Pennyroyal Chorus... in ((((STEREO))))

[Leevibe]

This gif kind of sucks. To see a better version, in much higher resolution, click here. There are playback controls down in the lower right. You may have to scroll around your screen to find them.















Quite a while ago, Stomptown hooked me up with a v1 board of his excellent Pennyroyal along with a bunch of parts and values I didn't have on hand. I told him I was going to build it into a 1590B. He said, "Think twice about that. It's going to be a tight squeeze." I said, "How hard could it be? I build into the 1590LB. I can take it. And, I think I'm going to add a daughter board and make it stereo." Jon was right. It was a bigger challenge than I expected. In fact, if it weren't for the Kobiconn compact jacks he gave me, this wouldn't have been possible! The spacing between the board and stomp ends up being critical. Drilling had to be perfect. Thankfully, I decided to do an effect cancel rather than true bypass for this one (more on that later) so a compact DPDT was in order.

Converting one of these to have a stereo output is not hard at all. I found all the info I needed for the mod at Tonepad. There is an etchable layout for a daughter board that you can use to tap into any small clone circuit. I decided to come out with my own layout in the interest of getting it as compact as possible. It uses 1/8w resistors, or the compact 1/4w ones Chromesphere sells. I used Paul's just because I like them. If there is interest in my daughter board, I can make it available to MB members as an OSH Park share.







Because the effect has a stereo output, I decided not to attempt true bypass. Aside from the fact that I wouldn't have been able to get it to fit into the 1590B, I didn't feel it was the right move for this pedal. For starters, I would have had to use a 4PDT stomp, which don't have the most sterling reputation for reliability. Also, even with 4 poles, I would have been splitting the input passively to the two outputs in bypass. This would have been way more problematic than just keeping everything buffered and canceling the wet paths. The buffered signal isn't entirely transparent, but it's dang good. Either output can be used for a mono chorus, and when using both, I get a fantastic stereo sound. So far, I've only run it in stereo through a little stereo chip amp I built based on the Ruby circuit. I run that into my Egnater 2x12. I'm not getting any weird phase issues in mono or stereo. It just sounds great, and I highly recommend the mod.

As for the aesthetic, I kind of went literal with the name. I don't know why, it just seemed like it would be a fun thing to try. Since I've started messing with the resin, I've tried to think of creative new ways to incorporate it. I thought it would be cool to embed a real penny and illuminate it from underneath. It worked, but it's only visible in low light. Oh well. It's pretty easy to tell audibly when the effect is engaged.

It's kind of funny, but I dug through probably hundreds of pennies to find the one that I felt had the most character! You'd be surprised how much variation there is. I noticed that pennies from the '60s seemed to have a deeper, more dimensional impression. This one was just somehow special, so I used it.

There are actually two ribbons embedded in the resin. There's a wide blue one over a narrower gold one. I should have tested them with water before coating them. What happened was once the resin hit the blue, it just kind of disappeared against the black! It's there, and you can see it in bright light, but it's just way darker. Too bad, because it was such a cool look before the color shift. My 13-year-old daughter actually helped me pick out the colors. We looked at tons of ribbons before deciding on these.

There are multiple resin pours on this. The first pour didn't fully cover the ribbons. I was chasing drips on both pours and it shows. I didn't get that seamless edge that I was hoping for. Oh well. I also did two pours for the jewelry bezel that the penny sits in. The first pour was a shallow pour (after drilling for the LED). The point was to give the penny something clear to sit on so light could show from underneath. The second pour was to dome it. The LED is filed all the way down to just above the anode/cathode and it pretty much butts right up against the penny. I have it cranked bright. I'm probably flirting with disaster using a 390r. If it burns out, the only thing I'll be able to do is mount another one underneath it to shine through it.

There was one final resin pour to mount the LED and affix the bezel. I lined up the bezel, taped it in place, flipped the enclosure, and poured resin just around the base of the LED. I noticed that it would fill up the hole but then after a few minutes the level would be back down again. I did this three or four times and then just left it, fearing that resin was going to leak out all over and ruin the top. As it turned out, it did leak, but just to the edges of the bezel, so it was the perfect way to firmly affix the bezel to the top. Happy accident.

jmwreck gets credit for the knobs. I saw them on his SWAH V3 build and knew I had to have them. Here's a link to the seller. I was a bit disappointed when all of the knobs arrived scratched up because they were all thrown together in one bag. So, pour some resin on 'em! That's right. I did tiny resin pours on the tops of the knobs. It really diminished the scratches and makes them look neato.

I got the idea for the ground bus once I saw how nicely the in/out/power jacks lined up with the stomp switch. It was actually pretty easy to do, and I love the way it looks. Kobiconns ftw! To be honest, I'm not a big fan of having my signal jacks sticking way out of the enclosure. I would have spaced them in with some washers, but I couldn't do it in this instance without the lower output jack running into the stomp switch. It looks like there's tons of space there, but there really isn't!

If you look really close, you'll see one little electro is a bit out of place on the right side of the board. That's C10. I have its positive leg hanging off the board connected to a flying lead. That's where you tap into the circuit to cancel the effect.

My 17 year old son, Josh did the photography for me. It was really fun to work with him on it. Here's a pic of him shooting for the rotating gif. This was a series of 91 pictures. I used a cheap light tent, a $6.00 lazy susan, foam core and white paper. I made hash marks around the circumference of the turn table and used a toothpick as a reference pointer. Incidentally, juansolo gets credit for getting me interested in light tents. This one is a cheapie, but it collapses down, which is cool. I still need to get some decent lights.







Thanks for looking and thanks for reading.

[cooder]

Siiiiiiiick!!! So well done.... have to read the text again to comment more though, at the moment speechless...

[pickdropper]

That is a fantastic looking build.  The exterior aesthetics and internal wiring are beautiful to behold.

My only other comment is that if you are going to sell it, I wouldn't put the bus bar ground scheme in there.  It looks beautiful but mechanical parts move a bit with use and I would have reliability concerns.  If it's a personal build, no worries, just enjoy it.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

DUDE! You Envirotex'd the shit out of that thing! Did you do the PCB too?

Friggin' AWESOME!

Do you do commercial builds? I see a lot of guys on here with the whole photography setup. I only figured it was to photograph builds for sale or something.. Nevermind... I saw the link in your signature 

Totally awesome work!

[davent]

You've done it again Lee, out of this world, like nothing that's come before!
dave

[brejna]

I am 

[jimilee]

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[Stomptown]

Freaking ridiculous Lee!   That's really cool that your son helped out with the gif too.  I'm looking forward to trying this out myself and might end up developing a deluxe penneyroyal with the mod included.  First I need build a second amp though!

[Haberdasher]

slick slick slick

[playpunk]

Wow. Tight as tight could be


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[pryde]

holy shizzle 

[GrindCustoms]

Dude.... 

[billstein]

Well that does it! I quit!

[studiodunn]

So epic Lee, sooooooooo epic!!!!!!!!!!
The straight wire work is beautiful man.

[jubal81]

Unbelievable.