innermost pads.

By marking the inductor with a sharpie, I tried to line up the pads using the only reference point that exists on both boards, the "L1" designator. However, they didn't quite line up in a meaningful way. I know that only 2 of the pads are there for electrical contact and the other two are just for mounting, I guess.

So when I plugged everything in, the pedal acts like a slightly scratchy volume pedal. I thought maybe I wired up the sweep pot wrong, but according to the pinout of the Hot Potz here I'm correct.

Does anyone know how to correctly orient the inductor on the board? FYI mine is a stock Crybaby inductor, but you can see a bottom view here: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y150/shwanghourt/DSCF1226.jpg

I could have a bad inductor, or I could just have it hooked up wrong. Any ideas? Thanks!

FYI here's a pic of the build just before I put in the transistors (thus the empty sockets)

You can see the red sharpie mark on the top of the inductor, that's pointing directly at "L1" on this pcb

[timbo_93631]

You are right in thinking two of the pins are the connections to the coil, the other pins are only for mounting the inductor securely.  If you look closely you'll see the coil wires in the epoxy on the bottom on two pins that are diagonally across from one another.  In the photo you can see the right ones if you know what you are looking for.  For that inductor to work with the Weener pcb you will likely have to cut off the mounting pins and the use the hole that is between the 8 and 5 and the hole between the 1 and 4 as shown on the pcb.  The pcb is set up for the whipple, vintage TDK's and stack of dimes will work too, becasue their connections are on the same end of the inductor, not across from one another, like the GCB-95 inductor.

[Ryan]

Thanks!!! I'm seriously thinking of grabbing a Halo or maybe Whipple inductor . . . is there only one source for the whipple inductor?

[Haberdasher]

pretty sure you can only get the whipple from the guy who makes them.  a whipple actually ends up being less after shipping from the same guy if you buy it from him on ebay.  he also sells icar pots.

[timbo_93631]

Yeah, Whipples are only available from Michael Iannantuono, the guy who builds them.  They are truly hand wound one at a time by one guy.  I modded around fifteen Vox V847's to V846 specs plus true bypass when I was first getting started building pedals.  In those I used the Whipple inductor and Michael was great to deal with.  Whipples have a very clear and vocal quality that sounds great.  There are some other choices from Smallbear that will work too, and also sound good.  If anyone reading this gets a Sabbadius Soul inductor be very very careful not to bend the pins much, they break out of the base material much easier than they bend. 

[Ryan]

Thanks guys, this fixed it. My wah now wahs!