VFE Mega Pedal

[EBK]

Did you seriously successfully apply full sheet sized decals?   
I can just barely succeed at doing 1590B sized decals!
Amazing work!

[fair.child]

Did you seriously successfully apply full sheet sized decals?   
I can just barely succeed at doing 1590B sized decals!
Amazing work!

Yes, I did. I use this product from Sunnyscopa.

https://www.amazon.com/Sunnyscopa-Laser-Decal-Standard-sheets/dp/B076VFHV1F/ref=pd_bxgy_229_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B076VFHV1F&pd_rd_r=TBHCREBRZP7N13CCTXD6&pd_rd_w=bhMHM&pd_rd_wg=rxdwX&psc=1&refRID=TBHCREBRZP7N13CCTXD6

I cropped the image and trimmed the images precisely over three sheets of the decal. I tried this method three times. The reason I did three times because I was impatient to do waterslide without noticing the base paint was messed up by the painter's tape.

Redo it second times, didn't like the result and got the best result at the third. Wife was mad because I spent all night long just to paint, sand, etc.

While I am writing this, I am also in the process putting the main boards first then do the switching board. I'll post more pictures soon.

[peAk]

hahaha....so cool

subscribed!

[fair.child]

Major Updates:

1. I am close to complete the project!!





2. Here's how it looks like for the wiring. I used blu-tac to stack the control boards. One thing I need to tell you, it was a tedious work. Not fun at all. The populating main board was fun.



3. I added the TAP-TEMPO for Blueprint. Finally, I got everything hooked up for the tap tempo (Thanks to Aentons for the pictures).

Overall, I am extremely happy where I am at. Very close, folks, very close! The next step is wiring the Ground/VDD bus. After that, I'll move to the testing each of the board functionality which is finger-crossed.

[cooder]

Monster....! You'll need a pilot licence and great toe control for it...

[fair.child]

Alright,

So it's up and I have been testing each of them through the looper.



Here's the gutshot on the inside



The wiring is complete spaghetti.

My thoughts came to sweet and sour fruition. Here's the report.

1. I gotta debug White Horse, Bumblebee, Mini Mu, Rocket EQ, Triplet, and Blueprint.

If you guys have any idea in terms of debugging, please help me out.

White Horse: Whining and oscillating with the sustain knob turns up.
Bumblebee: Auto Swell doesn't work
Rocket EQ: The boost seems to be dead and no output when the boost is all the way up.
Mini Mu: No output and wah oscillating in the background.
Triplet: The Octave all the way causes whining and squealing noises like White Horse.
Blueprint: No delay, although the tap tempo works (verified switch tapping and LED blinking).

2. All the OD/Dist/Fuzz work (Pale Horse, Blues King, Merman, Scream, Alpha Dog, Focus, Fiery Red), Reverb/Delay work (Mobius Strip/Yodeler- nicely done), Modulation (Tractor Beam, Choral Reef, and Old School) work.

3. All the switching works nicely. I am thinking upgrading to 1776 Effects relay switch instead 3PDT.

Once I figured out the issues of those 6 pedals, then the VFE Mega Pedal is alive!

[playpunk]

This is pure madness.

[cooder]

Awesome and epic madness pure.
I love the 1776 relay switching good call there.
Best of luck finding the last bugs!

[fair.child]

Thanks all for you guys support. I've found the culprit for the White Horse. It was the BS170 on the clipping section. I pulled that off and changed to socket. Replaced them with 1N914 like Timmy. Voila! It works nicely.





Going move up to Bumblebee soon.

[fair.child]

Okay folks, quick update!

Triplet works now. The culprit was the Ge Diodes I got from evilBay. I swapped with 1N270 and 1N34A and everything works nicely.

Rocket EQ works as well. It's a very nice Parametric EQ Pedal. I can get a wah-type of picking (think like chicken picking style/Richie Kotzen/Guthrie Govan) style with this pedal. The culprit was the dual-gang filter pot. The lugs need to be soldered properly both at the top and the bottom. Re-flowed the solder joints and voila! works nicely.

Still having the problem:

Bumblebee- I can't figure why the reason I never got the swell works. Also, I created another issue. The Volume doesn't work. I might need the closer look at the schematic level and try to debug it from there. What bothers me a lot the trigger for the swell doesn't work. This bothers me a lot. Reflowed, cleaned with alcohol, and Dexoit, it still doesn't work. I suspected I wired the Optocoupler wrong but it didn't. I will debug from the voltage reading and scope next. There are some transistors need to be voltage checked as well. I swapped the 2N5457 with the 2N5952 and flipped it. The Vgs for 2N5952 I am using is 1.47V which it's still within recommended ambitious range from Peter.

The mini-mu - a similar case with Bumblebee. I haven't spent much more time on this instead I really want to focus on Bumblebee. 

Worst case, I just created OSHPark batch for these two pedals. I planned to rebuild it again and do some tuning with the JFET.

I haven't touched the Blueprint yet but for what I am happy the Tap Tempo from UK Elec works controlling the Time Potentiometer of the Blueprint. The issue with the Blueprint is I got the signal but no delay. I had tried to swap the PT2399 and still no luck. My next guess probably is going to be go check the voltages.

[fair.child]

Couple pictures of debugging! I finally got the Mini-Mu working. The problem was the chain after White Horse. The White horse itself has its own independent gain and when I turned everything up they become noisy and whining everywhere.

I decided to rewire the I/O for the Mini-Mu. I put it in Send/Return with Delay/Reverb. This solves the problem and helps to get better sounding.

The only things left are Bumblebee and Blueprint. Very close!

[gordo]

I had the same issue with the Blueprint and it ended up being the back of a pot touching a trace, given all the sockets (and long leads) underneath.  I generally don't use plastic caps on the back of my pots but it would have saved me here.

BP is nothing crazy special given all the choices we have around here but definitely a nice pedal.

I have no idea how you have the patience to put this beast together but again, very nicely done.

[fair.child]

I had the same issue with the Blueprint and it ended up being the back of a pot touching a trace, given all the sockets (and long leads) underneath.  I generally don't use plastic caps on the back of my pots but it would have saved me here.

BP is nothing crazy special given all the choices we have around here but definitely a nice pedal.

I have no idea how you have the patience to put this beast together but again, very nicely done.

Okay, it is working now WITHOUT the tap tempo. I reverted back to the non-tap tempo version. I am debugging to board level now to verify the signal chain flows correctly. It seems the JUMP for connecting the TAP and 1K needs to be jumpered. I am verifying this now.

[fair.child]

Alright, Tap Tempo works. However, it needs a real modification on the Time Pot. I can't use the JUMP and TAP silk-screen.

Here's what I've done for the tap tempo.

1) Build the Blueprint based on MBP direction (JUMP silk screen pads need to be jumpered). Leave the TAP tempo alone.

2) The tap tempo from UK Electronics works by manipulating the Pin 3 and Pin 2 of the Time pot. Also, the connection of Pin 6 of PT2399 can be jumpered from the JUMP pad near with the 0.1uF MLCC PWR cap

3) The 5V and GND can be connected on the 10K rails (on the top of the 22p). The second pin of the rails from the left is the GND and the third pin is the 5V. The tap tempo power goes here.









ONE LAST THING, Bumblebee Swell.....Oh God!!!!

[bsoncini]

Thodse gut shots are insane.

When everything works you need to make a video with all pedals turned on to see what happens. Probably just a lot of noise.