Express PCB For Umble Project

[BGillis]

Hello All,
I've made a PCB with ExpressPCB for the Umble Project http://www.runoffgroove.com/umble.html and was hoping some kind soul could click through it quickly to check the NET connections. As far as I can tell the schematic looks right and is error free. However, it's my 1st time and I thought running it by someone with experience would lessen my chances of wasting $51.00. The .pcb and .sch are here http://the-bizarre.com/rogumble/umble.zip

Many Advanced Thanks to all RunoffGroove PCB inspectors!!!!

Brian

[John Lyons]

Are you thinking of paying $51 for the one board? That's really pretty steep! You can make 10 boards for that price yourself.
I usnderstand if you just want one made and don't want to fool with it, but still.

John

[BGillis]

They give you 3 for 51 bucks... They have a 25% first time order discount that makes it $38.25. I plan on making my own soon but want to keep as many errors out of the loop as possible for my first build.

Brian

[Peter Snowberg]

Great job for your first layout. 

I've done lots of ExpressPCB runs and I've been delighted with every one. The only "problem" is that once you get double sided boards with plated throughs made for you, you may not ever wish to etch your own again. Not a problem for me.

I'm sorry I don't have the time to do a complete check of your layout but I see six errors from a quick glance (crossed tracks and jumpered components). It's sure nothing to worry about, but it will need fixing before you order.

When I lay out something new I generally make a couple passes at it. The first one is to figure parts positions and general routing, and the second one becomes the finished layout. If you can reduce the layout to one half the protoboard size, you now get six boards for the price of three, or you can lay out a different pedal (or even two simple ones) on the other side. At this point I would recommend printing out your layout and sticking components through the paper to judge sizes. Shrinking a board is generally fairly easy, just take it in stages.

[BGillis]

Thanks for the advice Peter,

Boy, I'm glad I posted before ordering. Those are great pointers... 6 boards for the same price sounds sweet!!! I'm not really sure what you mean by "crossed tracks and jumpered components" but I'm gonna take a real hard look at it now. I love the paper layout idea.

Many Thanks!!!
Brian

[Peter Snowberg]

After compression, if you add small circuits in the remaining space you might be able to get three or four circuits on each of the three boards. Things like the Fuzz Face and most assorted booster circuits can comfortably fit in a tiny space. The cool thing about boosters is that you can voice them differently and make three different sounding pedals from the same layout.

I noticed a couple of places where tacks crossed each other (between R8 & R6 and Q2 & C6), a couple of bridges (bottom of R17 to ground, the gate and source of Q1, & the circle around the out pad to ground), and a couple of bridged components (R4 & C2). C15 also has a gap in the minus lead connection.

Remember, since this is pro board you also have two sides to work with, should you choose.

I usually do layouts by putting the components down first without much space between them. Then I'll massage extra space for traces in where they're needed.

[BGillis]

Hi Pete,
I think most of what you mentioned is fixed, not positive... It's umble_rev_1.pcb now http://the-bizarre.com/rogumble/umble.zip. It looks like I'll have room for a few more... i.e. NPN Boost, Sparkle boost etc. I like the way they sound.

Thanks again for all your help...
Brian

[BGillis]

Oh BTW,

The thing that brought me here in the first place was a particular sound that I'm after. I make goofy movies with my family and friends and set up a small studio to make the background music for them. It consists of 2 Strats and a $114.00 Yamaha keyboard. I do all the recording with a Boss BR864 Digital Studio... I love that thing. It has 64 virtual tracks total and has a huge assortment of guitar effects and amp simulators built in. Anyway the sound I'm after is here http://the-bizarre.com/music/music.html It's the one called Fusion. It's 6 megs so it takes a minute to get (no streaming at GoDaddy). Occasionally some of the people that I've worked with over the years want to drag me out of the cellar and I'd like to bring that sound with me. The Umble along with my 25 y.o. Peavy Digital Delay sounds like it would do the job... The equipment I have left consists of my Strats and a Hughes and Kettner Club Reverb. It has a nice sounding clean channel (good for at home) but the digital distortion is an absolute embarrassment in clubs...

Thanks again for all your help,
Brian

[jrc4558]

Hello All,
I've made a PCB with ExpressPCB for the Umble Project http://www.runoffgroove.com/umble.html and was hoping some kind soul could click through it quickly to check the NET connections. As far as I can tell the schematic looks right and is error free. However, it's my 1st time and I thought running it by someone with experience would lessen my chances of wasting $51.00. The .pcb and .sch are here http://the-bizarre.com/rogumble/umble.zip

Many Advanced Thanks to all RunoffGroove PCB inspectors!!!!

Brian

Brian, your traces are waaay too thin. Make 'em at least 0.04. More reliable that way. Also, download and use Moosapothamus's custom component library for Express. You seem to be wasting too much space on resistor's extra long leads (0.3 resistor is enough for 0.25W ones) or you can make things even smaller and use 0.125W.
Anyway, I see room for shrinking it.

[alderbody]

Did you actually try an Umble pedal before going into all this trouble with the pcb?

I once built one of them and was never really impressed.
It sounded good, but not for me.
Why did i built it? Simply, because the samples in the ROG page sounded quite promising...

There are lots of great projects in there, much better that the Umble IMHO.

just my opinion. 

[BGillis]

Brian, your traces are waaay too thin. Make 'em at least 0.04. More reliable that way. Also, download and use Moosapothamus's custom component library for Express. You seem to be wasting too much space on resistor's extra long leads (0.3 resistor is enough for 0.25W ones) or you can make things even smaller and use 0.125W.
Anyway, I see room for shrinking it.
[/quote]

Wow... I had no idea about traces being to small... I'll definitely fix that and hunt down Moosapothamus's custom component library for Express... I see their strategy using large components in their library ;-) Thanks for all the info Constantin... I'll work on that today and maybe you'll have time to check the updated file... Hope so.

Thanks again,
Brian

[Peter Snowberg]

Once I saw that the layout was a port the one Gringo submitted I started squishing things together and got to 1.55" x 2.15" with some room to go a little smaller. If you did the layout from scratch I didn't want to do any heavy-handed updating . Of course I didn't save along the way and my machine crashed toward the end.    It just needed 15 minutes more of massage.

For a board like this I like fatter traces but I use 0.008" as a standard trace width for most things digital.

Hurray for camera phones. 

[BGillis]

Did you actually try an Umble pedal before going into all this trouble with the pcb?

I once built one of them and was never really impressed.
It sounded good, but not for me.
Why did i built it? Simply, because the samples in the ROG page sounded quite promising...

There are lots of great projects in there, much better that the Umble IMHO.

just my opinion.  :)

Hello Alderbody,
No I haven't tried the Umble yet... I was hoping to be able to tame the distorion a little bit to get close to the sound that I referenced in my link above. I must admit it's been a lot of fun for a beginner hobbyist like myself though... If you've found anything close to that sound that I could tackle I'd love to see it...

Here's what I've tried so far:
Keeley Mod of the Boss DS-1 - Nice pedal but not even close!!!
Radial Engineering Tonebone Trimode - Again, Nice pedal but not even close!!!
My Purchases (totaling $300.00 + shipping) were 100% based on sound clips that were exactly like the sound I get from my Boss BR864 Digital Studio. Boy was I surprised when I plugged them in... Live and Learn... The thing I like about the DIY forums is that most of the clips tell you exactly what was used to achieve the sound you're hearing... There's no hidden sales agenda so you have a much more accurate representation... Since that purchase I've learned to discern between a genuine sound clip and one that's dolled up with a cranked up Boogie, a stack of Marshalls or a trail of pedals in front of the actual effect that they forgot to mention...
Anyway, that's enough ranting for me... I'm looking forward to hearing about the different effects you've got experience with... BTW, Someone mentioned the Crowther Audio Hotcake... It certainly has the sound I'm looking for from what I've heard but then again who can go by soundclips nowadays...

Thanks foe the great feedback as always,
Brian

[BGillis]

Once I saw that the layout was a port the one Gringo submitted I started squishing things together and got to 1.55" x 2.15" with some room to go a little smaller. If you did the layout from scratch I didn't want to do any heavy-handed updating . Of course I didn't save along the way and my machine crashed toward the end.    It just needed 15 minutes more of massage.

For a board like this I like fatter traces but I use 0.008" as a standard trace width for most things digital.

Hurray for camera phones. 

Cheeesss... I could put that under my wristwatch.... I love it! Hope you didn't patent it 'cause I'm about to make an exact duplicate... My fault for not putting in the following link so you'd know http://www.runoffgroove.com/umble-pcb.pdf That's exactly what I was going by...

Someday I'll learn to follow instructions...
Thanks so much for all that hard work BTW!!!
Brian

[Peter Snowberg]

You're very welcome. 

Maybe one day I'll learn to save files in progress. Yeah, right, who am I kidding? Lol!

Feel free to copy what I did. You can see I used a ground plane but nothing is attached to it yet. There is also some room to clean up the connections to the panel controls. Putting the pads in a vertical line should help.

By shrinking things enough, this should be able to fit in a 1590B. I'll give it another run later today.

[BGillis]

You're very welcome.  :icon_biggrin:

Maybe one day I'll learn to save files in progress. Yeah, right, who am I kidding? Lol!

A year ago in my duties as a network administrator for a huge Corp. the woman in charge of one of their larger large Depts. came to me for help because she lost 6 months of programming in her Multi Gig Medicaid database. Turns out the RAID Array on her server was toast (forget about what that means...) and her unrecoverable information was gone forever 'cause it wasn't backed up. She had to rehire a SAS programmer for another 6 months (many $$$$$$$$) and redo everything.
The next day she came in sporting a button that said "Always Back UP!!! Even Jesus saves" ;-)

Brian

[alderbody]

The thing I like about the DIY forums is that most of the clips tell you exactly what was used to achieve the sound you're hearing... There's no hidden sales agenda so you have a much more accurate representation... Since that purchase I've learned to discern between a genuine sound clip and one that's dolled up with a cranked up Boogie, a stack of Marshalls or a trail of pedals in front of the actual effect that they forgot to mention...
Anyway, that's enough ranting for me... I'm looking forward to hearing about the different effects you've got experience with...

Hi again,

i'd like to clarify that i did not mean that there's any intention on behalf of ROG to trick us DIYers with their sounclips. OK? 
I know that what you mention is true with commercial pedals, but not with these guys...

I just liked the clips and [as always] said "why not try this one, too?" and i went for it.
It's a nice pedal with A LOT of sounds to be had from it.
As mentioned in the site, the tone pots are very interactive to each other.
But it just didn't quite work for me... And i always get to keep the pedals that i really like.

Anyway, here's a link to my photo album where you can see all the pedals i've built so far.

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a192/alderbody/Pedals/

And of course, the "tweed" and the "18" are from ROG and they are two of my most Favorite builds!

If you need any info, i'd be glad to help.

[BGillis]

Hi again,

i'd like to clarify that i did not mean that there's any intention on behalf of ROG to trick us DIYers with their sounclips. OK?  ;)
I know that what you mention is true with commercial pedals, but not with these guys...

I don't think anyone took it that way... I sure didn't, in fact just the opposite.
Love your pedal collection BTW...
Do you have anything in your arsenal that more closely resembles the sound I'm after here http://the-bizarre.com/music/fusion.mp3 I don't know... Sort of Overdrivey, very little distortion w/a some sustain... If that makes any sense.
Thanks to Peter's class PCB development 101 I should be able to get another project in the board.

Thanks,
Brian

[bwanasonic]

Do you have anything in your arsenal that more closely resembles the sound I'm after here http://the-bizarre.com/music/fusion.mp3 I don't know... Sort of Overdrivey, very little distortion w/a some sustain...

The Sansamp GT2 is a very good choice for that range of sounds, and is a versatile and handy box to have around. It presents some challenges for DIY to avoid oscillation/ squealing problems, from reports I have read. Check out the www.tonepad.com layout.

Kerry M

[BGillis]

Do you have anything in your arsenal that more closely resembles the sound I'm after here http://the-bizarre.com/music/fusion.mp3 I don't know... Sort of Overdrivey, very little distortion w/a some sustain...

The Sansamp GT2 is a very good choice for that range of sounds, and is a versatile and handy box to have around. It presents some challenges for DIY to avoid oscillation/ squealing problems, from reports I have read. Check out the www.tonepad.com layout.

Kerry M

That sure is a versatile box... I'm afraid I'd have to have quite a few builds under my belt to tackle that one though... I'll be ready in another 6 months or so. The offboard wiring has been a thorn in my side so far.

Thanks for the pointer - It now resides in my projects folder.
Brian