H2O Liquid Chorus and Echo Schematic

[rasco22862]

Hi, i tried this pedal a few days ago in a music store, but is very expensive, is there any layout or schematic for this project??

Thanks very much

[Seljer]

Just build any analog chorus and one of the PT2399 delay pedals

[modsquad]

Eeeeeek...runaway, runaway, runaway...schematic request.  

What I would do is search like crazy in Google if you must have it.  Then if you don't find it, figure out what comparable pedals you can get the schems, layout for and build it.

[Mark Hammer]

I don't know what "very expensive" means to you, but consider that the part alone will cost you at least $30 if you don't already have a stockpile of passive components, pots, etc..  The switches add another $10-15, the case will add at least $6-12.  None of this includes shipping costs for the various parts.  Unless the pedal is selling for $250 or more where you live, the chances are very good that if you attempted to build something like this for yourself, you would not be saving that much money and would not likely have the same quality of build.  Keep in mind that time-based effects (flanger, chorus, delay) are among the most troublesome builds because of the number of ways for things to go wrong.  Unless you are skilled enough to design your own board layout (in which case you would probably not be asking for someone else's schematic but would be able to design one yourself), building such a 2-in-1 is really asking for trouble, headaches, and heartbreak.

If all you want is a decent chorus and delay at low cost, then buy a Fab Echo and a Fab Chorus new or 2nd hand.  Rehouse them in a larger and/or better chassis.  You won't have the excellent buffers found in the VS pedals, but perhaps that is not important in your own context (e.g., if bright clean sounds are not part of your style).  What you WILL have is a respectable chorus and echo that arrive in working order and take up little space.

[blanik]

Just build any analog chorus and one of the PT2399 delay pedals

+1

i don't have the H2O schems but if you built a CE-2 or Small Clone from Tonepad and a Rebote 2 put them in the same box, i would bet you'd be pretty cole to what you're looking for 

[R.G.]

Last I heard, the street price on the H20 was between $160 and $170. The chorus and echo are totally independent, so it's like two separate effects in the same box for that price.

Without going into too much detail, I can tell you that you may well need some serious effort to get two clocking-based effects in one box be quiet and well behaved with one another. The grounding, decoupling, signal routing, and self-shielding are things that don't show up in schematics.

Mark's comments are accurate. You may also want to read "Effects Economics 101" in the Guitar Effects FAQ at GEO, http://www.geofex.com.

[boogietube]

Haven't we agreed not to ask for currently in production pedal info here. There was a lot of debate about this one. Heated discussions etc.. I even think that R.G. works with the company that makes that pedal.  And he was kind enough to answer you! I could be wrong.  I'm not giving anyone crap or anything, but I think that it needed to be said.
Sean

[A.S.P.]

nice keyword for a search: "heterodyning"

[Cliff Schecht]

The H20 Liquid Chorus and Delay is a great pedal for a very fair price, it's almost (!) pointless to try to build your own based off of the actual effect. I built a version myself that sounds just as fine using the Tonepad CE-2 and Robote 2.5, it was about $20 in parts as I had most of them anyways. The only things I didn't have were the pots, the PT2399 (I got 2 for $3 on eBay I think) and a few of the chorus' chips but it all was easily attainable out of Hong Kong . I built it into an old Russian BMP case that I got for free. I'm with everybody else here, if you don't have the parts already at your dispense then it would be both costly and most likely, the effect you build just won't hold up as well (although mine has ).

[stephanovitch]

Hi,
can you tell me where  have you found this pots whith "long pins"?

[remmelt]

I know that Alpha split shaft have the straight pins, not the hole ones.

[Cliff Schecht]

I got them at Fry's in Austin.

[Dirk_Hendrik]

Last time I had a H2O in for repair it still used a PT2395

(For R.G 's next board revision, There were cracks in the PCB traces of the mix pot. The one I had over for repair prior to that had a damaged 78L05)

Other than that, for the prices these go for (2nd hand might be an option as well) I wouldn't be bothered to attempt building one. I've got better ways to spend my time.

[R.G.]

Yeah, we have had units in which have been what I call "flat-topped". Apparently there is a failure mode where if you run across stage, leap in to the air and land on the pedal at a slant just right, you can break off **all** of the knobs at once. 

The cracks on the pot leads happen when someone removes the board and replaces it without tightening down all of the pot nuts. The loose one takes any external stress.

Generally the footswitches are the primary failure point, either from internal failure or cracks on the PCB. Big surprise, eh? The mechanical parts are what fails. 

The next revision will cure those problems and with some luck the others which we have found. I set up a tracking system for field failures with the idea that we will get the info to fix any weak places. So far, we have had the primary things be mechanical failures.

The electronics parts failures are well within the expected infant mortality and field failure rates you would project by running a failure rate model with the industry standard projections for part life, and they're randomly distributed, so for right now I don't plan to change any parts for failure reasons. It's possible that the big boys like Boss do it, but as far as I know, Visual Sound is the only small maker of effects that does failure rate projections and field failure tracking - and we don't do it for everything.