Easy Vibe Questions

[Kevin Mitchell]

So I guess the square pads to mean + and not - so thanks for the tip! I guess some of the issues are from wiring the external components as well, rewiring it seems to get the lights pulsating idk what gives.. 4 leds are pulsating now but not the bias (origionally didn't think they'd pulsate anyways) Also no sound is coming through the board.

We're getting close!!!!!!

[Kevin Mitchell]

I think it has to do the with opamps or ldrs...

[Kevin Mitchell]

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!

Well close to it. Some caps came loose and now the board looks messy due to resolding so many parts. But it's vibbing away with some clicking noises here and there.

[deadastronaut]

yay!...

yeah the bias leds wont flash..

i now have it on breadboard, with the 4 leds flashing,

will try it out soon to make sure i get sound too...need to make my vactrols.

but i'll likely mess with the lfo a bit,to get a long slow sweep and maybe the caps on the stages too...tinker tinker..

[Kevin Mitchell]

So the issue was as simple as puting caps and leds the wrong way and loose wiring on external components.

Seeing how this is the 1st stompbox I have ever built (3rd pcb attempt  ), these are innocent mistakes lol. Also the only thing I've ever soldered before was new pickups in my strat. Diving head first into this and still not quite understanding how to utilize a multimeter I feel very accomplished on what I have learned.

Thanks for joining me on this project! I can't thank you guys enough for dealing with me. I'll be back with a sample once it's cleaned up and boxed.

Cheers! 

[deadastronaut]

no worries man, you chose quite an intermediate effect as your 1st so hats off to you for going for it...

while your at it, how are your controls?..

what is your speed control like...too fast, not slow enough?..ok?...

ive been meaning to build this for a few years, and finally thought i'd breadboard it frst...(i like to breadboard so i can adjust to my taste)


edit: one mod ive done already is to change the 100n to a 47uf...extreme, but i get a nice really slow sweep now , and it still goes fast too..much better imo.

[Kevin Mitchell]

If speed = rate, then I'd say it's perfect. Low to high there are no complaints here 

Sounds extremely close to the original Univibe and gives those traditional sounds. The rate and depth knobs are very fun. From conventional to ridiculously experimental lol. It reminds me of my Boss CE-5 (Chorus Ensemble) but much more pleasant cranked up and obviously with more drive.

The chorus setting isn't so great but from what I've heard people stick with the vibe side anyways. I'm sure I'll give it a chance once I'm used to it.

[deadastronaut]

cool, cheers man, i'l dabble a little more...and eventually settle on values etc..

[GibsonGM]

Very glad to hear it worked out for you!  Just takes patience and the willingness to keep at it, as you did!

Yeah, Easy Vibe is pretty ambitious for a first time, so you should feel good you got it going.  Many places you could go wrong with that one! 

Look forward to hearing a clip.

[deadastronaut]

well i have mine all vactrolled up now...(on breadboard)

ignore the 47uf mod...(i forgot a 470k  now the speed is ok..

however, mine sounds more like a tremolo, than a phaser-ish type sound...

i'll go over it all tomorrow...yawn!..off to kip.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Couldn't wait for a demo lol. Just a quick recording with my old laptop (that's what the noise is)

Quickly signed up on soundcloud, check out the demo!
https://soundcloud.com/icesyn/vibe-demo

I'm not too familiar with the tremelo effect so tell me if this is similar to your sound, deadastronaut.

Just my Strat(69 pickups) on my Marshall DSL40c

[deadastronaut]

yeah yours sounds about right...

mine is missing the 'phaser-ish' sound ....hmmmm

i'm using tl072's...hmmm...i'll tinker tomorrow ...

[Kevin Mitchell]

I have those opamps laying around (on my 1st failed pcb) glad that didn't work out haha.

I read somewhere that the tl062s show great results so I went with those. Original schematic shows 064s and the pdf I used shows 06x or 072.

I can't tell you guys how many 470 EL caps I blew not realizing they were backwards.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Any suggestions for connecting an external rate led?

I read that an easy way to do this is to connect it in parallel to the lfo leds? How would I accomplish this?

[deadastronaut]

connect up another led to one thats flashing already...conect the + and - to the existing led...


i pulled mine off the breadboard, i had it going, but i'll build a phase 90 instead...

[Kevin Mitchell]

For some reason it only works with red leds... I'm trying to put a 5mm blue one in or any other color at that and they wont light up...

Any suggestions?

[deadastronaut]

sounds like it going to drain the ass out of it, and will affect your existing leds that are giving you the sound...

i would leave it off... there are, after all 6 leds in this thing already...bit of a juice sucker. 

[anotherjim]

In theory, only another similar LED will work wired across another. Vf (forward voltage drop) has to be the same. If different, the lowest Vf LED will win and take most, if not all the current from a higher Vf one. Red usually has the lowest Vf of all the colours.

Should work if you can have the rate LED fed via a separate limit resistor. But indicators fed from LFO triangles don't always do the job too well, especially at slow speed - they just aren't fully lit for long enough. I'd prefer to run it off the LFO square wave output - at least it's fully lit half the time. Then you have to be careful you don't induce LFO ticking noise if you do that.

[duck_arse]

if you string another led with a series current limit resistor, from the 1k//220R, and the Vf of the extra led is still less than the 2 led's's in series, then the new should show at least the tips.

blue across two reds is probably not going to work, a red or a green across 2 reds should. see above ^.

[Kevin Mitchell]

Okay thanks for the lessons!

Sense I want to experiment with making my own layouts I'm going to mod John's schematic to the best of my ability and do some experimenting. One idea I have is to use only one LED (probably a brighter, white lit one) against the 4 LDRs and shield it in a way like the Neovibe. Hoping that would give a more full Univibe sound. I believe a brighter light and reflection in a reflective shield would do this trick. But what do I know?

Found this old thread and thought it was interested;
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=75101.0;wap2

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself and have a decent amount of research to do and allot more to learn before doing this. Any suggestions and tips on things I should consider would be very much appreciated.

Do you think simply omitting 3 of the pulsating LEDs and probably switch out some resisters work?

Thanks guys!