Weber Texas Cattledrive Review...

[zachomega]

I made a post about these not too long ago and I had also bought one around the same time.  I bought the optional box which is advertised in the same place as the kit.

The instructions left a bit to be desired.  Actually, the instructions were just a schematic and a layout.  Had I not had prior experience with pedals, I think I would have been pretty lost. 

I had some unusual problems so I thought I'd post about my experience...

Firstly, The kit came with full size pots...Great and all except that the jacks and the pots are lined up so you have to put the pots all of the way up if you want the jacks to clear the pots.  This makes the knobs look kind of goofy since they don't sit flush on the box.  Not that big of a deal, but if the jacks were moved a 1/2" in either direction, this problem would have not been a problem at all. 

Secondly, the kit comes with 1/2 watt metal film resistors.  Too bad the board is drilled for 1/4 watt parts.  I know you can make them work, but I just used some of my own 1/4 watt resistors.  They sat on the board nicely.  Actually, 1/4 watt parts had a bit of slack left and 1/2 watt parts don't quite fit.  I suppose if you can find 1/3 watt parts you are good to go. 

Thirdly, the kit also comes with those little box style caps (are those called wima caps?).  I guess that is good except the drill spacing doesn't even come close to fitting them.  The leads are also incredibly small and difficult to work with.  For 2 of the caps, I had substitutes and used them.  Just basic style mylar caps.  They fit really nicely.  The last of the stock kit caps I had to use.  It barely worked.  I actually needed a third hand (literally) to get it to work.  One hand to hold the part so it didn't fall out and the other hands to solder. 

I could tell just from looking at the underside of the board that it wasn't going to clear the bottom of the box when it was all built and I was going to have the board shorting out on the box.  Just intuition. 

I get the thing completely assembled using about 50+% of my own parts.  And of course, there is nowhere for the battery to sit.  I'm still looking for a place for it.  Maybe behind the knobs with some insulation from either foam or well placed cardboard. 

So I manage to get all of the parts into the box.  And as predicted the effect pedal didn't work.  Something is shorting. 

I disassemble the box and try again.  It works.  It sounds good.  I still prefer my rangemaster, but I like the tone of the cattledrive too.

Another griping point...The battery is turned on and off by the 3pdt switch.  So if the pedal is unplugged and accidentally left on, the battery is still in use.  Not much current draw, but still, it adds up.  The 3pdt would have better served to enable and disable an LED and a 1/4" stereo jack to operate the battery like most pedals use. 

The input and output are also reversed of the boss standard of input on the right output on the left.  This is going to lead to a disruption of my pedal order. 

-Zach Omega

[cheeb]

Well crap.


Sounds like I missed a ton of fun.

[John Lyons]

Tell weber what you had to do and what was wrong. They may do nothing about it but they should know.

John

[zachomega]

Thanks for the replies...

I finally got the thing completely working in assembled form. 

Best place for the battery is wedged under the pots and the lip of the top of the box. 

I also used some double sided tape to hold down some cardboard on the bottom of the box to prevent shorting. 

I still don't like the battery being on and off through the switch.  It reminds me of that far side comic with the baby nursery and the dingo farm next door and the caption, "Trouble brewing...". 

I also had to make sure the tip connector for the 1/4" jacks were facing down.  Facing up and they take a chance of shorting against the pots.  Facing back they can short against the battery.  Space is VERY tight. 

Another thing, god forbid you mount the switch in the wrong direction, the parts will all be facing the wrong direction.  The box has the footswitch keyed so it only fits in one way.  PAY attention when you mount this.  I suppose it will work in either direction.  Reversing the board will result in the inputs and outputs being swapped as well as the controls.  But the control wires will be at the wrong end of the board and the outer two wires in both cases will have to be swapped to the pots. 

The pedal is a bit hissier than my rangemaster.  I guess that can be attributed to a number of things.  Mainly the transistor in this case I'd suspect.  I think it had quite a bit more leakage than I personally would have used but I also tend to disregard anything with leakage above 100 uA. 

Oh, I suppose I should mention that the kit with the instructions in front of me and the new parts I took from my bins only took me about an hour to an hour and a half to build. 

I also mentiobned before in another post that this pedal is really close to the Orange Treble and Bass Booster. 

I kind of expected a bit more gain than it provided.  But I guess that tone control in the front end really kills some of the level.  Still a pretty sweet pedal.  And for as much bitching as I did...I have to keep the costs in mind too.  Nobody else in the market is selling a pedal kit for 30$. 

-Zach Omega

[joegagan]

I bought 400 pots from weber when we built the first run of dinosaur fuzzes.out of 400 pots, 398 of them needed work to be made reliable.
The website said they were made to CTS specs for weber in China.
They were far from any CTS spec I've ever seen.
The bodies were all loose, it caused HUGE amounts of lost time in production.
By the time we really found how bad they were we were too far into assembly process ( as some of you know, I had a local electronics firm doing the primary assembly).

I called Ted to let him know the probs we were having. He said he had not received any complaints about the pots prior to my call.
While we were on the phone he proceeded to get out a bottle of flux and solder the tabs on a pot body to the base.    He suggested the problem could be solved by soldering all those tabs   (by this time the peds were built, would've required dissaembly). I told him that was not what I expected from a new part   ( more work for production to get the parts usable)
he offered to send 40 pots free to help make up for the ones that did't work right. on the new batch i DID solder the tabs and use them as replacements for the REALLy bad ones on the production pedals

needless to say, on the next run we were using omeg pots-- I like em!

I think the Weber company is generally really good. I have friends who love their speakers and MASS units.

[joegagan]

anyway, the above post was a response to the cattledrive review  - brought back weber memories!
thanks for the review zach omega

another company that had FX kits was antique electronic supply , has anyone tried any of those?

[markm]

The circuit itself is pretty cool.
I did a layout for it back when I first saw the schem and once I built it, I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be however, I do still like the circuit alot!
It's a nice variation of a Rangemaster.
Ted was kind enough to allow me to post my layout here in my gallery so, those interested in this circuit should take a look at it.
I guess the best part about my layout is.....It fits in the box! 

[John Lyons]

That sounds like a quite large bummer Joe!
Was it just that the caps/pot backs were loose from the base of the pot body?

Weber has been pretty good with my orders. Some of the parts are a bit chinsy (chromed plastic Fender style amp pilot light!)
Last time I ordered a kit it took 5 weeks! But they were"swamped" and even put up a banner on the home page that said so.

The speakers are great. Silver bell, blue dog... and jensen clones.

John

[joegagan]

hi John,
the other problems with those pots i didn't mention were VERY easy turn resistance, far easier than any cts I had encountered ( not necessarily a prob, but again, they were advertised as "CTS spec")

the bushings were nice brass, good machining but the nuts were very flimsy almost like pot metal. I ended up going to my surplus house here and buying bulk nuts , couldn't get the stock ones torqued to my liking.

Ted told me he had these pots made for him to supply the home amp modder type guy.

KEEP in mind , this was 5 years ago so who knows what the actual situation is now

[zachomega]

The pots are still definitely not the same as CTS.  The backs are loose.  I also don't like the anti rotation tabs on them.  I usually just bent them down. They still have a pretty easy turn resistance...and it would help to get an extra nut and washer with each one.

Weber is great for some parts...Others I'm not so sure about.  Unfortunately, without people giving reviews, I end up having to find out the hard way. 

I haven't used the Antique Electronic Supply kit.  I have been tempted, but not at 50$.  I have seen there is a guy selling the exact same kit on ebay for 100$.

Speaking of Antique Electronic Supply and cheap parts...I once was doing a repair job on a 1978 Marshall JMP Master Lead...or is the 100 watter a super master lead?  Anyway, one of the tube sockets was completely burnt up and melted.  So I ordered a new one from Antique Electronic Supply.  When I got the socket, I went to bend one of the pins to allow me to fit the 1k 5 watt screen grid resistor.  The tab immediately broke.  It was cheap white metal.  I called Antique Electronic Supply and let them know what had happened not expecting much.  Just telling them that perhaps they should put a warning with them that the pins shouldn't be bent.  They explained to me that they don't have a lot of control over the foreign production standards and that for an american equivalent part, it'd cost 4x as much.  So it is a trade off between cost and quality.  We see this in a lot of places. 

In the end, they sent me a free replacement part which was quite nice of them.  They get an A+ for customer service in my book.  I haven't bitched to Weber...I don't know what good it'd do.  I mean, technically, the kit does work.  It just took a little creativity to get it all to fit in the box properly. 

-Zach Omega

[joegagan]

  The backs are loose. -Zach Omega

yup.

[Gilles C]

I agree that the kit is not perfect, and that some parts seem to come from amp supplies.

But the back of the pots in mine were not loose. Easier to turn than CTS though. And I used a transistor I got from Aron because they had better specs...

But I had no problem fitting it in a standard Hammond 1590B  box. The input is on the right as usual.

I checked the picture of the box he sell and can't comment on it because it is hard to evaluate the size.

Gilles