Uglyface help!

[Calamardo]

Hello. I want to bulid the Uglyface project and a just cant find the vactrol (VTL5C3) in my country (Argentina). Two questions for this:
1)Can i use the circuit without the vactrol?=without envelope control.

2)Is possible make a home-made vactrol? how???

Thanks.

[ninoman123]

If you can a LDR and and LED you can make your own vactrol. Uhm one second I'll find the link that shows how.....

http://members.shaw.ca/roma/wah.html

Scroll down a lil bit and you will see it.  :wink:

[ryanscissorhands]

Yes, you can make a homemade vactrol. Do a search in the forum, and you'll get a TON of links. I've never done it, but then again, I've never done much. I just live here, and know what I hear.

(For anyone with experience, tell me if I'm wrong on this).

1) Put an LED and an LDR (Light Detecting Resistor) face-to-face. (Square LED's are sometimes good for this. Or, depending on how ambitious you are, you could sand a normal LED flat, and buff the plastic to make it shine well.)

2) Cover them with black shrink tubing, and shrink them together. This keeps other light out. And some people pain tthe back of the LED or do other things to reduce light leakage.

3) Test. This is important, if you want it to have the same threshold as the ideal Vactrol. I don't know how to figure out the values you'll need for LED brightness/LDR sensitivity.

Remember that LDR's are color-sensitive, so the color will affect the LDR"s resistance.

I think that, because it's a cheap alternative, trial and error play a major role in tweaking your homamade vactrols. But at around $5 from smallbear (not including shipping), what the hell. But a pack of LED's, LDR's, and have fun.

Did I miss anything?

[jmusser]

Check the build info on the Home-wrecker.com. It will tell you how to make the vactrol out Radio Shack parts. The main thing it will tell you, is what the photocell resistance should be without any light, in case you have to find one elsewhere. I'm thinking it's right at 10 meg. In the variety pack of photocells from Radio Shack, there is one that is just slightly bigger than the red LED. I wrapped mine with a white sticker after I got them face to face, put heat shrink tubing over the whole mess, and then put super glue on the open ends where the leads stick out. I then clamped them down with vise grips, until they sealed completely. I mounted that unit on the perf board laying down, and bent the legs coming out of the heat shrink at 90 degree angles into the perf board holes for soldering. It all worked out great. That's a great article on it. For the amount of sounds you get out of this effect, there really isn't much to actually building it. It has about as much off board (panel) wiring, as it has actual circuitry to solder up.

[robotboy]

Hello. I want to bulid the Uglyface project and a just cant find the vactrol (VTL5C3) in my country (Argentina). Two questions for this:
1)Can i use the circuit without the vactrol?=without envelope control.

2)Is possible make a home-made vactrol? how???

Thanks.

I ordered mine from here, and it looks like they ship outside the US.

http://tinyurl.com/dwznz

[Calamardo]

Thanks alot guys. But is possible to use the circuit without the envelope control, how?. I know the fact that the John Hollis Crash sync have the same sound, but i think that the Uglyface have more possibilities.