I need a lot of help basically - Zombii and Slambox in one enclosure

[youngstownguitar]

Hello
I am planning on putting a zombie and slambox into one enclosure, the zombii coming first.  I dont have a lot of experience with building but I do enjoy it very much.  So far I have only one build under my belt and it is a GGG fuzzface.  This being my first build that is not from a kit I have some questions that I hope someone would help me with please.  I am a nerd so I am going to number the questions.  I have tried researching all of this stuff beforehand- a lot of it is just things I am not 100% sure of- and I'd hate to have it ruin my build.

1.  I was planning on buying some #22 gauge wire- this is acceptable right?  If i buy this wire what size shrink tube should I get?

2.  What do you guys put on the side of the PCB with all the solder on it?  I have seen some people just put electrical tape but is that ok?  What is best?

3.  Here is my parts list so far (from smallbear), does it look right?
    I found the LED but not a holder for the LED- anyone know where that is or does it come with it?
    The slambox uses a reverse audio pot right?

   0301A    Box - Taiwanese 'BB' Size White Powder Coat  ('BB' White)    $9.95   $9.95

   0508C    Wire, #22 Pre-Bond, 50 Ft. Sampler  $6.75   $6.75

   2302    LED T-1 3/4 5mm Water-clear High-brightness (White)    $0.50   $1.00

   0611    Jack, DC Power, 2.1 mm All-Plastic, Round (All-plastic Round)    $1.25   $1.25

   0600    Jack, 1/4 in. Mono Switchcraft #11  (#11)    $1.85   $1.85

   0602    Jack, 1/4 in. Stereo Switchcraft #12B (#12B)    $1.89   $1.89

   0200    Switch - Taiwan Blue 3PDT (Blue 3PDT)    $8.50   $8.50

   1001    Alpha Single-Gang 24mm, Linear & Audio Taper, Solder Terms (5K Linear)    $1.25   $2.50

   1001    Alpha Single-Gang 24mm, Linear & Audio Taper, Solder Terms  (10K Linear)    $1.25   $3.75

   1007    Alpha 16mm Single-Gang, Reverse Audio & "W", Solder Terms  (5K)

4.  Absent from my parts list are my resistors and capacitors.  How do you know what type of capacitor to use?  It seems to me that some of them can be the same values but different types- am I wrong?  I need clarification please.

5.  To put both effects in order in one enclosure I used this wiring diagram:
     http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/two_in_one_wiring.pdf
    But it does not fit perfectly with everything so I drew my own diagram out (I apologize but I could not figure it out on my computer so I just hand drew it with some markers and scanned it).
   Do you think it would work like this?

If the pic is hard to see there it can also be found here:
http://s640.photobucket.com/albums/uu130/surgerymixer/?action=view&current=goatlegdrawing.jpg


Thanks in advance for any info anyone could spare.  I tried to be clear with my questions.

[Boom]

Hi,

#22 gauge is fine. I like #24 better because it´s a little bit smaller in diameter, but either one will do.

As far as insulating your board, I think everybody kind of has his own way. Some tape it like you mentioned, some put foam underneath. I normally stick those little felt things that you use on furniture on the back of the pots, and then hot glue the board on there. (Making sure everything works before I glue it down !)

To distinguish between cap sorts, just look at the layout. Circular with a + and - means Electrolytic, The square / rectangluar ones are film caps, and the elliptical ones are ceramic.

You´re right in saying there is some overlap. For some ceramic values you could use a film cap or v.v.
The same is true for Electrolytic and Film. Low value Electrolytic can sometimes be replaced with Film caps. But ONLY when polarity isn´t an issue. Make sure you know if that´s the case or not before trying.

Your diagram looks good to me.

Have fun !

[eniacmike]

don't get 24mm pots. those are the big huge ones that go in amps generally. 16mm will be much better.

you might have a hard time fitting 6 pots in a 1590bb too depending on your layout. I would definitely do a mockup and try to make sure it can all fit in there how you want it along with the two footswitches, jacks, pcbs and battery.

if you use the board mounted 9mm pots on the zombii you will save some room.

for example look at this two footswitch 3 pot pedal.

pretty cramped once you get everything in there.

here is a zombii with 19mm pots

here is another zombii (the old layout) with board mounted 9mm pots. This might be the way to go to fit your zombii and slambox into one enclosure.
http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=693 <-9mm board mounted pots


you might want to look into bigger enclosures like a 1790ns or a hammond 1590DD.


I generally use this to insulate the solder side of my boards.

For the led "holder" search for bezel on smallbear. You can also pick up a bag of 5 plastic bezels or even the nicer chrome bezels at radio shack.

[youngstownguitar]

wow
thanks for all the info so far guys

I am at work now but later tonight I will sit down and make a complete parts list and post it here along with any other questions I can think of.

Thanks again.

[youngstownguitar]

The Slambox v.3 calls for a "9V Zener" for D2.

On smallbear I can only find "9.1V 1 watt"

http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok
its the 5th one down

Is this the right one?

[lincolnic]

Yep, that's the one.

[youngstownguitar]

OK 2 more questions...

I see for the Zombii v4 trannies madbean says "• Stock unit originally used AC128s. Any PNP GE transistors with appropriate gain ranges will suffice. Suggested Hfe for Q2 is
around 70 and for Q3 around 110. "

What would be a good way of finding appropriate transistors for this?
Here is smallbears transistor list:
http://www.smallbearelec.com/Categories.bok?category=Germanium+Transistors
Would the second or third set down work?

And finally, I am confused about the resistors that are needed with LEDs.  I found some calculators for it but I dont even know enough to figure out how to work the calculator.
This is the LED I was planning on using:
http://www.smallbearelec.com/Detail.bok?no=333

What resistor should I use and would it be the same for the zombii and the slambox?

I think that may be the last of my questions- yea right...

[ckyvick]

The fuzz face sino pair smallbear has worked fine for my builds. Actually the first five pairs will work(They are all fuzz face pnp sets) differences will be very subtle if any in this circuit.
Most people use 4.7k resistors for their leds, if you go down to 1k the led will be brighter and draw more current(But if its dark you might not be able to see the knobs because the light is so blinding which can be a bad thing) and if you go up to 10k the led will be dimmer and draw less current(longer battery life.)

[youngstownguitar]

great- thanks a lot
everything I found was so much more complicated than that

[madbean]

Wiring diagram looks good.

Keep in mind that the Zombii (FF) can have pretty huge output. Putting the Slambox after it may really push the volume output over the edge if you are running them in series. If you were wanting to use the Slam as a simple boost, you could just as easily use two volume pots and switch between those.

Not that I'm discouraging your idea....just a helpful warning about using these two things together.

[youngstownguitar]

Thanks for the warning madbean (and for checking the diagram) but I think Im gonna go ahead with this project anyway.  If its too loud then I will just run them separate.  I think it will still be cool to have them together.

I am still trying to understand the LEDs...

If I use the LED spots on the PCBs which end is positive? The rounded or flat side?

And for that matter, how does the LED work?  I know that one end is longer than the other and that signifies the voltage but I cant find which one is positive and which is negative.

If I dont use the LED spots on the PCBs could I wire it like this...
For the Zombii: Bottom left spot of switch - to LED - to 5k resistor - to DC jack
For the Slambox: Bottom left spot of witch - to LED - to 5k resistor- to 9v spot in PCB
I used this diagram to figure this out:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/two_in_one_wiring.pdf


And finally... I dont want to even deal with a battery- I never use them.  Can I just erase it from the diagram or do I need to change the circuit around?

Thanks again.  I feel stupid asking all these questions.  I really did spend hours last night researching this stuff.  I learned a lot but I couldn't figure these couple things out for sure.

[youngstownguitar]

anybody?

[madbean]

Everything you need to know about hooking up an LED is right here:



LED's are denoted just as diodes. Namely, they have an Anode and Cathode. You can also think of those as pos/neg if you like. Most of the current projects denote Anode on the MBP boards by a square pad and the Cathode by a round one. However, there are some older ones where this was reversed in my Eagle library. I honestly never noticed because I never pay attention to pad shape...I always think about what it's doing there instead.

In negative ground circuits, the Anode is connected to your voltage supply. The circuit is complete and the LED lights by connecting the Cathode to ground. However, you do not want to connect that Anode directly to the voltage supply, because it is likely the amount of current fed through will cause the LED to overload and burn up. So, we put a resistor in series with that voltage supply, called the current limiting resistor. There's no real "right" value here: usually anything over 470R is going to be enough. However, the amount of resistance has a direct relationship to how bright the LED burns, so higher values mean a dimmer LED. In practice, I use at least 10k with super-bright LEDs and 4k7 with diffused ones. You can go up to 22k on the Super ones and still get pretty good illumination.

So, that's the "knowledge" part. Here's the "use" part:

The Anode is Round, the Cathode is Flat. That's the only thing you need to remember with 5mm LED's. They all have a flat side. That's the part that goes to the switch. The round side goes to the current limiting resistor. Note that the Anode usually has a longer lead. This is helpful with 3mm LEDs, which generally do not have a flat side (so you must use lead length to determine which is which).

LED wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

[youngstownguitar]

I cant thank you enough.

So that explains offboard wiring.  If you want to just use the spot on the board then there is no need to add resistor right?

very very helpful- thanks

[madbean]

That's right. The CLR is on the board for this particular one (Slambox & Zombii).