A couple Ultraflanger questions

[sfr]

Well, I wrapped up the Ultra flanger this morning.  (Two rather complex builds in a week, I'm happy!)  Used the layout and info from R.G.'s PDF file over at geofex.com  First try amd It works, so that's good.  I think the one 9V in the house is dying, so I can't pass judgement quite yet.  (I need some new DC sockets!)   A bit noisy, but nothing really sounds like a clock tick or anything - just a lot of wierd noises that I'm guessing at this point are noises being picked up by the unboxed board and then being flanged.  I'll see what happens when I get it boxed up proper, and run the offboard components with some shorter wire runs that aren't twisted all around each other.  (I've got the whole thing in a "test bed" right now with temp. jacks and pots.)  But all and all -  the thing sounds pretty darn cool.  I'm really impressed by it.  Not quite the flanger sound that I think I want for my main rig, but I'm really glad I built it. 

Once I've got it in a more complete state I'm sure I'll have more, but for now a couple quick questions:

1) What exactly is the control labelled "Manual" supposed to be doing?  It almost sounds like it's blending in the intensity of the flange; not really controlling a parameter of the effect, but "how much" of it is present.  Looking at the schematic, I'm not understanding how the "Manual" control is that different from the "Sweep" control.  Doing a search fo the forum, I've seen this question asked but I don't think I've found an answer.
Also seems like the "Manual" control is sort of bunched up; a lot of the first half of rotation seems to be "no flanging".  I'll have to check I don't have that pot backwards. 

2)Turning the "Rate" knob down past a certain point (I like slooooowwww flange) seems to make the flanging effect disappear.  Is this normal? 

3) The trimpots, from the schematic, I'm assuming they limit the maximum amount of Regeneration, to prevent unwanted oscillation?  How would I set these?  No matter the setting of the trimpots, I get the crazy alarm sounds if I turn the Regen all the way up.  With the Regen slightly down, the trimpots definetly have an effect, but I'm still uncertain how I should be tweaking this.  Clockwise=more resistance=less feedback/regeneration=less unwanted oscillation? 

4) TR3 for tweaking the analog bias voltage - what's going to be the benefit of that?  Should allow me to get the analog portion running more efficiently and possibly better the signal/noise ratio?  (I don't think I'm wording that properly) If my voltages look good compared to those in the .PDF, I'd assume I'm okay?

[RaceDriver205]

The manual control seems to set the delay range it sweeps through. Its hard to understand how to control, and its still not enough flange for me. I intend to build the ADA Flanger next. Winding the manual one way gives you more chorus-like sounds, and the other way you get better flange-like sounds. The regen seems to go really high at a certain point in the sweep aswell, so you get a 'woop' each cycle.
I think its OK, but just not quite good enough.

[oldrocker]

I'm waiting on a 4046 chip to finish my Zombie Chorus.  When I'm done with that I'm thinking about the UltraFlanger.  So I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see how it goes.  I haven't read a lot of good things about either of those builds so I'm going to give them a whirl anyways.  Right now I'm at 100% success rate on over 30 perf board builds (knock on wood) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I've built the Crash Sync and Easyvibe and they both work great so I have alot of confidence in the John Hollis builds.  He is great at reducing parts count on standard effects.