Problem with DeadAstronaut AstrosimCab

[Marcseo]

Hellooo

I have recently finished cabling an Astrosim Cab by Deadastronaut. I am having some trouble understanding if its behaviour is as expected or not. At the moment, I have it plugged both to my soundcard and headphones (have not tried the XLR out yet), and it only seems to make any sound if I connect a preamp/overdrive/distortion in front of it and set its volume quite high. The headphone out does have some sound but its super low unless I do engage a distortion/preamp in front of the cabsim. Also, I am not sure if this behaviour is expected, but depending on what I plug before and after the pedal, the LED goes brighter or darker (so for example, when engaging a fuzz in front of it, the LED goes brighter and vice versa) at the same time, the LED only turns on when I plug something into the pedals output, instead of its input. So yeah, some bizarre behaviour I reccon. I have built a ton of different pedals, but this one came out as a bit challenging as it has more cabling and everything seems much tighter (the XLR plug was a bit of a pain to solder). Besides that, the pedal sounds amazing with a fuzz and an overdrive in front of it, it actually gives me a nicer crunch than the one I get from my Orange tube amp...

[stallik]

I've built 2 Astrosims, one with XLR and one without. Plugging them into the end of my pedal chain gives the same output from the ampsim whether the drive/mod pedals are switched on or not. So, I'd say you have an issue with yours.

The headphone output volume on both of mine is OK but not rocking loud. It's about the same as my iPhone at about 2/3

Can't remember if the pcb includes provision for an led (I usually roll my own on the footswitch) but I can't see that Deadastronaut would allow it to vary

[Marcseo]

Hi, thanks for the response!

My PCB is missing a lot of markings (the LED + -, all the output plugs...) so I have sort of deduced what everything is by checking some pictures online. I upload a picture later when I am at home.

I have also two PCBs for this project, but both are the same... V2 (all the documentation I have found is related to previous versions, although the only difference seems to be that now there is r32 for the CLR) and missing all the tags for all the cabling.

[antonis]

A DMM could be your best friend..

e.g.
+9V pad should be connected to C1(100μF) positive leg & D1(Shottky diode) Anode..
IN to C2(22nF) cap & R1(1M)..
OUT to R19(1k) & R20(470k)..

[stallik]

I've got both v1 & v2. The only difference that I can see is that v1 required a resistor to be tacked on the trace side. This is not required on V2. If you've been following the v1 documentation and added the resistor, try removing it

As far as I can see, all component values and connections are the same between the 2 versions

EDIT: No they're not - pics shortly...


The layout at the bottom has been shuffled about to include the 100k which was previously tacked on the back

[Marcseo]

Amazing! I am sure I can walk my way around with these pics and info

[deadastronaut]

here you go (blue pcb) ....the v2 doesnt need the tacked on 100k.