DOD 280 Questions

[Kipper4]

Has anyone succesfully built this from thei schematic

http://www.tonepad.com/getFile.asp?id=40

If so What is your opinion of this beast. ( I read it distorts)
Are there any substitutions i could make to get the parts? (uk based).
Where do you get those LDR things?
Do Tayda/Bitsbox Sell them?
It seems like a fairly low parts compressor. (bonus for a newbie, Less parts, less to go wrong.)
How is the Led/LDR assembly made?
Is it simply both facing end to end in a piece of heatshrink?


And a few more useless questions too.
Dont ask me why but i like the idea of the led/LDR thing. (looking for a good alround compressor/ I think the engineers thumb will probably be everything i will ever need acoording to the reviews. Until the parts arrive from Tayda and i've assembled the board and debugged it and got it working. The jury's out.)

[mremic01]

Small Bear has them. The manufactured ones supposedly work much better than fixing an led to a photoresistor yourself.

[Kipper4]

Small Bear has them. The manufactured ones supposedly work much better than fixing an led to a photoresistor yourself.

does small Bear carry the manufactured ones?

[Mark Hammer]

Yes, but you should be able to source something locally, I would think.

[samhay]

It will be easier to set it up with the vactrol VTL5C2 that tonepad suggest. Farnell have them in the UK, but beware the £20 minimum order.

However, it will be cheaper and might be more fun to roll your own - take an LED, point it at the LDR and then shrink-wrap (or black insulation tape) them together. It helps to mark the LED cathode (or anode) first. You ideally want to match the LED colour to the LDR response, but in practice this often is not that important. The light and dark resistance of the LDR are important - ~1k and 1M for the vactrol (http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/87223.pdf)

I get my LDRs from bitsbox. There is more detail in the 'another optical compressor' thread.

[Kipper4]

ok i'll look into it (costing, availability etc)
thanks guys