Shaka Tube Lives Again

[Paul Marossy]

I built my Shaka Tube March 2003. I never quite sounded right, I think I had something funky going on with my self-designed PCB layout...  :oops:
It had been sitting in my closet for almost a year. I've wanted to rebuild it for quite a while, but have been distracted with other things.

So, last night, I pulled out the original circuit I built and just decided to build it all over again. I built the whole thing on perfboard, including the socket, per Tomboy's PCB layout I had saved a while ago. Now it sounds like it is supposed to and sounds great, too! I pulled off a couple of pedals from my pedalboard and put the Shaka Tube in their place today.

You may be wondering how I put the tube socket on a piece of perfboard, right? Well, if you have some perf with plated thru-holes, you can take a PCB mount socket, set it on the perf board, and bend the little legs to the nearest hole. The you solder the socket to that hole. Next, from the same side as the tube socket, take some wire and pull it thru a hole right next to the place where the leg is soldered, fold it over and solder it to the hole where the leg is soldered. This creates an electrical contact between the wire and the socket. It works!

So, what else did I do different from my original build? I dumped the internal transformer! That created too many problems with hum from radiated EMI. Instead, I used a power jack and a wall wart type transformer that puts out 13VAC/800mA. This works perfect with a 4.7K series resistor - I am getting right at 12.6 volts for my heater supply.

Anyhow, I am happy that it works now! Hope someone can use this information. If you have been thinking about building this one, do it!

[Kaiowas]

That's nice!!!

I've been looking with bad intentions the shaka tube!!!  :twisted:

Would be nice if you could post some sound samples, and pictures maybe?

[jimbob]

paul..Im looking for some 12ax7's..where did u get yours?- assuming thats what u used.

jim

[Paul Marossy]

kaiowas- I'll take a picture of the guts tonight and post it here shortly.

jimbob- the 12AX7 that I used is just one of many that I had lying around. I believe it's a NOS Tungsram tube. I have some NOS Sylvania 12AU7 and 12AX7 tubes that I could try, too. I don't know if it makes too much of a difference what tube you use in a circuit like this with such low plate voltages... I personally haven't noticed much of a difference between different brands of the same type of tube.

[Paul Marossy]

OK, here is some pictures for the curious. The enclosure has a removable top and bottom. I wired it so that I remove two screws and the top flips over to one side for access to the tube. It also got a facelift, it used to be a kind of off-white color, but now it's the original grey color. The bulldog (what I called this pedal) comes from an old "Bulldog Electric" switchgear enclosure from a building that is about 40 years old. I cut it down and stuff for use with my pedal. The wiring isn't the neatest thing that I've ever done, but it's quiet and I don't have any problems with anything.  
I used a LF353 for the opamp.



The indicator light is made by Dialite and works on 5 volts. It is connected to the 13VAC power supply thru a 4.7K current limiting resistor.



The IC chip board is on the left left corner and the filter caps and stuff are in the lower right corner. The holes on the sides are for ventilation, since the tube gets a little warm in there. I used to have a little CPU fan on the inside of this enclosure, but it freaks out my wah.  



This is my perfboard tube socket. The twisted yellow wires are for the tube heaters and run back to the filter cap board.

Maybe some day I'll put this into a Hammond 1590B (?) box. You know, the larger sized one...

[william]

I started debugging my Shaka tube  about a week ago.  Mine is still not working.  The fact that so many people are getting their's working encourages me to work futher on my own.  Broken FX's pedals seem to be my speciality recently.

[J.Nadge]

Nice Job!!

You must have a lot of patience to drill those heat escape holes as evenly as that.

-J

[troubledtom]

that's a pro build , nice job!!!
  tom

[Paul Marossy]

Thanks, y'all are too kind.  :wink:

Drilling those holes wasn't that hard to do. I just made a little template on AutoCAD for drilling them, marked the centers with a center punch and started drilling. It took a little while but it wasn't that bad.

You can check out my "Shaka Tube Chronicles" at http://www.diyguitarist.com/DIYStompboxes/Bulldog.htm

[Lonehdrider]

Great looking pedal, I can only hope that some day I'll be able to do anything close to that sano looking. I'd also like to hear a sample of the device, is there one around? (Ok, so I could go look, but I'm about to head out to play so maybe later I'll do some leg work and see if I can find one out there). Great job.

Regards,

Lone

[Paul Marossy]

Lonehdrider- here is the sound clip that I first heard:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/sounds/shakaTubeDemo.mp3

I'm not sure if that link is good, but I uploaded the short version on my site temporarily so you can hear it, just in case. For some reason, I can't play MP3 files over the web at the moment...

http://www.diyguitarist.com/Sounds/ShakaTubeShortDemo.mp3

Aron/Peter: How do you find anything on the Shaka Tube here? On the old forum, it used to be on the main page that came up. I can't seem to find it here in this forum...

[MarkB]

Who are you, and what have you done with Paul?

Paul using Perfboard?  Never thought I'd see it - I thought you were a die-hard PCB guy...

Nice looking build, as usual!
"-)

[Paul Marossy]

"Who are you, and what have you done with Paul?

Paul using Perfboard? Never thought I'd see it - I thought you were a die-hard PCB guy... "

Yeah, I guess it was a moment of weakness.  :oops:

I didn't have any blank PCB or etchant (hard to believe, eh?), so I just used some perf that I had lying around. I found myself saying that "I hate perfboard!" at least a dozen times the evening that I rebuilt it. I stayed up very late...
But, after I found the couple of connections to the opamp that I missed, it was working and it was worth the hassle.  :wink:

Thanks for the compliments.

[MarkB]

Keep building stuff like that, and you may grow to like perf.

I'd probably like it - if I could actually make stuff WORK on it (so far, 1 successful perf build... ever).

so is the Shaka Tube a winner?  if I already have an older Ibanez Tube King - still worth building a Shaka?  I kinda hope not, my 'to build' list keeps growing.
"-)

[Lonehdrider]

All I can say is DAMN, that box sounds GOOOOOOOD.... Man, dripping with tone, I'd kill for that... Ok, gonna have to do that someday, a little (significant, no make that massively significant understatement) above my skill level right now, but that goes on the build it when I have the skill list FOR SURE. Love the sound, clean fat distortion without any buzziness, sorry to gush but after the tone issues I've had at the club lately, thats the tone I am looking for. How was that recorded by the way, miked amp, simulator or what? Thanks for the link.

Regards,

Lone

[Paul Marossy]

I'm not sure how that sound clip was created. Aron Nelson is the one who recorded it, I believe.

It's not too hard to build the circuit. The hard part is getting all that stuff to fit inside a box... I'm not totally happy with the arrangement of my enclosure and stuff, but it works, and I guess that's all that matters.

[Lonehdrider]

If I can PCB it and they'res a pattern for it somewhere I may give it a whirl, make it a long term project and take my time on it. I was thinking possibly of  using a enclosure for the amp top and just cable out to the switch and LED with perhaps like a long stereo cable (or hell, I donno, perhaps a small 9 pin D connector whatever is required to operate the switch remotely for it) for on the floor, just a thought when I saw all thats in the box, I have a old A-B computer switch cabinet for a printer connection that just might be high enough to get a tube and socket in upright. (these are very cheap, I got the box for like 2.00 at a thrift store and there's usually always some available, they usually have a enormous rotary switch so a couple more holes I'd have room for the three pots). Thanks for the info, and your right its the sound that counts, besides like I said, it looks super sano as is.

Regards,

Lone

[Paul Marossy]

There is a PCB layout that tomboy designed floating around somewhere. I only have hardcopies of them, though. I basically did my layout per those PCBs. I would agree that if you had a PCB layout, it would be easier to build than using perf. I don't like perf much because it's too hard to follow what's going on when there is more than just a few parts. Using perf for this project was pushing the envelope for me.  :wink:

I have used those A/B switch casings that I purchased at a thrift store for a couple of projects myself.

[Narcosynthesis]

i would be worried having a nice warm tube almost touching some of the wires inside (the black and red twisted ones)

David

[smoguzbenjamin]

Paul if you start with perf and get good at using perf and take your time you can use perfboard for almost anything!