Anybody here familiar with the Vox V810 Valve-Tone pedal?

[Burstbucker]

Anybody here familiar with the Vox V810 Valve-Tone pedal?

I remember these were out about 6-7 years ago and I believe they're no longer in production.  Is this basically a TS9 in a different box?

[JHS]

98% TS-808, same sound and with true bypass.

10uF/10k/100E RC-network at the outputbuffer is 100uF/1k/100E and instead of a 510k BIAS-resistor there is a 820k/1M Bias-divider at the inputbuffer.

The asymetrical Vref-circuit decrease the supply voltage a bit (8,3V) for a smoother tone but Vref voltage is 4,5V.

IC= TI RC 4558 and buffer transitors are 2SC1815.

JHS

[Transmogrifox]

It's a winner.  If you have a chance to buy one cheap, do it.  Otherwise, build it.  The regulated power supply is a +, especially if you're using a noisey 9V wall wart.  This thing will clean it up nicely.

It is also nice because you can use 12V and even 18V supply and not change anything.

I did a few mods to thicken it up and add a little more interesting texture, but I've been using it since I picked it up at a guitar shop 6-7 years ago for $40 where it was greatly underappreciated.  The guy that sold it considered it a random piece of junk.

I don't think I would sell mine to anybody (especially with the mods) for less than $130...but the truth is I've become attached enough that I don't know that I could part with it for any price that people would be willing to pay for it.

[Fretts]

Why not jump into a 16-year-old thread?  I am looking at one of these and I want to brighten the LED which is barely visible when lit.  R19 appears to be in control of that, but when I take a close look at R19 on the board... it is a diode, not a resistor. The location is labeled R19 with an R, but that is definitely a Diode I'm looking at.  Any insights into this anomaly?  What are we to make of that??

98% TS-808, same sound and with true bypass.

10uF/10k/100E RC-network at the outputbuffer is 100uF/1k/100E and instead of a 510k BIAS-resistor there is a 820k/1M Bias-divider at the inputbuffer.

The asymetrical Vref-circuit decrease the supply voltage a bit (8,3V) for a smoother tone but Vref voltage is 4,5V.

IC= TI RC 4558 and buffer transitors are 2SC1815.

JHS

[stallik]

I have a V810 and, some years ago, performed the same led mod you are trying to do. Simpler than you might think. I just replaced the existing led with a super bright (blue) No resistor change but if I remember correctly, I opened up the case hole a little bit

Still have the pedal if you want anything checking

[idy]

Probably a Zener? That would a sort of voltage regulator... could be used several ways, either shunt or series (like the normal CLR.) I would want to double check to see how it is hooked up. Schematic shows series CLR R19. Probably it's like that. So could be replaced with the 5.1k the schematic shows, or even lower.

[Rob Strand]

Stalik's trick of using a brighter LED might be the best solution of all.

I was sure this one was traced,

http://www.sugardas.lt/~igoramps/voxvalve_schematics.gif

The brightness of the LED is likely to depend on the gain of the transistor and therefore be controlled by the 1M base resistor.    The 1M base resistor (R15) is a high value relative to R20 (1k) to prevent switching pops.    R19 (5k1) also has an effect and could be considered more of a precaution.

You probably want to don't want to decrease R15 and not make R19 less than about 470 ohm.

After decreasing R19, if the LED isn't bright enough you probably need to use a higher gain transistor for Q4.
If the Q4 gain is too low reducing R19 below 470 ohm won't make much difference to the LED current.
So use stalik's trick.