Crowella Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) That's the aim! Got the voltages for the boards written down last night. Still amazed by the loads of "missing" connections on the boards. Also lifted some of the goop off this morning. It doesn't seem to adhere very well to the board which may be a good thing. Also, have our first part casualty. a 100uF cap on board B1. Turns out it was gooped to the roof of the box and I had to rip it off. Fortunately, I have lots of parts on hand to replace them. The degooping begins and it's actually really easy to scrape off with a plastic scraper. This might not take as long as I thought. Edited October 7, 2014 by Crowella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james90 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Okay, I've decided rather than clutter up the Recent Purchases thread, I'll post here. So an Animato fell into my hands today. After band practice tonight I can say it's definitely a keeper. We tried it on guitar first. No. Just. No. On bass however with a LS-2 it was freaking sweet, with the dist and tone knobs at about 1 o'clock. It seems to have a really nice high end and keeps some body with the tone knob down and with the hot pickups, has quite a lot of distortion. I'm just going to stick it all in an imgur folder and describe it as I go along. I'm going to take some voltage values tonight when I get a chance. http://imgur.com/a/zLnM9 Nice! Glad I'm not the only one who thought it was useless with guitar. Did yours have that blocking distortion (I think that's what it's called) when the gain was turned up? Basically a white noise/gated type sound. I have mine set a bit different with bass. tone and drive set at around 11 o clock, and volume wherever works best with the LS-2 settings. This is with the JPJ bass which seems to have fairly hot pickups (active EMGs), but I think it sounds a bit better with the gretsch (that one has passive humbuckers, but I think they are fairly low output in comparison) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) We didn't even touch the gain on guitar. It just sounded shit right off the dials at noon. Also. #soon. It's coming off with my fingernail. This might not be as difficult as I first thought. EDIT: Board B1 has been figured out. Sadly, A1 is the more difficult of the two. Edited October 8, 2014 by Crowella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I was expecting years of slow degooping work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don'tPostThePear Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Cool! So they didn't scraped off the model number and stuff from the transistors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) Nothing so far has been scraped off as far as I can tell. All the transistors on that board are C2240's (so a 2N5088 should suffice). Only issue I realise I will have when it comes to making this is that if the pots are C taper or odd values, I won't be able to get them here. I have a lot of stock lying around for everything else. Very poor sketch up I did of the B1 board schematics. I forgot they were NPN transistors when drawing it (d'oh!) Edited October 8, 2014 by Crowella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Would be interesting to see if you can improve on the design for bass specifically! (or add a clean blend on the pedal itself) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james90 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Does that circuit resemble anything so far? I hope you're going to write down the types of components as well. I remember Neil giving me a lecture about why electrolytic capacitors can jack white better than film capacitors. And also the 39k resistor for more soldano Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) Nothing I can note so far but I haven't been trying to compare it yet. I've actually got two tin cans for mojo that seem to be very difficult to read. If I cannot get the exact type, I'm going to have to take them out and do a little bit of guesswork to see what they are. Other than that, Board 1A is degooped. I managed to save the capacitor that holds that board in by slightly heating the solder joints up with the soldering iron. To have lost only one part in all of this is pretty astonishing actually, I expected more. All part types are noted. The pedal, degooped still works like I got it so no mojo in the goop. All electrolytic caps are noted and there are some MKT caps on the 1A board too, as well as a trimpot leading into one of the tin cans. Talking about caps. Best "clone" I built of a particular pedal used MKT caps. No idea why, just sounded so much tighter IMO and I had one with film caps to compare it to and there was an audible difference so it's definitely a thing. Also, the plan is to build it with a clean blend later on, but I want to get one working as similar to this as I can possibly get. EDIT: One tin can is an NTE102. Make that both. I can't read the last digit but I think a safe assumption is also NTE102. Thank fuck I have 20/10 vision. EDIT 2: Early info about the switch, contrary to popular belief, it does switch something. The switch goes from lug 3 of the top dist pot and to some resistors on the board. In the off position, it bypasses that lug. What difference it makes overall I still don't know but it is actually connected to something. EDIT 3: Quick attempt at a schematic for board B. I think I'll need sleep. zzzzzz Edited October 8, 2014 by Crowella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthijs Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 If you manage a proper replica (preferably in a small box?) I'll have it I don't need a clean blend in-pedal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave. Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 This is one of the best things that's been done on this board in terms of pedals! I can't wait to make a clone myself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phill Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 A little donation for the schem seems fair. Not a cheap pedal to buy, then the risk of degooping... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave. Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 A little donation for the schem seems fair. Not a cheap pedal to buy, then the risk of degooping... If he wants it, I'll give what I can. Although without a job I doubt it would be much But he has definitely taken a big risk and done us a great service Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanp16 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Has the switch been confirmed as a dud? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Wow, thanks for the support guys! I'm not going to ask for any donations. I think I feel bad in doing so just yet because I haven't completely done the job at hand. The switch is most definitely not a dud. After finding out all the connections last night, they connect to lug one of both distortion pots (the distortion pot is a dual pot). It is connected to some resistors on the board. Today I'll try and finish off the schematic and see if it can make any sense. I've hit the point now too where I don't need to touch the pedal again, except to get the values of the distortion potentiometer and maybe just double check values if I think they are wrong (one 15k resistor and one 22uF cap has me a bit stunned but it may be right) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kueller Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 You're doing God's work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 (edited) Okay... I'm going to put up the unconfirmed schematic. If you have knowledge in this, please let me know if you see any errors, there may be some. There may be errors with the part numbering but the values are correct (with the exception of that 22nF cap but I assume that's right also) (The dist dual pot may be 500k, not sure) EDIT: Seems to be all dat Big Muff Pi It's a big muff variant after the first two transistors. I don't recognize the circuit for the first two transistors (Q4 and Q5 in the schemo, I think), but it seems vaguely familiar. I'd have to do some analysis or simulate it to do more than that. Odd booster in front of a big muff pi clipper/amplifier. tl:dr. It's a germanium based distortion(?) that goes into a half BMP stage without diodes, then going into a modified BMP with a slightly different tone section and an unusual recovery stage. The fact that it's germanium means that other "clone" available is probably not making terribly much off of it. Also, I might take people up for donations if they like. I'll sort that out soon. Edited October 9, 2014 by Crowella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 After discussion with a pedal builder who also has an animato, we agreed its a NTE102/NTE103 pairing. Doesn't explain the strange biasing but I'll double check that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanp16 Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 I don't have a lot to give but I'd certainly donate something too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don'tPostThePear Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 I am thinking about simulating some stages of this (mainly the weird first stage and the tonestack) circuit to get an idea about the frequency response and stuff but i am not really sure what kind of germanium model can i use instead of the NTE102s. Would something like an AC128 could be good in place of the originals? Also it is probably time to do a preemptive NTE102 buying spree on ebay, the remaining stock will fly off the shelves faster than ebola masks once somebody starts selling PCBs of this thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 If you could simulate it, that would be absolutely fantastic! I think an AC128 would slot in there but not sure what to pair it with. I'm in a situation where I can't figure out what to use in place of both of them because they don't exist here or they cost obscene amounts ($10 each!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don'tPostThePear Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 (edited) If you could simulate it, that would be absolutely fantastic! I think an AC128 would slot in there but not sure what to pair it with. I'm in a situation where I can't figure out what to use in place of both of them because they don't exist here or they cost obscene amounts ($10 each!) I will try the first stage up to the Dist pot A with whatever small signal germaniums biased to 6.8V and will see what happens. edit: Imgur folder here with some sims, maybe it should be reposted at diystompboxes. http://imgur.com/a/sgWgS Edited October 9, 2014 by Don'tPostThePear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowella Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 (edited) Reposted! Awesome. I'm really not surprised by how much bass it's removing. I'd be so tempted to whack different caps in to get more bass through. I wonder if it's to compensate for the BMP stages later on? Anyway, Board B has a PCB. I'll PDF it all when it's done. Also, over 1100 views on my album. Gee, didn't think there was THAT much of a market for it. Edited October 9, 2014 by Crowella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don'tPostThePear Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Awesome. I'm really not surprised by how much bass it's removing. I'd be so tempted to whack different caps in to get more bass through. I wonder if it's to compensate for the BMP stages later on? Anyway, Board B has a PCB. I'll PDF it all when it's done. Also, over 1100 views on my album. Gee, didn't think there was THAT much of a market for it. Nice PCB! Sometimes it helps to cut bass before a massive distortion to keep things more defined and clear but it seems pretty big. I have never heard this circuit with a guitar, maybe that is why it sounds bad with a guitar? I added some tonestack simulations, it does not look very convincing, maybe i screwed up something or there was a mistake on the schem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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