Tube boost + overdrive running off a 9 volt battery

[Squirrels]

Well, I wired in the 100pf cap to the jack (pos. to pos., neg. to neg.) and then wired the voltage regulator up. Power to leg one, ground to leg 2 and output to leg 3 going to pin 5. In still had the ground from the jack going to original ground on the stereo jack.  When I plugged the 18v supply in, the jack arced and then nothing. The tube didn't light up, neither did the LED. I removed the ground to the stereo jack and the LED worked, but no power to the tube and no effect when plugged into the amp. I guess I blew the tube? I'll post gut shots tomorrow, maybe I did something wrong.

[Jdansti]

Edit-It's late (early) and I didn't read your post carefully. We'll take a look at the wiring and see if we can figure it out.

Hindsight: It's usually best to wire up and test your power supply/regulator before you connect it to a circuit.  After we look at the guts, the next step might be to make sure the PS and regulator are wired correctly and then see if that sub-circuit is working independently.

Something else you can do is remove the new PS circuit and try it with 9V like you had it before and see if it's alive.

[Squirrels]

I wound up removing the regulator and wiring it up back to how it was (except I left the cap in the jack) and it works fine, but still noisy. I should have taken gut shots before I did it, I'm just feeling lazy right now, I'll try it again this weekend maybe. In the meantime I'm just going to enjoy it as is, it sounds great with lower gain amp settings, but it doesn't have enough to push a more heavily driven sound. I'm primarily a metal player, so I was hoping that this would replace my TS9. If I can just get a little more gain and treble response it would be perfect. I play blues and classic rock too and this definitely fits the bill. The VC sounds more natural to me that the TS9 ever did.

I'll definitely be reading more of the complete thread too, the things I'm looking to do are most likely in here, thanks for all your help everyone, I'll check back when I try bumping it up to 12v again.

[haveyouseenhim]

I wound up removing the regulator and wiring it up back to how it was (except I left the cap in the jack) and it works fine, but still noisy.

Try using this on your power supply. It cures the buzz in all of my high gain pedals.

http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/Huminator/index.htm 

[rutabaga bob]

If you're looking for higher gain, check out Renegadrian's 'Tube Star', a 12AT7 pedal that uses higher plate voltage.

[Jdansti]

I wound up removing the regulator and wiring it up back to how it was (except I left the cap in the jack) and it works fine, but still noisy.

Try using this on your power supply. It cures the buzz in all of my high gain pedals.

http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/Huminator/index.htm 

Other than maybe adjusting the LED resistor, would there need to be any changes to use this with 12V?

Also, does anyone know if  this would work well as a small board with heat shrink around it and the leads with jacks/plugs coming out each end?  It would look like a power cable with a bump in the middle - no metal enclosure.  I'd double the cable ends back under the heat shrink to provide strain relief and I'd probably not use the LED and its resistor.

[Squirrels]

Now that I've used it some more, I'm not sure it's more gain that I want, I think it's more treble. It sounds great with my Strat, but it doesn't seem very humbucker friendly. I mostly use it to push my Dark Terror harder. Even with the tone control full on it's pretty dark. It sounds great with my Strat. By the way, DiMarzio Injectors are great pickups, very versatile. I can even get a nice metal tone if I turn the tone on the Strat down a bit.

The Huminator seems like a good idea. Would I get the same results with a regulated 9v wall wart?

For now, I'm going to work on labeling it and hopefully have some pics up soon.

[Jdansti]

The Huminator seems like a good idea. Would I get the same results with a regulated 9v wall wart?

It depends on the model you choose. A lot of people like the 1-Spot. I've hade good success with the Danelectro DA-1. I'm sure that there are other good ones, but it would be hit or miss if you were to randomly choose a PS that you haven't heard or that someone else you know hasn't tried.

[bassmannate]

Hey, guys. I built the valvecaster a few years ago for my bass and loved it but could never get it boxed up successfully. I'm looking to try again but with the Valvemaster schematic. I plan on socketing the input, output, interstage and tone caps so I can play with the values until I find something that sounds great with bass. I also plan on making a PCB for it since I always had trouble with the PTP stuff. It will also help that I have a real soldering iron (WP-25 vs. wal-mart/sears crapo iron) this time along with lots of practice repairing cables and such.

My question is what do the capacitors on the cathodes do? Would it make any difference playing with their values? I would imagine it has something to do with biasing the voltages or something. Sorry for the ignorance. I know just enough to be dangerous. lol!

[Ark Angel HFB]

It makes a big differences...

The reaction seems to be the lower the value there... the more bass in the signal. but if you go too high it starts getting bad.

For guitar I went with 1uf...

I'd say for bass you should consider getting 0.1uF, 1uF, 4.7uf, and 10uF so you can play with the values.

Also the relation of R4/R5 is that lower values ups gain and volume massively... trying 0, 560ohm, 1k. are worth it.

R2/R3 also play a role in the gain... lower values give more of a clean sound... while higher value give more drive. All values from 22k to 220k are worth looking at.

You cna also look to mess with the Gain knob by adding a small resistor after it going to ground on its ground line. like 22k to 47k. This will give slightly more gain and mean when you turn the gain down all the way the pedal doesn't stop making noise. a good Idea may be to find what is the lowest setting of gain you like and put a resistor there with that value. then a pot in front can only drop the gain to the amount you like.

Lastly grab a EQ circuit... http://www.muzique.com/lab/atone.htm this works great for taming the bass or cutting treble... I'd put it after the circuit, this is where I put mine for best results.

or... http://www.muzique.com/lab/swtc.htm. have not tried it but I plan too.

[zambo]

These things sound awesome when you get them up above 45 volts or so. they have more mids, better bass more head room and will push an amp much harder. Changing the caps on the input and output and from pin 1 to pin 7 to smaller caps makes them much more humbucker friendly even at 9 or 12 volts imho. try .0022 on the input and pin 1 caps and .022uf on the output. starved plate low voltage tubes have to much bass and mushy fizzy highs for the most part. sounds good clean to mildly dirty. when you start cascading these together like the valve master etc. you have to really tame the bass and the highs. 500pf and .001uf caps on the plate resistors help the highs roll off combined with smaller caps leaves the mid boost that you need. that being said, looking at voltage multipliers and running them at higher, but not to scarey voltages seems to work the best.

[Ark Angel HFB]

These things sound awesome when you get them up above 45 volts or so. they have more mids, better bass more head room and will push an amp much harder. Changing the caps on the input and output and from pin 1 to pin 7 to smaller caps makes them much more humbucker friendly even at 9 or 12 volts imho. try .0022 on the input and pin 1 caps and .022uf on the output. starved plate low voltage tubes have to much bass and mushy fizzy highs for the most part. sounds good clean to mildly dirty. when you start cascading these together like the valve master etc. you have to really tame the bass and the highs. 500pf and .001uf caps on the plate resistors help the highs roll off combined with smaller caps leaves the mid boost that you need. that being said, looking at voltage multipliers and running them at higher, but not to scarey voltages seems to work the best.

What is your charge pump configuration?

The way I see it there are two good options...

Option 1: (9v in) Doubled to 17.5, doubled to 33.3. Power taken at the 17.5 area regulated down to 12 v for heaters.
Pros: Common 9vDC guitar pedal power supplies can be used and this is convenient.
Cons: Will be drawing a good amount of mili-amps and some of the common 9vDC power supplies can't handle that and might fail.

Option 2: 15vDC supply regulated down to 12vDC for heaters. Then 12vDC doubled to 22.5, doubled to 41.5.
Pros: More simple, and only one double is needed to get into a higher volt area of 22.5. Less risk of power supply failure
Cons: Means a dedicated 15vDC supply would have to be used. This is less convenient.

Thoughts?

[zambo]

ive done it a bunch of different ways but my fav is to use the max1044 type charge pump ( i use lt1054 from small bear as it seems to be a better product and I like to support members when i can  ) the murder one uses it i believe. So i power the heaters off of a 1spot 9v thats split into A) 9volts to charge pump   B) 9v to a regulator or dropping resistor for heaters. The charge pump is hooked up to the plates and voila. The other way is to use an smps but thats more tricky and i dont think its really worth the effort. I would use the same method of splitting the power supply etc. just replace the charge pump with smps. gets 200v that way. Danger! you have to use parts rated for it etc. and the layout and wiring are a bit different from stock. The 1044 type charge pump is best in my opinion because of the lower voltage. keeps it in the beginner tube project realm. For 24 volt operation just use a laptop power supply and split it to a regulater for the heaters ( lm317 works i think) . for whatever thats worth  The beauty of this project stock is its simplicity. If you want more gain and straight up distortion a new design is better. for just beating an amp into over drive a 45 volt version is cool. keep the tone knob in the design as amps get fizzy when pushed and taming the highs is nice.

[Ark Angel HFB]

so you drop the volts to 6 and then run the heaters off of that 6vDC at 300ma... hmmm... yeah that would work... and then the 9vdc could just be X3'd or X4'd up to whatever you want... sounds solid...

Now the real trick is to see if it can all fit inside a 125B box... XD might have to forgo having a battery... build everything on the tube socket... maybe find a smaller tube socket while I'm at it... what a challenge. ^_^

I want the tube inside the pedal so this might be hard to pull off, with three to four pots... should be crazy, might have to have some pots on the side of the pedal at the top.

[zambo]

you could just get some sheet metal and make a box  Home depot has sheet aluminum so does ace hardware. pretty easy to bend up a two piece box. having the tube inside is nice but you do have to vent it. Ive built them with 3 tubes inside before but only running at 9 volts. they get a bit hotter at 45 or so.

[Ark Angel HFB]

Venting you say.... >_>

guess that wouldn't be to hard to drill a few holes on the side...

If I wanted to mount the tube inside what would the best way be?

[Ark Angel HFB]

you could just get some sheet metal and make a box  Home depot has sheet aluminum so does ace hardware. pretty easy to bend up a two piece box. having the tube inside is nice but you do have to vent it. Ive built them with 3 tubes inside before but only running at 9 volts. they get a bit hotter at 45 or so.

How did you mount it inside? pics?

[zambo]

I used an L bracket with a hole for the tube socket. bolted the other side of the brcket to the inside of the enclosure. Just drill holes in the sides and or top of the box for venting. Keep the tube away from any solid state parts if you run a voltage pump etc. Using sheilded wire for the long signal leads is a beautiful thing. Here is a vc running at 81v into a 1/4 watt tube power amp. 

[Spankyspangler]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and new to pedal building, I've made one of the simple boost pedals and I'm now wanting to try the schematic from the first page, I understand all the schematic but, and you will have to excuse me if this is a silly question, why does it show 2 tubes in the schematic, is it just the other connections on the same tube but split in two on the drawing to make it easy to see ? , cheers in advance for any help.

[Jdansti]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and new to pedal building, I've made one of the simple boost pedals and I'm now wanting to try the schematic from the first page, I understand all the schematic but, and you will have to excuse me if this is a silly question, why does it show 2 tubes in the schematic, is it just the other connections on the same tube but split in two on the drawing to make it easy to see ? , cheers in advance for any help.

You are correct that the schematic shows two sections of the same tube separately. There are two triodes in the 12au7 tube. See: 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/12AU7