Lovetone Wobulator

[lerxst88]

Anyone know where to find a good PCB for this pedal?

Anyone else ever built one?

[biggy boy]

Found a schematic for one, but no board!

http://www.aronnelson.com/DIYFiles/up/Wobulator_v3.pdf

[sean k]

It doesn't look as if the PCB's would be too hard to design up but wiring it up would be very tricky. I think if I designed it I'd be thinking of the layout first and foremost and even make maybe four separate PCB's so the boards can be separated. It's got me thinking that it might be another step to have an LFO driving an LED which would effect a LDR set up as the rate for anotheer LFO.Good idea using the LDR's in the feedback to change the volume though. I like that!

I might draw out the schematic and see what I can come up with. Be a while though before anything comes up.

[sean k]

I suppose the J1 is a J-fet like those used in the boss pedals... a sk30A or a 2N3819 with the source to the - input of the TL071 and the drain to the LFO 1 TR or output of the TL071?

[lerxst88]

Im not too sure. A buddy of mine found the schematic and wants to pay me to build him one so i might take on the challenge!

[sean k]

I've copied the schematic out and had a good look at it and some stuff around those switches has got me slightly perplexed so I'd venture that this project is definitely going to start on a bunch of bread boards.

What I would do though, once I got to the PCB stage would be to make three boards.

One for the A and B signal channels which would have the LDR's mounted off board with wires going to them.

A diode board with the 2 channels of diodes and LDR's.

Then a LFO board.

Simply so the wiring between boards can be easily followed and the wiring to the rotary switches is easy to follow.
It's actually quite a straight forward design that is rather complicated by it's switching. I've actually still got a bunch of little 10k/10k mouser transformers on hand as well so I think I'll breadboard this thing in the next week or two to see how it works.

In the meantime I could draw up some PCB's... simply because thats my favourite part of this whole show... even when they become a nightmare to get working properly...

Tranferring schematics to PCB's  then drawing them up and etching is definitely where the fun is for me... drilling 200 holes then cleaning up the holes is by far the worst part. 

So the LFO1 pedal is merely a switch? Connecting the two points turns the LFO off? I take it this would be so as LFO2 is free running so the LFO pedal disables LFO1 when the attached switch is closed.

What about the LFO trigger? how does that work? I can only see gounding and lifting the base of the transistor being a way to open the J-fet... anyone care to explain this in simple terms...?

[sean k]

PCB's very soon.

Anyone able to answer the questions on the above?

[sean k]

Well it ain't quite the PCB but it's the basic work done.


The only thing missing would be a small board to mount the output transformers on.

[sean k]

Well, it's seems nobody else is interested but I sure am.

[lerxst88]

wow those PCB layouts are AWESOME!!!! sorry ive been busy at school so its hard to check on here but i REALLY appreciate the help!

[Taylor]

Hey Sean K, I don't have anything clever to add here, but I wanted to say thanks for doing this work and contributing this to the forum. It's this kind of sharing that makes this my favorite forum (not just for DIY pedals, but for anything). We have a really cool community here.

Let us know what you think of it. If it can do anything significantly different from the 4MS Stereo Panneur, I might just try the build.

[kvb]

the Tremulus Panneur has many unique abilities.
I'm finishing one up now - I won't be able to post the build very soon though.
But I do want to say that because the Panneur has two inputs that maybe someone should modify the Wobulator to have two inputs as well.

I guess it depends on what you want to be able to do.

I still think that someone could borrow from both designs and make a hybrid instead of a clone.

[Taylor]

Well, what exactly can the Wobulator do that's special? Listening to the samples and reading the description, it seems pretty similar to the Panneur except it can flip the phase of one side (I'm assuming this means flipping the phase of the audio on one side; if it's flipping the phase of the LFO on one side, this is just like the Panneur).

What does the trigger LFO switch do?

[sean k]

I've got a trojan in my PC which has buggered the mouses ability in imaging programs so I haven't been able to scan the pages I've drawn up and so photos are the best I can do.

The LFO on/off and trigger have got me too. I'm guessing that leaving the on/off switch open will allow the oscillator to run and then the trigger allows you to stop and start it once it's running though I would have thought you'd need a small voltage on the base of the first transistor on the trigger switch     given that grounding it switches it off 

[shawn]

Wow, I've been waiting for someone to pick this back up. Now I'm excited!

[sean k]

http://commonsound.org/panneur/pcb2.4.1/schematic.pdf

And on this page we have all the info you'd ever need for a stereo panner
http://www.commonsound.com/kits/doku.php?id=commonsound:panneur

It's definately a more complex set of LFO's. The method of using the LDR is different as well with no light being the drop as opposed to the wobulator which drops under light. I still think that an extra LFO and driver on the wobulator would be good to use on a LDR accross a LFO rate pot or the ugly face or clarinot 386 using the attack to drive an LED might be good accross an LFO rate pot.

If I'm no allowed to put links on here from the site above I'm sorry.

[kvb]

See, the 4MS stuff is very versatile. The Panneur is really a syncable dual-tremelo

And Sean, your work looks great, so I know that you would be able to work up something from scratch.
So I'm not trying to hijack a thread or stop anyone from building a Wobulator - But I am saying that for all of the work it is going to take someone to build a panner it would not take much more effort to make changes or mods.

Plus I have at least one mod to add that will only work with the Panneur. I don't know how much time it will take me to get all of my stuff posted (maybe two weeks), but I can guarantee that it will be worth the wait.  And since there are at least a few people who want to get Panning, maybe I'll be able to speed myself up or at least post a drawing of the one mod.

And, for anyone who is new to building, buying the kit is a good way to simplify things and contribute, etc. Plus they are using real PCBs now.

[sean k]

Go for it Kevin!, I've got a few other things on the boil at the moment and I'm kinda poor so the outlay for the hardware for the wobulator is outta my ability to purchase anyways. I'll be thinking about the uglyface mod to use on the speed of an LFO as I think that the speed of tremolo being dependant on attack would be really neat especially if the intial attack speeds up the trembling, low resistance equals higher speeds, as opposed to intial attack creating longer trembles that get quicker as the note decays so it really depends on whether the speed of the LFO is quicker at low resistance or high resistance...  I can't rember which.

The other ugly face mod where the LFO drives the LED/LDR combo would be neat in there as well so each tremble would have an accelleration of tremble or a decelleration of tremble... something weird would happen anyways 

Yeah Bro, I'll hang fire to see what you come up with. Don't worry about my drawings. I did them as a warm up to designing a cabinet for a library atrium. Pencil, pen and coloured pencils from electronics to cabinet making.

[sean k]

I just tidy'd up my photo bucket so heres the images again. Oops