Lovetone Flange With No Name (Dead End FX ?E.Nigma?)

[Invertiguy]

It seems like a bunch of other people are finishing up their old projects lately, so I figured I'd add mine to the pile. I've been working on this monster for well over 2 years now, and after much procrastination I finally got it calibrated and working today! This is a clone of a Lovetone ? Flanger, more commonly known as the Flange With No Name. I have a soft spot for weird and wacky pedals, and especially for flangers, so when Dead End FX released their ?E.Nigma? board I grabbed one right away. It took me a few months to get all the parts together, but once I did I got the boards populated fairly quickly and without any issues. The parts count is relatively high, but honestly it's not much higher than any other analog time-based effect and the large size of the board means that everything is nicely spaced out, making for a much more relaxed experience than, say, the Aion L5 or Blueshift. I did find that the center footswitch sat high enough in the enclosure that it would hit the bottom of the delay board with the spacers recommended in the build docs, so I ended up having to use longer spacers and screws and forgo the use of pin headers in favor of wires. This was only a minor inconvenience, however, as the 1590D enclosure was plenty deep enough to accommodate the added height. Even the 7 stereo jacks weren't really an issue once I figured out the right drill spacing for them, the pads for each jack are pretty much right below the jacks themselves so as long as you leave yourself a decent length of wire they're pretty easy to just flip up to the terminals and trim to fit. I ended up color-coding the wires for each group according to the jack terminal the wire was going to, which made wiring them up fairly straightforward. My only real complaint is that one or two of the jack holes wound up being slightly higher than the others, which didn't cause any problems with fitment but is a bit annoying to look at. I really need to invest in a drill press one of these days.

The real reason this build took so long was getting the enclosure finished. I hate painting enclosures, but no one sells powdercoated 1590Ds and I didn't really want to leave it bare so I didn't have much of a choice (looking back, alcohol inks may have been a better option but I didn't start to look into those until recently). Besides, I knew that I wanted the enclosure to be a sparkly metallic purple since I got the boards, and it turned out that Krylon has just such a paint so I grabbed a can and went at it after priming with Rustoleum self-etch primer and sanding with 400 grit. The color was perfect, but the paint itself turned out to be a pain to work with: it's very thin (probably to accommodate the glitter), so getting good coverage without runs was almost impossible. I ended up having to do probably a dozen very thin coats, and even then I usually had to let it dry and sand out minor imperfections and runs in between coats. Between all the sanding and waiting for days with the right combination of temperature, humidity, and low wind to paint this process took several months but I finally got a result I was happy with, so I sanded it a final time, sprayed it with clear coat, and then sanded, buffed, and polished it to a mirror shine.

Then a problem reared it's ugly head: after a few weeks, the clear coat started to develop several large dull spots. Thinking it was some sort of surface contamination (or perhaps not thinking at all), I grabbed a shop towel and wiped it with isopropyl alcohol. This, of course, had the effect of immediately ruining the clear coat. After berating myself for my lapse in judgement, I then had to sand it all back to the paint, which of course ended up going through to the primer in a couple spots on the edges and necessitated me spraying it with yet more coats of paint! By this point I was utterly sick of dealing with it, so it ended up sitting on a shelf for over a year before I felt like messing with it again.

This brings me to my final point of contention: graphics. My usual method of using waterslide decals wouldn't work on a dark background, so I was forced to think of other techniques. I toyed with the idea of using vinyl decals or screen printing, but both of those required the acquisition of other equipment that I really don't have the space for at the moment. A faceplate was another option, but after spending so much time and effort on the paint I'll be damned if I was gonna hide it. I wrung my hands over this for quite some time before finally deciding a few weeks ago that it was gonna sit on my shelf forever if I didn't do something, so I chose the simplest method possible: I grabbed a lime-green paint marker and went at it! I think it turned out alright, despite my lack of artistic ability. The knob labels aren't exactly straight across, but the imperfections do have a certain charm to them. Anyway, once I did that I poured on a top coat of epoxy resin, assembled, wired, and calibrated the whole thing, and here we are!

So was all of this worth it? I think it was. This flanger isn't like any other flanger out there. The sweep isn't particularly dramatic or wide, as is typical of flangers utilizing the 3102/3207 combo, but that's not why people want this flanger. If you're looking for the stereotypical jet-in-a-tunnel sound, build an A/DA or a 117. No, the real attraction here is what else this thing can do. From wild ring mod-esque noises to lush pseudo-vibe tones to tuneable self oscillations that I can only describe as 'a theremin on a healthy dose of mushrooms', this thing is packed full of crazy psychedelic space sounds that I've only begun to scratch the surface of! If that sounds like something you're into, I'd recommend giving it a shot!




Shot of the back panel with all the jacks. I'll figure out how to use all of them someday...


Obligatory gutshot. Even with all the jacks, the enclosure is actually a lot roomier than it seems!

[harryklippton]

The paint job looks cool. Nice job! I'm enjoying all these old projects everyone is pulling out

[gordo]

Wow, that paint looks incredible.  Anything purple is a winner in my books but the metalflake REALLY pops.  I agree, this flanger is unlike anything else out there.  Good for you for sticking with it.

[jimilee]

Wow that's fantastic looking. I got one I've been working on for about 2 months now. You're right, lot of parts.


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[Bret608]

I love the green on purple--Dinosaur Jr. colors! The purple sparkle looks so good I'd want to try it right away if not for your cautionary tale. Glad to hear it sounds great too!

[Invertiguy]

Wow, that paint looks incredible.  Anything purple is a winner in my books but the metalflake REALLY pops.  I agree, this flanger is unlike anything else out there.  Good for you for sticking with it.

Yeah, the paint may have been a bit of a pain to work with but that doesn't mean it doesn't look great! My camera/photography skills didn't do a great job of capturing it, but in person it almost looks 3D (probably due to all the thin coats layered on top of each other). Not too bad for something that came out of a single spray can!

I love the green on purple--Dinosaur Jr. colors! The purple sparkle looks so good I'd want to try it right away if not for your cautionary tale. Glad to hear it sounds great too!

I wouldn't use this a reason not to try it, it's still just spray paint after all and the usual rules apply. Maybe just do a few test coats on something you don't care about too much (like a backplate) to get an idea of how it flows before you fully commit. It may be trickier to work with than most solid-color enamels but as long as you stick to light coats it isn't too awful. You'll just have to do a lot of them.

[harryklippton]

I'm interested in building one of these. At a glance, it looks like the bbds are sort of hard to come by. Anybody got input on this?

[alanp]

Really nice build.

As  for the BBDs, it uses the 3207. The Bei Ling clones that Smallbear sell sound relatively good, to my ears (BL3207). IIRC, SB also sell the clock chip.

You can get some really good sounds out of this circuit!

[jjjimi84]

Very nice, those deadendfx projects are no joke but always produce some incredible results.

[Bio77]

That turned out great! 

I have alanp's version populated and waiting to box.  I started it in 2019, so, I think 2-years is about right to finish one of these 

[LaceSensor]

Nice build

Whats the extra toggle switch for on the side?

[Invertiguy]

Nice build

Whats the extra toggle switch for on the side?

The switch lifts the ring terminal of the Time Out jack to eliminate an issue with the original units where they would sometimes buzz when used in stereo. The solution in the original owner's manual involved using a stereo plug with the ring disconnected; this does the same thing, just internally. I doubt I'll use it in a stereo setup anytime soon, but it's nice to not have to worry about it!