best LM386 projects... ideas?

[coffyrock]

I've got a pile of LM386s lying around and want to make  something with 'em.
any ideas? I've made a ruby and I tried to make a big  daddy/grace with no luck... (early build though, so maybe I'll try again)
what else can I build that sounds cool?

Is there a place anywhere where I can punch in some parts I have and see what projects use that part (ie: j201 transistors, 2n5089, etc) almost like a search engine?
it's hard to sift through all the sites and gallery pages and find a part-specific project in an easy fashion.

[slacker]

Aron's Smash drive's very good, just stick a BMP or Superfuzz tonestack on the end for instant midscooped mayhem.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/schems/smashdrive.gif

Or Tim Escobedo has 3 or 4 interesting 386 based things, the uglyface is one of those pedals that everyone should build at least once 

http://www.geocities.com/tpe123/folkurban/fuzz/snippets

[snoof]

One of the octave-up/octavia schems uses the 386.  maybe the sick box??

Edit: it is the bobtavia...

[Mark Hammer]

A headphone distribution amplifier so that a couple of people can hear the same mix and jam together.

How about a teeny-tiny "JC-2500"?  (Two 3" speakers and two 500mw channels forming a stereo chorus amp)

[Dragonfly]

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album17/386_FUZZ

http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album17/PARALLEL_UNIVERSE?full=1

[ezanker]

If you look in Joshua's gallery, you will find a bunch of different lm386 circuits: http://aronnelson.com/gallery/album02

EZ

[dennism]

The Parallel Universe is excellent!  There is a link a couple of posts up.  The board is very easy, low part count.  The offboard wiring requires some attention to detail though.  Well worth building.

[mac]

Just to feed my ego... 

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=54524.0

mac

[MikeH]

+1 on the Parallel Universe, it's way easy to build and it sounds crazy wierd.  A ruby amp is also always a cool thing to have around.

[TheBigMan]

I've built a Ruby, Little Gem, Little Gem MkII and a Smashdrive.  All are excellent sounding and pretty easy to build.  The Smashdrive is a very nice distortion pedal, but make sure you add a master volume control if you don't add the tone stack - it's very loud!

There's stripboard layouts for all of these projects in my gallery BTW.

[oldrocker]

I second Mark H. suggestion on the headphone distribution amps.  I built a bunch of these for my brothers band and they worked great.  I used wide plastic cigarette cases to house the amps.  They have belt clips already built in and the spot inside the case for the lighter fits a 9 volt battery perfect.  Each musician can adjust his own volume.  It's also stereo.
http://www.minidisc.org/schem.gif
http://www.logmonster.com/images/full/?pic=hp13_1165603582-422-14349.jpg
http://www.logmonster.com/images/full/?pic=hp12_1165662843-422-14348.jpg

[Mark Hammer]

Neat!  Often such distribution amps have all the output jacks on the main chassis and the headphones plug into outlet boxes strewn about the recording space.  Of course the sound quality may be seriously affected by the rather long cables needed to do that.  Even if it only adds a couple of ohms, that's on top of the impedance of the headphones.  If the amps themselves are located in a hip-pocket module and you have well-buffered line drivers (e.g., Jack Orman's "super buffer") then you can have cables running all over the place (i.e., as far as they need to go to provide a convenient pug-in spot) without corrupting the signal much.

[Dragonfly]

I second Mark H. suggestion on the headphone distribution amps.  I built a bunch of these for my brothers band and they worked great.  I used wide plastic cigarette cases to house the amps.  They have belt clips already built in and the spot inside the case for the lighter fits a 9 volt battery perfect.  Each musician can adjust his own volume.  It's also stereo.
http://www.minidisc.org/schem.gif
http://www.logmonster.com/images/full/?pic=hp13_1165603582-422-14349.jpg
http://www.logmonster.com/images/full/?pic=hp12_1165662843-422-14348.jpg

Those look awesome !  ...and thanks for posting the schemo...

BTW...where'd you get those boxes ?

AC

[mac]

You can build a portable mp3 amp into a can of "denmark butter cookies", 19x6 cm. I built one using the amp shown in the national datasheet. It mixes both channels with two 10K before the vol pot, ie, it's mono.
The mp3 is kept inside the can to protect it from dust or sand.
Mine has a 10W LS the diameter of the can, a stereo miniplug and uses 4XAA batteries. I used it all summer, from Jan to the day and the batts are still working.
Considering the price of some mp3 amps I saw you can have a better sounding amp at the cost of the cookies, killing two birds with the same shot.

mac

[rockgardenlove]

Mark---Do you mean a setup like this:
Input (from a mixer or so)->Super Buffer->Long Cable->Amp>Phones
?

Dual 100k would be nice for the volumes.

[Mark Hammer]

Yup.  Exactly.