Those 1N4001's - First Project

[Traintrack]

I am building my first pedal from a GGG board and parts from Small Bear. (That's what your suppose to do; right? ) It's the Marshall Blues Breaker.

I have it working, but it was not on the first shot, I had to read the "what to do if it doesn't work thread" and then I got the love. I really like the tone; I guess that is always an added bonus after a completion. One thing is that I have never had one of these before so I do not know what it is suppose to sound like. I get an overdriven, not distortion sound.

I crammed the sucker into a small box Radco, Painted it, drilled it with my new 35$ Irwin bit (never use these Radco boxes! I lost 30 aluminum boxes worth of sharpness on each hole!) I have a new respect for pedals and the effort it takes to complete a killer box.

Question(s):

After the lead from the power jack, the trace goes right to a 1N4001. I have tried a few of these and they all report different voltages. Is this the norm?

And when do you screw the box together and say "this one is done"? I keep thinking I did something wrong.

I call it the SCROTO-TONE I need the main graphic installed and a finish sprayed.

[Peter Snowberg]

Congratulations! That looks great!

I don't have the schematic right here, but diodes connected to the power inlet are used in two ways. The first is when the stripe is pointing at the V+ wire and it causes a short circuit if you install the battery backwards. When powered normally the diode is essentially unused. The second type is when the diode is in-line with the V+ wire and the stripe is pointing away from the battery. This is called series protection and it just stops power from flowing when the polarity is wrong, BUT it also reduces the voltage by the forward voltage of the diode.

In either case you don't have to worry about the variation from diode to diode. They'll all be pretty similar amoung a perticular type. I like to use Schottky diodes in these locations, with the 1N5818 being my favorite. Schottkys have a lower forward voltage so when used in the series connection, they drop the voltage by the lowest amount.

When is it done?.... Do you like how it sounds?