Texas Cattledrive

[Renegadrian]

From Weber site, I believe it's not a problem to post this one, as it's on their site too...

Very similar to all the variations on the Dallas Rangemaster pedal, this is a single Germanium transistor booster with tone and output controls.

Schematic
Layout

[cheeb]

Markm posted his layouts for this in his gallery a while back.

[Renegadrian]

Uh, didn't remember...Well, thought should be useful...Anyway...

[kurtlives]

Just a tweaked Range Master. More transparent, as it boosts more evenly.

[markm]

I wasn't overly impressed by the Cattledrive. Don't quite know why either.
The name is about the coolest part about it IMO!!     

[cheeb]

The name is about the coolest part about it IMO!!     

I've booted around building it for a couple years just because of the name, knowing full well that I have no use for it. It just seems like since I play country music it has to be on my pedalboard.

[DougH]

I think a better tone control for that thing would be the "pre" tone control Joe Gagan came up with for his Easy Face.

[soulsonic]

Just a tweaked Range Master. More transparent, as it boosts more evenly.

WHOA THERE, HOLD YOUR HORSES, COWBOY!
The Texas Cattle Drive is an exact copy of the bogus Apollo/Orange Treble-Bass Booster. I know this because Ted put a copy of the scheme on my desk and said, "build this", which really ticked me off because I had already submitted a final working design that was a tweaked Rangemaster and he ignored it and instead just copied a bad non-functioning schematic.
A clever person could very easily mod the Texas Cattle drive to be something decent, but that involves ignoring Ted's "design" and just use the board as a generic booster template. Personally, I like to do it up like a Rangemaster with switchable input caps; did a couple like that and they turned out well.

BTW, I'm glad you like the name Cheeb, I came up with it. Ted was stuck on using a name that has something to do with Texas (because of Dallas), so I just said the most inappropriate thing I could think of since it has absolutely nothing to do with Texas or Cattle, and it certainly doesn't have any Drive. It's a good deal for a kit of what could be a decent germanium booster, but you just have to ignore the design and start from scratch with the parts.
And don't get that stupid case that they're selling with it - the holes are in the wrong spots, and you'd have to ditch the pots that come with the kit and use mini pots if you want to be able to mount them without hitting the jacks; or, just drill new holes for the jacks.

That stupid thing was supposed to be my baby, a cool affordable Ge booster kit, but it got ruined by someone who only believes in copying and ripping off other's work.

[kurtlives]

^Do you still work at Weber?

[rustycage]

I built one of these thought it was a Rangemaster clone now I know better...

It doesn't have a status LED and the 3PDT switch is fully utilised, which is a pain in the a--

soulsonic - since I'm not putting it to much use... I'd love to hear from you about modding it to a Rangemaster?

[soulsonic]

I built one of these thought it was a Rangemaster clone now I know better...

It doesn't have a status LED and the 3PDT switch is fully utilised, which is a pain in the a--

soulsonic - since I'm not putting it to much use... I'd love to hear from you about modding it to a Rangemaster?

Yeah, he used that third pole for switching the power on and off instead of for an LED, so it will probably pop whenever you switch it because of the power going on and off. Definitely not my idea - he designed the board.

I will try try try to get ahold of one of the kits so I can do a detailed blog article about how to build it as a something better than what it is stock. I'm still good friends with a couple guys who work there, so hopefully I can get one. I doubt they'd actually sell me one now, because:

^Do you still work at Weber?

No, I definitely don't work for them any more, they fired my ass because they thought they could use me to replace the work that was previously done by a contractor and they discovered that one person can't do the job that was previously done by at least 5 people, so they went back to the contractor and ditched me. Since then, I've made it quite clear that I'm not a fan of theirs and I infuriated Ted when I drew up (from memory) the schematics to all the MASS attenuators and posted them. So, getting a Cattle Drive might be kinda difficult for me, but like I said, I'm still friends with other people who work there.

[JHS]

After one look on the schem I knew that's it's a piece of crap.

The Vol pot at the output kills headroom and treble, the 47uF filter cap makes the bass mushy (that's while the Apollo booster don't have such a cap). Adjusting the 470k is really stupid, 'cos it alters the input impedance to to much. If you alter the Bias divider, you have to alter the caps in the tone network too (adaption to the new input impedance).

I would'nt worry about the voltage on the collector, way more important is to set up the right voltage between the emitter and base (app. 0,15 - 0,3V). Therefore I would alter the R on the emiiter, IMHO +/-15% range of the value will do.

The trannie should have a hfe of 60-80, if it has more or less hfe all R values had to be recalculated, to match the trannie specs.

I just built the Orange TB with an AC151 ( it sound similar with older AC128 and OC76) and it's sound fine with any british amps except the AC30. The AC30 was to smooth and bassy with those trannies, I recommend to use a OC44 for the AC to bring the sound more upfront.

JHS

[soulsonic]

After one look on the schem I knew that's it's a piece of crap.

EXACTLY EXACTLY!!!
You know I'm not a fool, JHS. I would NEVER "design" something like that.