STRIKER VALVE DRIVER SCHEMATIC

[mistahead]

I've no doubt you're running a Very Real Business, as such you're having a difficult potential customer challenge you on your product, keep cool son - I have to admit that its a good thing I know how hard it is to deal with customers.

Again - why would your device be worth my 2 bucks (or Johnny Lunch-Money's ten bucks) compared to me putting the same funds into an alternative - sell me on it bro.

[Striker Amplification]

I realize i did not clarify these things, im cooooo. i was never trying to come off as a salesmen in the first place but talking to the corpal boys.....has no doubt screwed my lango.

[mistahead]

Ok mate, since the "Customer" is working for you - let them ask again  - I've seen a lot of tube pedals around, some model a classic sound better than others, some are great at high-gain with a good bit of tube-yness, why yours?

Striker Amplification will/may be great - but you have to tell me why, I can't see what makes your product Special in a crowd except your Mojo-magic-NOS-Tubes...

Help me out here - your VERY REAL BUSINESS is being posed a public question (breathe in, breathe out, breath in, I'm not always right but you're doing it wrong, breath in, out...).

[psychedelicfish]

I realize i did not clarify these things, im cooooo. i was never trying to come off as a salesmen in the first place but talking to the corpal boys.....has no doubt screwed my lango.

Don't worry if we seem a bit hostile, I've noticed people have been a bit grumpy towards openly commercial builders since this thread . Reading it may explain a few things. I don't think mistahead is trying to be hostile to you.

[mistahead]

It sounds hostile if you put that tone on, but I'm really not.

Otherwise I'm just a brickwall of self-assuredness - yes I'm pushing but I'm asking valid questions the same way you will get asked them everyday you are pushing your stuff out there (real customers don't give hints how to work with them).

[Striker Amplification]

Thanks guys. I really just wanted people to hear this pedal(and others). i would never push average sounding mumbo jumbo on anybody if i designed something that i thought clearly sounded tonaly secluded from the rest. The original post was full of excitement due to the fact that i thought people would build these and hear the tone difference, see how versatile it was, to think they could change any aspect of this all tube pedal to suit their needs, from front to back, its versatile.

[mistahead]

So any chance of a sound clip here Striker, or is your business model to have folks build your designs so they can decide if they want to buy one?

[Striker Amplification]

The schematic was posted for everyone to build so they did not have to buy one, but if thats the cas i can upload a video tomorrow.

[mistahead]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet bro! Ta.

Should be interesting to see how this sounds in "the creator's image" (everyone knocks things out a little different oddly enough), the schematic definately has some interesting points about it - I like the multiple texture areas and would consider switching them out for multiple diode options there, maybe try to cascade ever slightly lower forward voltages - almost an antialiasing on your clipping effect to my mind could be achieved, but where this is ideally placed with a starved plate might not suit that schematic...

Hence - why would you prefer this rather than an OPAMP SS with feedback diodes, into the starved plate, with your textures roughly the same as they stand? The gain issue is met and you still have the tube's qualities present...?
(Yes I'm baiting a little but its a reasonable customer question).

[Striker Amplification]

You do have some nice ideas man, we should do some e-mail chitter chatter.... :icon_twisted:FYI most of the time i give the prototype models away for free.......WINK WINK,NUDGE NUDGE

[mistahead]

Ideas yet, electronics skills not yet hahaha.

[waltk]

you can use 12V, i used 9V due to the fact that these are finished with N.O.S 12AU7 (sensitive heaters). Pinss 4,5 are joined as 1 heater lead and pin 9 is a center tap.

I'm no tube expert, but isn't wiring the heaters like that actually over-volting the heater?  If you wire the heater from pins 4 & 5, and leave 9 unconnected, the heater is expecting to get 12 (or 12.6) V.  If you hook up the pin 9 center tap, and put 9 V on each side, that's like putting 18V through the heater.  Aren't you concerned that would shorten the life of the tube?

[R.G.]

It is putting about a 50% over voltage on the heaters. This would burn them out fairly quickly if the power supply can supply enough current to stay in operation at that current level.  Parallel 12A?7 heaters are about 300ma at 6.3V nominal. Current increases not-quite-linearly with increased voltage because the extra heating of the filaments increases their resistance as well. So instead of 300ma going to 450ma, it may only go to 400, as a guess.

A 9V alkaline battery with 460ma-hr of life would only last a bit over an hour at this current. Of course, the sagging battery voltage would cut back, but even if the battery is exhausted down to 6V, the filaments are still trying to pull 350ma. So a 9V alkaline would last maybe an hour or a bit more.

So a 9V power supply rated for more than 450ma would be a good idea for this one pedal all by itself, just on the heater load.

Once you get there, yes, the extra hot filaments should burn out in much less than the expected life for the tube at normal heater voltage/current.

They would last much longer than normal if the filaments were in series on 9V, if that gave enough heating for operation. Low voltage operation will pull much less current than normal anyway, so it might be OK.

If this is something one wanted to do.

[Jdansti]

^It's not clear to me exactly how he has the heaters connected.  The schematic doesn't show the connections and his description is ambiguous as to whether he is using the center tap. He does say that he is treating it as one heater, though.

>you can use 12V, i used 9V due to the fact that these are finished with N.O.S 12AU7 (sensitive heaters). Pinss 4,5 are joined as 1 heater lead and pin 9 is a center tap.


@ Ryan:  Do you have 9V across pins 4 and 5, with nothing connected to pin 9?

[davent]

^Paralleled

... Pinss 4,5 are joined as 1 heater lead and pin 9 is a center tap.

(Back near the beginning of the thread).

[aron]

Keep things cool guys:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=60421.0

[Jdansti]

^Paralled

... Pinss 4,5 are joined as 1 heater lead and pin 9 is a center tap.

(Back near the beginning of the thread).

@Dave- Right-I quoted him too just before your post, but it's not clear to me from his description whether he actually connected the center tap (pin 9) to anything.  This is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words.   

I'd like to read something like:
a) pins 4 and 5 are connected to +9V and pin 9 is connected to ground (parallel), or
b) pins 4 and 5 are connected to ground and pin 9 is connected to +9V (parallel), or
c) pin 4 is connected to +9V, pin 5 is connected to ground, and pin nine is not connected (series).

I may seem anal about this, but throughout almost 30 years of dealing with hazardous jobs, I've learned to ask questions about things that might seem obvious at first glance (it drives my wife nuts).

[Striker Amplification]

You can connect directly to pins,4 and 5, pin 4 being ground- and pin 5 being primary+. Pin 9 i mearly a center tap for an even lower voltage, you can solder pins 4,5 together and use them as your primary+ and pin 9 as your ground. 

[Jdansti]

Sorry to belabor this point. I'm really not trying to be a PITA! 

We understand the different ways that one can connect the heaters, but your description still sounds hypothetical and instructive instead of telling us what you've actually done.  For example, instead of saying, "you can connect...", say, "I connected pin x to ..." 

So to make it easy, please let us know what is connected to:

a) Pin 4
b) Pin 5
c) Pin 9

If you have a hand drawn sketch, that would be great.

Sorry to keep beating this dead horse!!!    This is just part of learning how to communicate in writing on a forum. We wouldn't have this problem if we were talking face to face.

[Striker Amplification]

I connected pin 4 to ground and pin 5 to primary, using 9VDC.