04.27 - General update

[madbean]

I'll be somewhat "checked out" for the next several days. We have a bit of a family crisis here: my mother in law is gravely ill and my wife is in Texas helping with her family. I'm still at home but taking care of the household, kid, dogs, etc. is putting some extra demands on my time, so if I seem absent for a while not to worry.

All the pre-orders have shipped finally, as well as all other orders up to, err, today, I think. The last bit of documentation for the new projects has been uploaded, too.

Some additional notes on these projects:

Those of you who have already received your pre-order will notice that the Road Rage was updated a bit. I took the opportunity to correct the mis-labeled 18v/15v pads from the last batch. Since there was a bit of extra room on the board, I also added pads to hook up a "sag" control off the -9v portion of the supply for those using it to power PNP fuzzes. The documentation has been fully updated to reflect the changes. If you have the last version but did not download the doc for it, there is a link on pg.1 of the revised doc to download the previous one.

Reminder: the new Fatpants has the IN and OUT labels reversed on the silkscreen of the PCB. This is reflected in the documentation and mentioned in the "Errata" section of the forum, too. Please remember to hook those wires up correctly.

Collosalus: I made a small error in the BOM I drew up a couple of weeks ago. C22 was indicated to be between 22pF and 47pF for setting the clock frequency. In fact, this should have said between 62pF and 47pF. I was temporarily confused (thinking about the Current Lover). 62pF is what was used in the original 117, but my suggestion of 47pF still applies. It worked just as well and is a more common value. Remember you can place caps in parallel to make their values additive if you want to experiment.

Lastly, I ran into a bit of a surprise a couple of days ago with the Collosalus. I went to start a demo of it and found that some crackling noise had suddenly appeared in extreme part of the sweep of the flanger. This was not at all present when I originally built/biased the prototype or when I boxed up the thing a few weeks ago. After some thinking I realized the source was the power supply. My testing/prototyping was done using a 12v regulated supply and my results were very quiet and completely satisfying. When I hooked it up to the PP2 this noise popped in. I also tried a 1-Spot and had the same result.

This has got me a bit stumped and I am still working on it to try and understand why it is happening. My 12v supply is rock solid and delivers 200mA or abouts. The PP2 is very well regulated 9v and gives about 100mA. The 1-Spot is probably not as well regulated but can deliver something ridiculous like 1500mA, I think. Yet, the Collosalus was most quiet with the 12v. So far I've tried replacing the regulator and the ICs but I have not eliminated the noise with the two 9v supplies. I'm not convinced yet that it is not something in this particular build, but I'm going to keep working on it and try and figure out a solution that works for my PP2. Anyway, I mention this to some degree in the documentation but I'm holding back a bit until I know a bit more. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions that would be very helpful. This is likely a temporary frustration to be sorted out. The flanger does, in fact, sound amazing when it is properly tamed.

I did do this demo (using the 12v supply) which goes through the settings to give everyone an idea on how cool it sounds, but my "playing" is also un-musical in almost every way possible.

[oldhousescott]

Hey Brian, you might try changing D4 and D5 to Schottky 1N5817, or change your regulator to a 7812. I'm not sure how well a 7815 will maintain regulation with only a 1.8 volt greater input voltage. Dropout voltage is usually about 2 volts.

[BRGPollen]

Brian,
          Best wishes to you & your family. In our circle, it does not go unnoticed that it is our support network that allows us to do the things that we do! Thoughts & prayers for you & yours. The projects here are amazing & the community you have built here is second to none. Thank you for your hard work & diligence to this journey.  It seems like y'all have run into a little stream of bad luck. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help support you & your family!

Cheers, B

[gtr2]

Sorry to hear that 

Best wishes and prayers out to your family.

Josh

[madbean]

Hey Brian, you might try changing D4 and D5 to Schottky 1N5817, or change your regulator to a 7812. I'm not sure how well a 7815 will maintain regulation with only a 1.8 volt greater input voltage. Dropout voltage is usually about 2 volts.

Excellent point. I thought about the schottkys but not the 12v. I will try those out and report back ASAP.

[redbean]

peace to you and your family

[plesur]

Sorry to hear about your problems Brian. Best wishes to you and your family.

They say bad luck comes in threes, so hopefully you've had your three and can look forward to some clear sailing from here on.

[Scruffie]

If you use a switching power supply, you now have 3 high frequencies that can heterodyne, the clock, the LT1054 clock and the power supply. So it could be that.

Or it could be the voltage thing putting strain on the LT1054/Reg.

[DutchMF]

Brian,
          Best wishes to you & your family. In our circle, it does not go unnoticed that it is our support network that allows us to do the things that we do! Thoughts & prayers for you & yours. The projects here are amazing & the community you have built here is second to none. Thank you for your hard work & diligence to this journey.  It seems like y'all have run into a little stream of bad luck. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help support you & your family!

Cheers, B

This is spot on. Take your time, family is important! We will all still be here when you get back, so no worries! Good luck!

Paul

[pickdropper]

Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law, Brian.  My thoughts go out to you and your family.

- Dave

[Ang3lus]

hope everything works out Brian.

[bigmufffuzzwizz]

I wish you much luck with your family.

I'm amazed at how good that flanger sounds! Its really really cool! Especially the last riff and the setting its at.

[pk1802]

So sorry to hear about your family, hope everything goes well.

I was looking over the Collosalus BOM and I noticed that there was no R34, and the older BOM is missing this as well. Was this intentional?

Thanks so much for everything you do Brian.

[r4ndy]

My thoughts are with you and your family. Take care.

[jstbrowsin]

Best wishes to you and your family Brian.