My Octavia Project

[beneharris]

Alright, so I liked the retrograde so much I thought I'd use that as the project to learn Eagle, and try to make it my own in the process. I made a few tweaks to the circuit, though nothing major, and I haven't settled on which values I'm going to actually end with. I gave it a couple of switches to swap between different diodes in the octave section, and different transistors. I found some GE NPNs that I'm going to try in it. I haven't seen any of these with GEs, but who knows, maybe there's a reason for that. I'm missing 2 switches that haven't arrived yet, but should tonight, so I'll be able to test it with the GEs in it.  Dminner made the enclosure, and it is super awesome. With the space theme I thought it would be cool to put some glow in the dark paper underneath the envirotex, so we'll see how well that works. It lit up real nice with my UV LEDs on the breadboard. I also made a little "planet" to hide the LEDs.



Here it is with envirotex and all the holes for LEDs. I plan to put 4 LEDs on the left to act as stars, and then when the octave is engaged, I have a sound2light board (I'm sorry I can't remember which of you made it. chromesphere maybe?) to run the UV leds to make the glow in the dark paper hopefully sparkle. We'll see.



The board is bigger than it needs to be, but its my first one, and I'm still learning how to lay these out.



I've since populated the rest of it, but its got all kinds of wires going every which way and it looked ugly, so here it is in the flesh.



Its been quite the time consuming project with making the PCB and all, but its been fun, and boy oh boy did I learn a lot. I'll update with finished pics as soon as I'm done with it.

[stringsthings]

Looking good.  Learning Eagle and designing your own board is not a trivial task.  I'm still very comfortable using PCB's designed by others.
If you wind up with extra boards, let us know.

[beneharris]

Oh I've got extras, but I don't know that I could in good conscience let somebody put it together haha. Not laid out the best, and I know for sure it needs 1 jumper. If you just can't live without one, I'll send you one, but I can't make somebody pay for it, lol. It will fit in a 1590B, but it will be tight.

[m-Kresol]

that looks very nice for your first layout! well done.

I recommend using 45° bends instead of 90°. I heard/read that those are preferred in electronics, I forgot why exactly however. You also have more than enough space, so you could widen up some traces if you like (I do that with supply voltage traces). personally, I'd go for board mounted pots and switches but that will put some constraints on your layout, so for the start this is probably the way to go.

I don't quite catch how your UV-Led/phosophorescent paper will work. Is the paper transparent and between etched enclosure and envirotex? Where do the leds go? sorry if it's obvious. The idea/plan however sounds awesome and will complement the enclosure nicely.

[matmosphere]

I agree, the layout looks good to me. Looks like it'd probably be a pretty quick build. If you can fit it in a 1590b then I'd say don't worry about it, it's not like you'll squeeze one into a 1590a.

One jumper is no big deal at all, I build a lot on vero so jumpers are plentiful.

[beneharris]

Well, I don't know for sure that it is going to work. I basically lined the bottom of that ball I painted with tin foil so it reflected really well, and the paper just lit up enough so that when the light turns on and off it sparkles. It is between the enclosure and envirotex. So, I may have screwed the pooch putting that on top of it. The paper should be hidden underneath the planet enough so that if it doesn't work, it'll only be noticeable in pictures. I forgot to post a picture, thats why you can't see the LEDs. Doh. They'll go in the top right. The center hole I tapped to screw the planet in. Should hide the LEDs real nice.

[beneharris]

Awesome, thanks for the tips, guys. Makes me feel a lot more confident about it. Once I've got it all working I'll report back about whether there are any real issues with the board.

Here is the board I'm using for the LEDs.
http://www.diyguitarpedals.com.au/shop/boms/Sound2Light.pdf

[m-Kresol]

I thought there might be a pic missing. Now it makes sense and the plan IS really cool. Eager to see it in action.

[beneharris]

Yeah, worst comes to worst I have a couple pieces of paper that don't do anything under the finish, haha.

[wgc]

awesome project

layout looks pretty good to me, especially for a first try. 

though I think that you could get it in a 1590a.  )

[Cortexturizer]

Insane, I love everything about it!

I am a sucker for octave fuzzes so any project gets my vote automatically. And the Octavia is a great one!!

[beneharris]

Thanks wgc and cortexturizer, I appreciate the encouragement.

So I got it fired up last night, no real issues. I think I have a bad transistor out of the 2 2N3565s I have. It sputters real bad. I substituted some 4401s and a few others NPNs I had and the problem went away. I even thought maybe the transistors being so close together might be causing an issue of some sort, so I removed the GEs, and even swapped the 3565s to the GE slots. So I'll order more of those. Any thoughts on something I might be missing?

It sounds surprisingly good with the GEs in it. I'm definitely leaving those in. The octave is super pronounced with them in.

[monkeyssj1]

it looks fantastic!!!

[Coda-effects]

Really nice!
Cant wait to see it finished!

[wgc]

I can't remember what transistors I used on mine (in smd), but I think it was something pretty common. Might be just a bad part or a tolerance stack with other components.

edit: looked up my bom, I used 2N4401 and 2N5087.  Might do a version with GE sometime, you piqued my interest.