Sin Screamer - 1590A Screamin' Baby

[Stomptown]

Hey madbeaners, here is a new one I put together from the Screamin' Baby PCB. It's a stock Tube Screamer designed for a 1590A, based off of the open source schematic Brian posted in the extra projects forum. Thanks again Brian! It sounds great; much better than my tonepad screamer which barely gets above unity volume. I had to get a little creative to fit it in the 1590A with PCB mounted pots on this one. In order to use the right angle 9mm alphas I had to cut off the metal mouting pins on the bottom side of the pots and I elected to place the electrolitic caps on the bottom side of the PCB so there was ample room for the 9VDC jack at the top of the ecnlosure. I also ran out of 1uF MLCC's so I soldered the larger box caps to the bottom side of the board as well. All and all a great solution when your components are larger than the space provided (as long as the pots aren't in the way!). I threw up a pic of the bottom side of the PCB so you can see what I'm talking about. The artwork is from Frank Miller's Sin City. It's Marv! I have used this one in the past on TS-808's I've made but this is the first one I've etched, which means I'm keeping this one for myself (I hate waterslide decals!).  

[croquet hoop]

Super nice. I love that you soldered the big box caps on the other side of the board — when I designed my own 808 PCB, I was close to resorting to that option, but I finally found enough space on the board for big caps. But it's nice to see that it works!

The etching is top notch too. And I love the LED placement.

[alanp]

Cunning part placement there

[ch1naski]

Awesomeness.
I would have just thrown my hands in the air and put it in a 1590b,

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[jimilee]

Man, that's fantastic! Nice thinking outside the box

[Stomptown]

Thanks guys!

Awesomeness.
I would have just thrown my hands in the air and put it in a 1590b,

Yeah, I'm working on a 1590B design now. I'm not sure why I've been so fixated on 1590A's; I guess I like the challenge!

I actually just replaced the tonepad PCB in my 1590B tube screamer with one of these boards and it sounds a million times better. I'm not sure what I did wrong when I build that tonepad board but something was off. Anyway, I soldered leads onto the tone pot and mounted it to the PCB and then wired the gain and volume off board. It worked great!

Here are some pics:

[billstein]

Really like the weathered look on the box. Great stuff.

[hammerheadmusicman]

Great builds! I've just done an eagle layout for a 1590A TS808, a few months ago have done quite a few 1590A layouts in eagle for my baby board.

These builds look so good!

I built two tone pad TS's and I never thought they sounded right either..


George

[pickdropper]

I really like your board layouts, Jon.  Mounting the caps on the bottom of the board was a clever solution and showed good planning with the pot locations.

[midwayfair]

Nice mini build, other Jon

[Stomptown]

I really like your board layouts, Jon.  Mounting the caps on the bottom of the board was a clever solution and showed good planning with the pot locations.

Thanks Dave! There was a little planning and a little luck as well. I really designed this one for 1uF MLCC's but I was too impatient to wait for my order to arrive! As far as the electros go I just remembered my mkii build and how tight it was to squeeze my 9VDC jack in there with the electros in the same place and the light bulb came on!

I built two tone pad TS's and I never thought they sounded right either..

It's funny how little info I was able to find on the web as far as solutions go. I think it is just a problem inherent to the Tone Pad layout because there are definitely other people who have had the same issues but no workaround that I'm aware of. I did try a few things (i.e. swapping transistors, changing caps/resistors), but nothing made a significant difference.