Saguaro Wah

[blackhatboojum]

I've already talked at great length about the mighty saguaro cactus before so, I'll spare everyone that long winded story.  What I will talk about, is how this particular build came to be.  The truth is... I'm out of steam when it comes to this hobby.  I've built over 50 pedals and successfully built some of the most complicated circuits available in the diy effects community.  Having nothing left that I wanted to build or add to my collection, the only thing I could think of to push myself further was design and have a pcb made.  That's exactly what I've done with this build.  Not knowing a damn thing about this sort of thing, I decided to start small and chose a simple circuit that I would actually use to teach myself pcb design software.  A wah circuit is simple enough and because our fearless leader makes his EAGLE library available for download, that was the direction I went.  I gotta say, I'm pretty proud of myself for pulling off a working pcb having never messed with anything like this before.  I say that but also, all credit really goes to Brian.   I used his component library and essentially his Weener Wah layout in my pcb design.  Yes, there are some differences but, it's pretty obvious where I drew inspiration from.  I even messaged him about this project idea because I didn't feel right having the pcbs made without Brian's blessing.  Having received the go ahead, I had a handful of pcbs made and I'm quite pleased with the results.  It's nothing special or groundbreaking but, hot damn... I did a thing.  As far as what the saguaro wah actually is... well, it's just a hybrid of vox and Dunlop branded wah circuits.  It has certain values of resistor and capacitors in certain places, that sound best to me for my amp and pedal board setup. 

[jessenator]

That is some splendid work, Clinton. Neat and clean layout and slick wiring. Nicely done!

It is super awesome that Bean shares the component libraries. Makes this kind of stuff a lot more friendly to work with.

[jimilee]

Oh man, I love it, and it's so compact.

[blearyeyes]

Clean build. You took the leap and it worked!

[Bret608]

Yeah, I love this! Congrats! I still haven't taken the plunge on layouts other than vero.

I did manage to grab a used wah on Reverb and have started modding it to learn what's what until the Weener Wah is back in stock. It's a 1990 revision E without the input buffer. It's already got the 390r Q1 emitter resistor and the 33k in parallel with the inductor. I upped that to 47k to see if it would bring out a bit more vocal quality. It does sound good! I'd be curious what values you like where.

[Bio77]

That's super awesome!  Congrats.   

I've been itching to do a layout again.  I might recommend trying KiCad or another free software on your next one.  EAGLE is EOL and it will be a more of a bummer to switch the more skill you get with EAGLE.   

[blackhatboojum]

That is some splendid work, Clinton. Neat and clean layout and slick wiring. Nicely done!

It is super awesome that Bean shares the component libraries. Makes this kind of stuff a lot more friendly to work with.

Thanks.  Without the work Brian already put in, I probably wouldn't have been able to pull this off.

Oh man, I love it, and it's so compact.

Many thanks!

Clean build. You took the leap and it worked!

Thanks!  Honestly, I'm a little surprised it worked lol.

Yeah, I love this! Congrats! I still haven't taken the plunge on layouts other than vero.

I did manage to grab a used wah on Reverb and have started modding it to learn what's what until the Weener Wah is back in stock. It's a 1990 revision E without the input buffer. It's already got the 390r Q1 emitter resistor and the 33k in parallel with the inductor. I upped that to 47k to see if it would bring out a bit more vocal quality. It does sound good! I'd be curious what values you like where.

Thanks.  I attached my schematic so you can take a look at the values of everything.

That's super awesome!  Congrats.   

I've been itching to do a layout again.  I might recommend trying KiCad or another free software on your next one.  EAGLE is EOL and it will be a more of a bummer to switch the more skill you get with EAGLE.   

Thanks John!  I'm actually playing around with Diptrace as well. 

[Bret608]

Thanks for sharing your schematic! That gives me some ideas for what to try next.

[Mich P]

Clean.

[Thewintersoldier]

great Job Clinton!