Tube boost + overdrive running off a 9 volt battery

[panterica]

Yeah, I can't imagine that soldering irons and alcohol mix too well.

They don't. Not at all. Ha ha ha.

[bassmannate]

Well, I ordered my parts yesterday. Unfortunately, the socket I wanted was backordered so I may be a week or two back on building this thing.

[KorovaMilkBar]

Yeah, I can't imagine that soldering irons and alcohol mix too well.

They don't. Not at all. Ha ha ha.

yes of course i didnt get much done last night, woke up this morning and finished, and of course it doesnt work 

so now im in the debugging phase, can anyone here help? pretty much i get nothing at all when i plug everything in. waited a few minutes for things to heat up and still didnt work. i get nothing from the tube (no heat/light at all) and no sound. i followed the wiring layout and dont know where i went wrong, it might be where an electrolytic capacitor (the 1uf) went. does the neg side go to the pot or the tube? cuz i have it going to the pot (thats what i gathered from the schem).

so yes, help would be greatly appreciated before i just ram this thing down the garbage disposal 

thanks!
mike

[frequencycentral]

it might be where an electrolytic capacitor (the 1uf) went. does the neg side go to the pot or the tube? cuz i have it going to the pot (thats what i gathered from the schem).

You've got the cap correct. What about your tube pinout itself? Looking at the tube upside down, ie looking at the pins, they go clockwise 1 to 9. Also, posting your voltages will be essential for a debug. Don't give up on it - it will work! And the thrill you'll get when it does work is better than cocaine........

[KorovaMilkBar]

the pinout is numbered right on the socket itself (which i though was pretty badass myself, thanks korea!)

fa sho i will get some voltage readouts when i get a chance, should i do just pins 1-9? anything else you need?

im gonna wait till later on to clear my head before i try to do anything with

also, what is the polarity of this? or does it go both ways

(bill gates : haha he said "they go both ways"!
ted turner : like a bisexual!
michael eisner : thank you ted, that was the joke    )

[frequencycentral]

fa sho i will get some voltage readouts when i get a chance, should i do just pins 1-9? anything else you need?

Yeah, just 1 through 9.

And state your power supply voltage and amperage, and if it's a regulated supply or not.

And check all your resistor values at least twice.

also, what is the polarity of this? or does it go both ways

Do you mean the power polarity? It's negative ground.

[shimster]

Hi guys,
  My name is Dan,  and this is my first post.  I've been a guitar addict for the past 24 years...  I've been reading this thread for the past month and I just finished it yesterday. Great work guys! Anyway, I had pretty specific plans to build a tube overdrive pedal when I found this thread so I found that I had to tweak the circuit quite a lot and in the end, it looks quite different but greatly inspired by the valvecaster non-pcb layout.  My first attempt (about 3 weeks ago) was to squeeze a 386-based boost and the valvecaster into a hammond 1590 style box.  Success! But I nicknamed that pedal the "firehazard" pedal for obvious reasons.  My friend has been borrowing it for the past two weeks and I'm happy to say his house hasn't burnt down.  On that first pedal I experimented with mainly the input and output caps.  I tended to filter out the bass quite a lot by using a 0.0022 mF cap on the input. I don't remember the rest of the details.  Here's are a couple photos:


I chose to build that pedal on a patterned circuit board from radioshack.  That wasn't much fun, I find those tiny boards too cramped to work on.  Whenever I tweaked one part another connection would break.

That pedal sounded pretty good but I wanted more overdrive so I started on the twin valve circuit.  I spent the past 2 weeks trying different plate resistors, cathode resistors, cathode bypass caps etc. to try to get the perfect tube overdrive sound.  I thought I was pretty close so I built it.  This is what I built over the past 2 nights:



I'm much happier with the pcb-less layout, it looks pretty cool.  I love the cleaner look of this circuit.  I still need to install LEDs and tack the voltage regulator onto the chassis.  I'm very happy with the sounds I'm getting out of this circuit although I think I set the gain too high on the first 2 stages, causing the overdrive to sound a bit loose to my ears.

Anyway, I'll be working on this circuit because my intention is to perfect it and have my own personal ultimate overdrive on my pedalboard.  At some point I'll post all of the specs and post some sound samples.  You guys have taught me so much, this forum is amazing.  I need to get some software to draw up some sweet schematics.

I better get back to work.
Cheers,
Dan

[Renegadrian]

Hello Dan, THX for your report and your pics!!!

[biggy boy]

Welcome Dan
Nice Job
Both of the pedals look great!

Glen

[KorovaMilkBar]

hahah, ok, i DO have my pedal working now (technically) but now

1. tube is heating slightly but not lighting up that i can tell. it is supposed to glow slightly right?

2. their is a very loud low end hum (about as loud as the guitar)

3. the distortion isnt as much distortion as it is some sort of weird ring modlike effect. buzzy (slightly buzzy) and weird is the best way to describe it.

i checked my power supply with a multimeter and it read at bout 17 (ouch!) when it was supposed to be 9 volts. switching it to 6 volts brings it to a very nice 9.05-10.

i will get the pin readouts sometime later, but definitely tonight.

thanks
mike

[frequencycentral]

i checked my power supply with a multimeter and it read at bout 17 (ouch!) when it was supposed to be 9 volts. switching it to 6 volts brings it to a very nice 9.05-10.

That's an unfiltered (it hums) unregulated (it lies about it's output) power supply. Get yourself a 7812 voltage regulator and a 100uf electro cap and regulate/filter that sucker! Run you Valvecaster at 12 volts - better than 9 volts. Sounds like you have issues around the heater if there is no glow.

the distortion isnt as much distortion as it is some sort of weird ring modlike effect. buzzy (slightly buzzy) and weird is the best way to describe it.

You invented a new effects pedal! Cool - soundclips? Schematic? 

[KorovaMilkBar]

yes i would beleive it is an unfiltered unregulated power supply, i forgot to say it was a "deluxe universal ac/dc adaptor" (made in china) and it has 6 different tips.

where would i obtain this regulator? is it an outside thing (its own housing?) or another component?

also, here are the readouts i got

pin 1 : 5.67 v
pin 2 : 0
pin 3 : 0
pin 4 : 0
pin 5 : 7.22
pin 6 : 6.30
pin 7 : 0
pin 8 : 0
pin 9 : 3.63

thanks for the help guys!

[frequencycentral]

yes i would beleive it is an unfiltered unregulated power supply, i forgot to say it was a "deluxe universal ac/dc adaptor" (made in china) and it has 6 different tips.

where would i obtain this regulator? is it an outside thing (its own housing?) or another component?

also, here are the readouts i got

pin 1 : 5.67 v
pin 2 : 0
pin 3 : 0
pin 4 : 0
pin 5 : 7.22
pin 6 : 6.30
pin 7 : 0
pin 8 : 0
pin 9 : 3.63

thanks for the help guys!

Here's mine, verified and working:

Pin 1: 3.02v
Pin 2: -0.518v
Pin 3: 0.00v
Pin 4: 0.00v
Pin 5: 11.97v
Pin 6: 8.21v
Pin 7: -1.285v
Pin 8: 0.00v
Pin 9: 5.91v

Looks like you supply is only 7.22v. that won't power the heater, so eveything else will be off too. 7812 look like a slightly bigger transistor. Browse back through this thread for how to use it. Or do a search.

[shimster]

Hi guys,
  So, I've been trying to incorporate my twin valve pedal into my pedalboard and I ran into a little issue.  The valvy hates having buffered pedals in front of it but sounds fine going into them.  Is there some way I can get it to play nice with and without buffered pedals? Is it just a matter of tweaking the grid leak resistor or something? It's important that I get it to work under both situations because in my pedalboard I built a pedal that changes the order of the pedals.  Any ideas why the valvy doesn't play nice?
-Dan

[lazerphea]

Hi all!
I'm still stuck with this build... the problem is: I built the Valvecaster with a 7812 in front of my power supply, and everything is ok, no hum, nice sound.
So I tried to build the Twincaster, and I get a loud hum, as loud as the output of the circuit. Using a 9V battery ends the hum.
The strange thing is: if I leave on my breadboard just the Valvecaster and wire the second tube only to ground and to V+ (pins 4,5,8), no other wirings to the circuit, I get the loud hum... why's that??

[shimster]

Hey guys,
  What I thought was a problem with my buffered pedals turned out to be wonky patch cables. I believe the cable I used has too much capacitance and the new pedal is uber-sensitive to it. I need to build a cable tester or something.

lazerphea: When I was testing my circuit, I was able to get clean sounds off of battery and the ecb006 adapter (dunlop 18vdc).  Then I bought a 12vdc power supply from radioshack and all I got was hum.  Since your circuit sounds good with a battery I'd blame it on your power supply.

-Dan

[Ripthorn]

What is your power supply rated to?  You can get massive hum if there isn't enough current going to the tubes (heaters).  Check to make sure your power supply and regulator can handle what you are asking.

[lazerphea]

I get 11.60V out of my power supply passing through the 7812 voltage regulator... dunno if it's enough... 
Maybe I should try another adapter, as shimster suggested...

[enquiryband]

1. tube is heating slightly but not lighting up that i can tell. it is supposed to glow slightly right?

not enough power getting to the tube?

[shimster]

lazerphea: It is also important to make sure you get enough current. I believe it's around 150mA for each tube. That radioshack power supply that generated tons of noise was rated at 500mA but still generated so much noise. I never figured out why it was noisy though... 

By the way guys, I've been hearing really great tones out of my twin valve circuit. I can't wait to post sounds and schematics for y'all to try! Too bad I have a day job taking up all my time!