Giving up on the Easyvibe & Phase 100 (for now)

[Bucksears]

I've reached my wit's end with the Easyvibe at the moment. The C9 cap keeps getting warm (although not as scorching hot now) and I can't figure out why.
I've probed the 9v rail and it's not bridging to anything else. The LEDs come on (the two exposed ones) and I'm getting pretty much a great sound out of it; chorus and vibrato modes both work, getting a slight tick out of the LFO. C9 keeps increasing in the heat, and that has me spooked and I'm getting frustrated troubleshooting it, so I'm going to shelve it for now.

The Phase 100 is ok sounding, not at all what I would call 'great'. Honestly, the PH-1R I sold a while back sounded better.

Given that I've kinda been on a run lately building pedals, I'm going to take a break. I'm spending too much money now for parts/shipping to get ONE pedal working right, so I'm about on the verge of buying some commercial effects and saving myself the headaches for now. I'm still working on some fuzz/distortions, but those are the category that I can't so easily buy the equivalent of on the market since DIY distortions sound so much better (IMHO). All in all, for me, modulation pedals are just a little harder to deal with and I'm going in circles right now and have spent too much time on them.
- Buck

[sta63bmx]

Is it an electrolytic?  Is it backwards?  Can you measure the leakage current by lifting one pin, soldering an "extra" lead in the newly vacated hole, and putting your DMM in series with it?  And what layout did you use?  Sorry to bug you with dumb questions.  I had electrolytics blowing up/burning up with I had them backwards in another circuit I built once.

Edit: What voltage is the cap?

[GibsonGM]

Hey again, Buck,

If you ever come back to it (hope you do), always remember...there's a reason for everything that won't work right.   I screwed up my EV by mistaking the bias for ground at 1 point (total accident)...ended up going over every single damn connection on the board (and I perf'd it!).  I really like it now; it was worth the effort & stress.

If I had to bet $$ on it, I'd say there's something like that going on with yours, right in that first section.  Don't know if a bad OA could cause that problem, most likely not....keep it simple, like they say.   I really suspect something's up right around C9...check where and how C10, R23 and the LED's & diode are connected, maybe a diode or C10 is reversed....when you feel Zen, not while you're all bent!  I ALWAYS find the problem, but only when I look at it later.   Maybe one of the LFO LED's is shorted on itself? That sort of thing.

Good luck after you take a lil' break...you'll be back...they always are, LOLOL. 

[GibsonGM]

For what it's worth, Buck, I took a min. to go back over the other thread we were on...you're running the EV off a wall wart?   You said something about not having the "-" connected to ground on your input jack...I would seriously suspect that area!!!  Try a 9V batt;   I always build the circuit board 1st, throw on some quickie jacks, test the thing, and then true bypass it later.   Ground for the easy vibe IS the "-" of the power supply...a weird ground thing happenin' in the PS could seriously cause that cap to get fried.  "-" and "+" have to come in just like on the schematic or else

[Bucksears]

The only problem with the Easyvibe is the cap C9 heating up. It's a 35v 470uF electrolytic. The positive side is facing the 9V supply rail.
I used the Easyvibe layout from R.G.'s site. It's really sad because it sounds AWESOME, but I don't want a cap blowing up on me/causing a fire, etc.

The problem with the Phase 100 is that it basically has two settings: depth open with regeneration open or closed. With the depth connection closed, it doesn't have any phase sound at all. Not to mention, the phasing is very 'elliptical' as opposed to 'round'; i.e. if you slow it down, it doesn't go through the phase nice and slow, it still kinda rushes through it.
- Buck

[Bucksears]

GibsonGM,
Thanks man. Yeah, the (-) from the power supply jack IS going to the ring (shaft) of the stereo input jack, not the ground. I COULD try it to ground to see if there is a difference.
It can't hurt anything at this point. I'll probably have to try that tomorrow night or sometime Tuesday morning, but I MIGHT have time to do it tonight.
Thanks again,
- Buck

[RaceDriver205]

Build the neovibe! Its sounds da bomb! Just got it to work other day and its one of the nicest effects ive built yet - and ive built one hell of a lot.

[Bucksears]

RaceDriver,
Funny you should mention that because I've got a Neovibe board done (etched and drilled) that I just need to populate. I did it over in Illustrator so I could spread the tracings farther apart. The board is pretty big, so I may need to look at a special case for it.
The Easyvibe sounds SO nice and is done already, I may keep fiddling with that later. I think I'm just going to break down and get a Boss GT-8; I bought a DD-20, but for the $$$, I think I'd like to get a whole slew of Boss effects and multiple patches (more than the DD-20's FOUR).

- Buck

[RaceDriver205]

Yeh, carefull with the layout tho, the speed pot is wired wrong on the picture, but right on the schematic. If your into boss, you HAVE to build the AC2 clone (minus the mid pot), cos it sounds unbelievably real.

[Bucksears]

I unsoldered the (-) power lead from the ring tab of the input jack and soldered it to the ground tab of the input.
The C9 cap still gets a little warm, but not too-hot-to-touch like it was doing previously.
The other good news is.....the LFO isn't ticking at all. I can't figure THAT one out, but it just isn't. Granted, I'm playing the effect CLEAN and not with a distortion, but still, it's not ticking.
I noticed that there is a lot of clear 'residue' around the soldered portions. I'm assuming that it's from the solder. Can that conduct even the most minute amount of electricity?
It scrapes off easily and I've gotten a bit of it removed from between the closer tracings.

- Buck

[RaceDriver205]

Nope, the clear residue (rosin) is non-conductive (to the extent that it is an insulator)

[GibsonGM]

Awesome hearing the results, Buck!     So cleaning up that ground area & making the changes permanent should solve the problem...don't forget to change out the cap once it's all done (start fresh, those damn electrolytics don't like getting too hot).   

When I first powered up my EV, the LED's were all bright to the near-burnout point, couldn't figure out why.  I had the trim pot dimed, and a short across the 1N914's.   Took a while, too, but now it's running fine.  Unfortunately, it's always about check, recheck, and do it again like 100 times, ha ha.  Every new project gets easier to "quality-control", though!

[Bucksears]

Thanks, GGM.
I got around to messing with the trimmer (drive) yesterday and I've found that it sounds best (to me) if I keep it right around 30-50%.

I MAY consider doing a larger PCB for the Easyvibe; pretty much recreating R.G.'s layout in Illustrator and spreading everything out a little further to make larger traces and pads, not to mention less chance of solder bridges. We'll see. I did the same thing with a Neovibe PCB and it etched just fine, but never got around to building it.
I'm going to go ahead with the UltraFlanger and see if I can get thing finished next, though.

- Buck