ovation fuzz from the late 60's/// help me resurrect it?

[pinkjimiphoton]

sorry, the confusion all stems from ME.
i am gonna stick with the way i numbered stuff, all of it, as to try and reverse stuff after the fact will make us all @#$%ing crazy, especially places where there's more than one connection.

as of now, i have all the sockets numbered and described to make sense, with wires and where they go, etc.
also have BOM for both channels, fuzz, and reverb. getting ready to do the BOM for the tremolo now.
have diagrams of each channel, how the wiring is on the stacked volume pots, i call them top and bottom, as rv1 or 2 is too easy to confuse with ReVerb 1 and 2...
also rechecked and retraced the mixer,
left to right from the back, orange wire to pin 1, purple wire to pin 11
will do the terminal block too, it passes thru from one side to the other apparently.

i am numbering it 1-6 a for the left side, top to bottom, and 1-6 b for the right side, top to bottom. center will be 1 2 and 3. i will designate whether its on the a side <where the power supply stuff comes in> and b side <where the pcbs are>

i got the switches all drawn up too, will include that
not gonna bother documenting the tuner yet, if ever.  we probably should, for a historical stance, but @#$%it, ya know?
lol

so anyways, will have PAGES of info, all correllated and triple checked for connections for the whole damn mess coming at you soon. when i get done with the trem board and term block, its time for breakfast and a break... been writing since noon lol

stay tuned brother, we got this shit!!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

trem board with parts values designated.




all the other stuff is DONE other than the BOM etc for the tuner/oscillator

will scan it and upload after breakfast <at 6:26pm> and <bones> a break.... stay tuned for the mother load of crap
terminal blocks and power supply with transformer voltages and pots BOM
fuzz and reverb sockets with pin designation and all connections and keys
channel 1 & 2 sockets with pin designations and all connections and keys
chan one bom with socket and pin locations and key
chan 2 '   '''''      '' ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
chan 1 pots and jacks details and wiring
chan 2 pots and jacks details and wiring
mixer pins wiring and pin designation and all connections
trem board socket wiring and pin designations with key for all connections
fuzz BOM
VERB BOM
TREM BOM

AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT, OTHER THAN THE TUNER, THATS THE WHOLE @#$%ING CIRCUIT!!
will upload soon bro. peace!

[Rob Strand]

sorry, the confusion all stems from ME.
i am gonna stick with the way i numbered stuff, all of it, as to try and reverse stuff after the fact will make us all @#$%ing crazy, especially places where there's more than one connection.

It didn't come from you!  There's no right answer.  We just happened to do it differently.   For all we know the original schematic could have a unique number (from 1 to 50, or whatever) for every wire point .

The important thing is to pick something and we both use the same thing.  No prob for me updating the numbers.

[pinkjimiphoton]

even got the transistors bro,... 2n3566, npn's. WE GOT THIS!!!

https://alltransistors.com/transistor.php?transistor=3344

waiting for gineen to finish making dinner. ooops. breakfast gotta wait lol

the q's on the mixer, the trem and reverb all are the 2n3566, except the third transistor on the reverb board, which is
mmps6517

https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/2N6515-D.PDF



one of the q's on the reverb board, the one on the component side top left, is mounted sideway with what appears to be an 18r 1 watt resistor where b should connect.

all the other transistors are bc109c. have not looked at the tuner yet.

gonna be a bit til i can get my scan on... but got a LOT done today.. 9 pages of fresh notes!!

[Rob Strand]

trem board with parts values designated.

even got the transistors bro,... 2n3566, npn's. WE GOT THIS!!!

Cool.  Somehow I didn't see you trem board post before.

I worried about posting stuff today it could come out a bit skewed like my mind is today.

[pinkjimiphoton]

get yourself a good nites sleep, and check back tomorrow. by then, i'll have everything scanned and uploaded!
gonna go down the dungeon and re-assemble the amp, and let the magick smoke out <of me lol> then i'm gonna scan and upload the whole mess.  some of the earlier pics and notes may still be useful, but the new batch will be the stuff to go by  i think.

some notes as to weirdness.. the original drawing of the power supply is a bloody mess, for sure... so i drew it a lot simpler. the original drawing is good cuz it shows HOW it all connects, as ya look at it, but its wicked hard to follow. now it should be much simpler. i hope.

i can always check on anything if you find any discrepancies, i'm gonna wait to mount it back in the case til i'm sure we got everything.

also gonna take a peek at the fuzz and see if i can whip up a standalone version of it, probably on vero knowing me.

stay tuned bro!

and take the nite off, lord knows, you deserve it!

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, here we go bro... all the dirt~~

channel 1 and 2 socket wiring



chan 1  BOM



chan 1 pots n sockets




chan 2 BOM


chan 2 pots n sockets



fuzz and verb sockets




mixer pins, from back, left to right



terminal blocks and power supply




trem socket and more BOM stuff


let me know if i missed anything, or if ya need more info rob, and i will try and find it!!

[Rob Strand]

ok, here we go bro... all the dirt~~

Wow ,full on dude, thanks.

I've only produced a humble output of a partially drawn-up Trem.

[pinkjimiphoton]

here's a vero of the fuzztone itself, i added the usual power filtering stuff, and a couple ideas for mods. i'm curious to see what them extra pads on the fuzz are for. thinking a pot there may vary the tone a bit.
i haven't even breadboarded it yet, but the vero is good to the schematic and seems to match the board.

i'll probably give it a go tomorrow. i figured, may as well call it the ovation 69 pedal, cuz thats what it is lol

catch up tomorrow... have a great nite. @#$% me, its 2 am again already lol

musician hours




its gotta nice symetry to it.
i played thru the thing for a couple hours tonite, really digging the tones i can get out of the behemoth.
worlds bulkiest stompbox

dunno how the fuzz will sound by itself, but boyyyyyyyyy-howdie, sure sounds good "in parallel" now.

may have to add the preamp to the equation. the whole thing is so freekin weird, you'd think i had come up with some of it. i mean, hanging the fuzz off the preamp volume control n shit? wth?

lol

when i look at some of them connections, i scratch my eyes out in abject wonder.
the owsley musta been GOOD.

[pinkjimiphoton]

noticed two value discrepancies on the fuzz board on two resistors, have updated the vero accordingly.
input resistor is 3.3k, e-ground resistor q2 shows 15k, tho that seems high to me!

[Rob Strand]

Oh great dudiest one, may I summon thee ...

I've been trying to update the Reverb, Tremolo and Mixer to match up with your new info.

I've got a few fixes and also some questions.
-------------------------------------------------
Trem

Trem Socket
   #6            key
   #2, #4, #8,    }   n/c
   #10, #12, #14   }


   #16   Trem Speed 3 (green)  ?
   #1   Trem Speed 2 & 1 (yellow) ?

Trem Switches
   Green wire to Intensity #3 (clockwise) ?

Trem part values  [See Q1 pic]
   Value of 800R looks wrong.
   no values for parts under caps  - see pic


-------------------------------------------------
Reverb

   Q1 has 18R on base?
   R11 10k - check value

Tank Input
   The Tank-In connections look off by one, is it:
   Tank In Tip to #11 ?
   Tank In Shield to #12 ?
   (or, maybe Tip/Shield reverse of this)
-------------------------------------------------
Mixer:

Values for R5 and R9
-------------------------------------------------

[pinkjimiphoton]

dude...
i'm gonna have to print that list out and get back to you. gonna be tough to get the mixer values, i already put it back together there, i gotta completely dissassemble it to get at the switch side of the board. mega pia

the rest i will have to check, i'll print it out and trace, other than the mixer, the rest is easy

r5 red/red/orange when blown up and messed with a little
r9 brown/black/orange

i AM guessing here, looking at the pics. but fairly sure, judging from the way all the others look to me. if it looks dim to you, thats probably kinda what it looks like to me naturally. learned to kinda deal with it.

Oh great dudiest one, may I summon thee ...

I've been trying to update the Reverb, Tremolo and Mixer to match up with your new info.

I've got a few fixes and also some questions.
-------------------------------------------------
Trem

Trem Socket
   #6            key
   #2, #4, #8,    }   n/c
   #10, #12, #14}

N/C # 15,too

   #16   Trem Speed 3 (green)  ?
   #1   Trem Speed 2 & 1 (yellow) ?

Trem Switches
   Green wire to Intensity #3 (clockwise) ? 

no, green wire from trem switches goes to center/common on both chan 1 and 2 switch.
the other end goes to trem speed #3, not intensity. intensity only uses two pins of the pot,  intensity pin
1, black,  goes to socket #18, and socket #13, brown, goes to intensity #2.

i counted counter clockwise on the switches
1    6
2    5
3    4 and circled the pin, color of wire, and where each connected to. in the case of the two trem switches, the connections are as follows.

green wire, to pin 2 of channel 1 trem switch, and jumpered across to pin 5 of channel 2 trem switch.
white wire, to pin 3 of channel one trem switch, to trem socket #4
white wire to pin 4 of channel 2 trem switch, to trem socket #5.

Trem part values  [See Q1 pic]
   Value of 800R looks wrong.

gray/black/brown/silver, but i can check again in the morning.

   no values for parts under caps  - see pic

the resistor to the right bottom is 100k, i wrote it in, but its not quite lined up right cuz it was under the caps and i was trying to get a place with enough contrast to see it.

under the big caps on the bottom, no resistors there. just the caps and then the vactrols.

i will double check tomorrow to be sure, tho.

-------------------------------------------------
Reverb

   Q1 has 18R on base? 
   R11 10k - check value

i THINK it does. its a weird looking huge resistor with like, three bands and its gooped onto the transistor with some ancient taffy looking epoxy, so hard to see the exact value.

i will check the value in the morning for R11. pretty sure it was 10k, brown/black/orange

Tank Input
   The Tank-In connections look off by one, is it:
   Tank In Tip to #11 ?
   Tank In Shield to #12 ?
   (or, maybe Tip/Shield reverse of this)

reverb send from socket #10 to reverb tank in/hot/tip
reverb socket #11, shield from above.

reverb return from reverb tank output/hot/tip to reverb socket #6
reverb socket #1 to shield of above.

-------------------------------------------------
Mixer:

Values for R5 and R9
-------------------------------------------------

i believe those are 22k for R5 and 10k for R9.  those are the ones i can't get to, hesitant to take it apart again. it was a real bitch to get it back together, even after i figured out how to do it, it took a couple hours.

i will check tomorrow on everything else tho.

i DID build a veroboard version of the fuzztone section tonite, complete with bc109's. i built it with 100n caps instead of 1n cuz the 1n sounded really thin and shitty. everything else to the schematic and parts.

i mounted it right to the fuzz pot, see how it sounds tomorrow, and if it will need another volume pot at the end.

i have a feeling the thing to do is probably cascade the two channels together and then put the fuzz after that lol 

here's a couple pics






i'll have eyegore put the electricity to it tomorrow and see if it boogies,or if it fails... i expect a little tweakage for max fuzzy goodness will be necessary

[Rob Strand]

no, green wire from trem switches goes to center/common on both chan 1 and 2 switch.
the other end goes to trem speed #3, not intensity. intensity only uses two pins of the pot,  intensity pin
1, black,  goes to socket #18, and socket #13, brown, goes to intensity #2.

I can sort of see that in the photos you posted but when I go to the circuit the tremolo intensity and switching just doesn't make sense (to the point where I doubt it will work as drawn).  Some detail is missing.

reverb send from socket #10 to reverb tank in/hot/tip
reverb socket #11, shield from above.

reverb return from reverb tank output/hot/tip to reverb socket #6
reverb socket #1 to shield of above.

That's another one that doesn't make sense when I go to the schematic.
When I look at the pics of the reverb edge connector to me it looks like the tank wires to the last two terminals 11 and 12.  That also makes more sense from a schematic perspective.

the resistor to the right bottom is 100k, i wrote it in, but its not quite lined up right cuz it was under the caps and i was trying to get a place with enough contrast to see it

When I look at the photos I can see about three resistors unaccounted for (See XRAY pic in next post).   I believe, the one you mentioned *is* there, more or less in that spot.

i believe those are 22k for R5 and 10k for R9.  those are the ones i can't get to, hesitant to take it apart again. it was a real bitch to get it back together, even after i figured out how to do it, it took a couple hours.

i will check tomorrow on everything else tho.

Yes, I don't think you want to pull it apart again.    We will just have to take what we have as is.  If you or someone else wants to resolve any of the those areas in the future then it should be a relatively easy.

i DID build a veroboard version of the fuzztone section tonite, complete with bc109's. i built it with 100n caps instead of 1n cuz the 1n sounded really thin and shitty. everything else to the schematic and parts.

Looks cool.   You should of started another thread for the stand-along fuzz.

[Rob Strand]

I've update the revision to V2 to represent you numbering.

[pinkjimiphoton]

no, green wire from trem switches goes to center/common on both chan 1 and 2 switch.
the other end goes to trem speed #3, not intensity. intensity only uses two pins of the pot,  intensity pin
1, black,  goes to socket #18, and socket #13, brown, goes to intensity #2.

I can sort of see that in the photos you posted but when I go to the circuit the tremolo intensity and switching just doesn't make sense (to the point where I doubt it will work as drawn).  Some detail is missing.

remember, the tremolo gets shorted to ground by the footswitch. i'll have to look at my notes or the unit to see any more. but i not only eyeballed the stuff, i used my continuity beeper to be sure.

the trem is always on, unless the footswitch shorts it out. the switches appear to switch the channels feed to the trem off or on. reverb etc also appears to be the same kind of deal.

reverb send from socket #10 to reverb tank in/hot/tip
reverb socket #11, shield from above.

reverb return from reverb tank output/hot/tip to reverb socket #6
reverb socket #1 to shield of above.

That's another one that doesn't make sense when I go to the schematic.
When I look at the pics of the reverb edge connector to me it looks like the tank wires to the last two terminals 11 and 12.  That also makes more sense from a schematic perspective.

nope, what i wrote is how it is, i checked visually multiple times, and beeped it, too. thats the way it hooks up! it IS weird. one reverb wire comes right back to two adjacent terminals, the other one there's like 5 terminals between hot and shield.

the resistor to the right bottom is 100k, i wrote it in, but its not quite lined up right cuz it was under the caps and i was trying to get a place with enough contrast to see it

When I look at the photos I can see about three resistors unaccounted for (See XRAY pic in next post).   I believe, the one you mentioned *is* there, more or less in that spot.

i will check as soon as i go downstairs, but i've gone over it several times. there aren't any resistors there, if they were, they'd be in parallel with the big 470n caps along the bottom edge. if ya look at the trace side pics, you can see where the caps are, then the optos. but i WILL check again ASAP...

i believe those are 22k for R5 and 10k for R9.  those are the ones i can't get to, hesitant to take it apart again. it was a real bitch to get it back together, even after i figured out how to do it, it took a couple hours.

i will check tomorrow on everything else tho.

Yes, I don't think you want to pull it apart again.    We will just have to take what we have as is.  If you or someone else wants to resolve any of the those areas in the future then it should be a relatively easy.

well, they only used so many resistor values in the whole amp. it was a real bitch to see without daylight, but in daylight, anything that looks white to me at nite is actually yellow. so i am sure the one is 100k, the other, i can see a hint of colors so pretty sure its right. if not... oooops. should be easy enough to sort out in the future, as you said!

i DID build a veroboard version of the fuzztone section tonite, complete with bc109's. i built it with 100n caps instead of 1n cuz the 1n sounded really thin and shitty. everything else to the schematic and parts.

Looks cool.   You should of started another thread for the stand-along fuzz.

[/quote]
we'll get there. first i wanna try it and see if its worth messing with. fairly sure it may need some value changes or part additions. channel 2 knobs have an effect on it, but its weird cuz it taps off to the fuzz off the volume if i remember right.

been busy all day dealing with baloney.... gonna go hit the dungeon, will report back shortly. peace!

[Rob Strand]

remember, the tremolo gets shorted to ground by the footswitch. i'll have to look at my notes or the unit to see any more. but i not only eyeballed the stuff, i used my continuity beeper to be sure.

the trem is always on, unless the footswitch shorts it out. the switches appear to switch the channels feed to the trem off or on. reverb etc also appears to be the same kind of deal.

It's coming unstuck for me because:
- The front panel switch have to be able to work individually.  So you can't kill the oscillator with the switches because that would kill both channels.  The footswitch could kill the oscillator.
- You would expect the intensity control to affect the LFO output level.   If the Intensity pot went to the two inputs of the two transistors that drive the Vactrols that would makes sense.
- I can't see where the common wire on trem front panel switches goes.    Does it go to ground?

When I look at the circuit I see it has the circuit blocks to work but when I try to match that up with wiring it goes haywire.

nope, what i wrote is how it is, i checked visually multiple times, and beeped it, too. thats the way it hooks up! it IS weird. one reverb wire comes right back to two adjacent terminals, the other one there's like 5 terminals between hot and shield.

It's very puzzling to have the Reverb Tank input going back to the input.  If it was an inverting amplifier that would make sense but only if the input circuit was low impedance, which it's not.   As is I can't see how the Tank is going to get enough drive.

there aren't any resistors there, if they were, they'd be in parallel with the big 470n caps along the bottom edge.

When I check the PCB traces it really looks like they are in series. 

There's a whole lot of things that don't add up.   I've tried to twist things around in my head but I just can't make sense if it.

[pinkjimiphoton]

remember, the tremolo gets shorted to ground by the footswitch. i'll have to look at my notes or the unit to see any more. but i not only eyeballed the stuff, i used my continuity beeper to be sure.

the trem is always on, unless the footswitch shorts it out. the switches appear to switch the channels feed to the trem off or on. reverb etc also appears to be the same kind of deal.

It's coming unstuck for me because:
- The front panel switch have to be able to work individually.  So you can't kill the oscillator with the switches because that would kill both channels.  The footswitch could kill the oscillator.
- You would expect the intensity control to affect the LFO output level.   If the Intensity pot went to the two inputs of the two transistors that drive the Vactrols that would makes sense.
- I can't see where the common wire on trem front panel switches goes.    Does it go to ground?

trem socket , key in #4 left/right from component side, pin 1, yellow wire, goes to speed pot 1 & 2. pin 3 of the speed pot is what goes to the common on the two tremolo on/off switches. each tremolo switch then goes back via its own white wire to its own input on the tremolo socket. the channel one switch return wire goes to tremolo socket #4, the channel 2 switch return wire goes to tremolo socket #5. both wires white. so i guess it completes the circuit when connected. i don't understand it enough to be able to really figure it out.
but i DO have some news to blow your mind that may explain some stuff making no sense at all.

When I look at the circuit I see it has the circuit blocks to work but when I try to match that up with wiring it goes haywire.

probably cuz it all seems to be in parallel in really weird @#$%ing ways. it was designed to be "bulletproof" and not go down. so its weird. but all the numbers are matching up from here between different points so far. i know its mind bogglingly weird and hard, and ALIEN.

nope, what i wrote is how it is, i checked visually multiple times, and beeped it, too. thats the way it hooks up! it IS weird. one reverb wire comes right back to two adjacent terminals, the other one there's like 5 terminals between hot and shield.

It's very puzzling to have the Reverb Tank input going back to the input.  If it was an inverting amplifier that would make sense but only if the input circuit was low impedance, which it's not.   As is I can't see how the Tank is going to get enough drive.

man, the reverb has TONNES of drive, actually... it can overdrive it even. the reverb tank input goes to the reverb tank send, the output of the reverb first stage, then comes back to it from the reverb out of the tank to the reverb return of the amp. unless ya mean how it hooks up to the circuit itself, no idea... but... in a minute, get ready to cue up some mother@#$%in rick and morty shit, bro, morty's mindblowers kinda shit....

there aren't any resistors there, if they were, they'd be in parallel with the big 470n caps along the bottom edge.

When I check the PCB traces it really looks like they are in series. 

hahah, they may be, i AM an idiot, and cuzza the snow and my girls paranoia about having to remove it before it hits the ground so she can get out in the morning <g> i haven't had a chance to check yet, i was debugging the fuzz i built off this schematic last nite. i made a rookie vero mistake and had to change the location of the output wire, and then i fired it up.

man, sounds like SHIT. absotively @#$%ing horribler than the most horrible. lucifer dave would love it. so broken, so jagged, so 60's...  but it passed signal, runs on 9volts.

it wants REAL low gain q in #1. q1 IS an npn, and it wants a gain of about 100... bc109b would work. the bc109's i have are like WAYYYYYY too hot.  i ended up going with an old button npn, marked c891 340.
my meter says hFE 105, Uf 737mv
battery slightly low, 8.49v
voltages
C 7.32v
B   .40
E    0

q2 is where shit gets weird. the only way i could get it to kinda bias up and get a semi useable fuzztone with a reasonable amount of output was to use a bc549,
hFE 432, Uf683mv..... but according to my meter, REVERSE beta'd. only way it would fire.
voltages were good
C 4.68
B  .56
E  .5 (or 0 with the 1.5k resistor shorted)

i was like...wtf? checked the pinout, checked the meters...

then had an epiphany. epiphone?

dude, i think q2 may not be a bc109, it may be a bc something, but its gooped under some kind of nasty hard epoxy.  i believe that q2 is PNP, not NPN.

i dunno if that explains anything... but then, every @#$%ing pnp i thru at it, si or ge with the beta right way according to both my meters, fired right up and actually sounded GOOD.
didn't care what it was i thru in there.
but either reverse beta npn, or pnp... to my simple hippy mind, it makes sense it may be supposed to be pnp?
what do you think?
perhaps some of the other shit is like that too?

There's a whole lot of things that don't add up.   I've tried to twist things around in my head but I just can't make sense if it.

dude, it was 1969, and the owsleys were flowing, so no surprise its kinda.... ummm..."creative".

anyways,. when i get back from the endless snow drudge, i will check the tremolo board and report back. still messing with the fuzz circuit, but once ya pop a pnp in q2, it becomes much more forgiving of which transistors work.

[pinkjimiphoton]

rob,
looking at your schematic, i realized we were looking at the socket #'s for the reverb opposite.. we numbered them differently.

i took some time to try and figure it out, it looks like at some point, the numbering got reversed, BUT on top of that, a couple PINS got reversed, too...

so i compared notes to notes to drawings, and this is what i came up with. most of the pins simply needed the numbers reversed, which @#$%s EVERYthing up, as pin 7 becomes pin 6 etc...

so anyways, most of it was backwards, and a couple were backwards from THAT so were actually RIGHT. 

anyways... try this one on and see if it will make better sense.


i can't speak for the circuit, as i still don't follow all things non fuzzy very well, but the pinouts should now match up as well as the color coding, i cross ref'd both with each other til some sense arose out of the din. i think.


aww fudge, just found a mega mistake... bear with me..

[pinkjimiphoton]

ok, try this for the reverb. all the wires seem to match up now. none of the numbers did between us tho. i numbered all the connections as per MY notes, and all the stuff lines up that way. i know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, from my notes, but i think now it should work ok hopefully.

you were going off my original flawed data, and i bet thats what @#$%ed us all up. i believe now this should work... the send goes to the tank in, the return comes back, what looks like the input goes to the terminal block and then the footswitch to turn the whole mess on and off. power comes in from the terminal block on the orange wire to pin 9.  i can't make sense of it completely without including the switches on the mixer, but i think that should be easy enough to figure out from the wiring notes and the pics of it. but it looks to me like something from the switches on the terminal block turn the reverb off and on before the input. i am probably wrong, gotta take a good hard look at the mixer.

ok, just did. the mixer was labeled backwards too. here's a fix, that seems to match all my notes.

reverb first



here's the mixer




i will try and match up the other parts too, maybe tomorrow or something. should be able to do the same for the fuzz, and the tremolo which i finally will check for "hidden" resistors so we can drag them out into the light and punish them for #resisting

but please check the two graphics out, and see what ya think. maybe now some of this shit will start making sense. i doubt it, but, hey... ya never know!!
thanks for all the help bro. i'm learning a shit-tonne, and i think we're gonna get it right.

so many pins, so many wires, its like a bloody hammond organism ffs!
easy to get stuff backwards/confused etc. but i think we're getting on top of it!

[bluebunny]

I am stuffed to the gills on popcorn.