About to build an Orange Squeezer

[ayayay!]

My goal is to build on the small 15x15 perfboards that come from RadioShat.  (The ones that come two-to-a-package.)

I've already done the layout and triple checked it, and I'm ready to build.  Looks good so far.  So here's my questions:

1.  Why no power filtering cap?  Obviously lots of folks have already built it without one so I'm sure it won't matter either way, but does anyone recommend it?

2.  For the unused side of the opamp:  Tie off the inputs, ground the output is best practice.  Correct statement? 

3.  Output pot is 10kA.  What would be the ramifications of a 25kA instead?  I'm guessing slightly less output, and maybe more treble-y sounding?  (So I guess what I'm asking is:  Is a 10kA the only pot you would recommend?)

[Mark Hammer]

I imagine a 25k is "safe".

[ayayay!]

I think I just figured out the answer to #1.  The original units were battery powered, weren't they?  Those goofy inline w/ the cable to the jack boxes?

I'll be putting that cap on there...   

[ayayay!]

I love this circuit!!!  I kinda wish I had found it sooner, but I'm still very happy.  It's quite unique.  I remember when I was just starting to play guitar and saw these funky boxes that could plug straight into the guitar (were those reissues?  It was about 1990) and really wanted one.  I guess in a tiny way one of my forgotten dreams came true. 

Anyway, not like a dyna-comp attack, but really great sustain.  Just that little extra push to make everything come alive.  I'm leaving it on all the time. 

I did have to use the 25K pot, and added the 100uf filtering cap.  Other than that it was all from R.G.'s schematic.  If anyone wants the perfboard layout I will post it. 

[bobp1339]

Yes, please post.  We can never have too many layouts 

I love my orange squeezer, it has a perm place in my pedal board!

BobP

[ayayay!]

Well here's my layout, but I need someone to verify it.  It sounds great, but I do have one issue:  I get no response from the trimpot, and I've tried different guitars.  I've also tried moving the wiper of the trimpot to ground.  Same response.  So it doesn't really get that "squish" but it sounds great.  A lot of sustain.  Shouldn't it kinda fart out on one end or the other?  What did I do wrong?

I used this schem:  http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/orgsqz.gif

[.Mike]

Check the datasheet of your FETs and make sure the pinout is correct. I may be looking at it wrong, but it seems like you might have the gate and source swapped.

Otherwise, the layout looks correct according to my 2-minute trace.

Mike

[ayayay!]

I was wondering the same thing .Mike.  Here's the datasheet.  Looks like I have it correct.   

http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/2N/2N5457.pdf

I think I've got something goofy around the source of Q2.  Dunno...  Still looking. 

Sorry, I may have posted this earlier, but the only variances on the pedal are:  25kA Volume pot instead of 10kA, and a 2.2m input resistor instead of 4.7m. ( I read another thread where Cliff Shcecht (sp?) said that was probably OK.  I can't see why it wouldn't be down to 1m. )

[.Mike]

See, this is what screwed me up when I made my OS. Well, that and it was my second build, and I built it as if I was looking at the bottom of the board, and not the top. That was a fun mistake... heh!

Anyway, I think this is how the FET is drawn in the schematic:



So if your FETs have the gate as an outer pin but you drew your layout thinking the gate was the middle pin, that could be the problem.



Mike

[ayayay!]

Well, if that's what I did, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I did it.  But it had better be the last or I'll blow my brains out!  (Not really, it's kinda funny if that's what happened.  Heh.)

Thank God for sockets!

Anyway, I'll have to take this up tomorrow.  It's my bedtime. 

[ayayay!]

Well I haven't had a chance to reverse those pins yet, but I think I have it drawn correctly.  Anyone else wanna take a stab at this?