The $20 delay (Fab Echo mods photoessay) 56K warning!

[J0K3RX]

bizbiz - Very cool!!  I may have to get one of these delays now after looking at this thread?

Speaking of cigar boxes, have you all seen the cigar box guitars and amps? The guitars are kinda a big thang and have a big following...

Here's one of many sites
https://www.cbgitty.com/cubecart/index.php

[gpizzolato]

Very old topic but very detailed and very inspiring!

I modded a FAB Echoa few weeks ago, based on the info found here. I just made a few things differently and added more controls as follows:
- Traditional SPDT switch inside FAB Echo enclosure for the Mix Mod
- Added a stereo jack for the foot controller

Controlled by the foot controller:
- Infinity repeats mode controlled with a momentary switch
- Two selectable Delay time pots (dpdt push-button switch)
- Modulation effect using an oscillator (dpdt toggle switch)
- Factory mode (another momentary switch)

Sound sample/video here:
http://youtu.be/vomqV3gZEgg

I hope you guys like it! Cheers!
Gui

[Renegadrian]

Ciao e benvenuto! (I assume you are italian)

it really is a fun thing to do, not so useful as we had joyos or chinese delay pedals cheaper than the FAB in those last 2 years...

[Jdansti]

Great job!  Sounds great!  What is that black enclosure?

[gpizzolato]

Ciao Renegadrian!
Yes I'm third generation Italian born in Brazil. It's a shame I don't speak Italian though.

I agree, but I have to say that now that I'm living in Canada almost everything in the Handmade world is more expensive than what I can find in the market. It ends up being just for fun anyways. Back in Brazil it was the opposite, imported goods were so expensive and the components so cheap that it was better to build.
I know this is somehow "off-topic" but I have been reading your comments and checking your schematics for a while and they are always extremely good. Anyways, I have been building handmades for a long time even though I don't have a background in electronics, if you have some time check my youtube channel for my other pedals, specially "The British Tone" which is basically your "Tube Star" running at 80V, and the "Emerald Amp" which is a hybrid amp based on the Twincaster.

Cheers!
Gui

[gpizzolato]

Hey John,

The black enclosure is from a "Infinity Play - Dictation assistance USB foot controller"
I bought this in a thrif-store for about $3 a while ago. It comes with 3 separate momentary switches but I just kept two of them.

Cheers,

Gui

[Jdansti]

Cool!  I'll have to look around for one.

BTW I'm half Italian (Sicilian) and half Cajun.  Does that count?   

[JakeVP]

Just finished my modding and re-housing of this echo. This thread was very helpful! I have decided NOT to go with the always on and wet/dry mods, because I wanted to keep this thing somewhat "glitchy" to supplement my TC Flashback X4.
Thanks for all the help- heres a photo of the finished re-housing:

JAKE

[Jdansti]

Love the enclosure, knobs, and international symbols!  How did you do the symbols?  It looks like they're burned into the wood.

[JakeVP]

The symbols were done on 1/8" baltic birch with a Universal Laser Systems 40 watt laser.  The knobs were done by hand with (From left to right) walnut, hickory, and maple

[Jdansti]

Cool! 

[clipman3]

REVIVAL

Not sure if anyone else ha done this yet, but I added tails to my echo. Just solder pins 3&4 together on the right-most IC, the one that does the switching, on the bypass board. Picture below



Now, I'm not sure if it's because of this mod or because I seriously messed up the area around pins 3-7 when I was doing it, but I now have A LOT of hiss when the effect is bypassed. Not quite sure why, but I was tired of messing with it tonight lol. Proceed with caution

I'm also not quite sure if this is the best way to go about this. I didn't investigate too far, but it seemed this IC controlled the bypass switching of the pedal. There were 5 wires (two inputs) going to the delay board, as well as a few FETs that I'm suspicious of, so I'm thinking there might be a better way to do it.

[aonascimento]

I tried going for the mod but something went wrong and I can´t say what it is.

No wet signal, just the bypass signal... even with the pedal on. Is that possible that I screwed with the PT2399?



Through the image it seems that the wire is touching PIN7 but it´s not.

Any clue?

[aonascimento]

Image url broken...

[magic attic]

Very old topic but very detailed and very inspiring!

I modded a FAB Echoa few weeks ago, based on the info found here. I just made a few things differently and added more controls as follows:
- Traditional SPDT switch inside FAB Echo enclosure for the Mix Mod
- Added a stereo jack for the foot controller

Controlled by the foot controller:
- Infinity repeats mode controlled with a momentary switch
- Two selectable Delay time pots (dpdt push-button switch)
- Modulation effect using an oscillator (dpdt toggle switch)
- Factory mode (another momentary switch)

Sound sample/video here:
http://youtu.be/vomqV3gZEgg

I hope you guys like it! Cheers!
Gui

What makes the self oscillation footswitch work? I'd love to see a step by step.

[72Telecaster]

Bumping this old thread -

Just did the time pot mod - glad I bought 2 of these; after frying the first (resistor trace and pin 6 of the PT2399  )I dove into #2 last night.  I made sure to goop the wire right after I soldered it so it'd stay in place, which helped a lot.  I used a 100K linear pot, with wiper to pin 6 and pot lug 1 to ground...

It sounds great ! ...up to about 9:00 on the time knob (maybe 250-300ms?), where it then develops a wonky modulated sound and a loud thump percussion.  Any clue why this would be ?  From previous posts it seemed folks were getting close to 1ms before "freakout" ha.

Any help would be appreciated!

[fraser]

hope im not committing a faux pas by bumping this thread-

did the mods and loved it.
have a problem when setting the repeats pot to a single slap-
gives me a high pitched squeal.
in my attempts to correct this, i modded it until it was broken, then fixed it.

first i broke pin 6 off the pt2399, just like pinkjimi did-
wasnt enough hair there to resolder, so i ground into the chip casing with a dremel and got enough exposed to make it work.
first time i ever tried that- was worth the cost of the pedal right there, though i couldve selected a cheaper victim.

also added a high cut switch and cap off the mix pot.
works nicely.

all was good.

then i tried to reverse the feedback mod, thinking that might be the cause of the squeal.
managed to wipe a resistor off. then another.
replaced them with 1/4 watt resistors and epoxied the whole mess so i cant screw it up anymore.

still have that high pitched squeal with the repeats pot backed off-
a minor irritation.

built a modulation board that sounds great with it, so ill dig further when i attempt to stuff that in there.

[blackcorvo]

As this is the most referenced topic in regards to mods for this pedal, I thought it would be good to post about it here.
I have added the time control to my FAB Echo, and I love it! I thought I'd want to do the other mods, but I'm happy with just this one.
I simply soldered two wires in place of the resistor on pin 6 of the PT2399 (at 3AM, and I managed to NOT destroy the pads!), and ran them to a 100k Linear potentiometer, which I installed on the empty spot on the pedal:



The pot I used came from a fried Danelectro Honeytone (which will become another project, very soon). These miniature potentiometers work very well for this purpose.

[Einard]

Very old topic but very detailed and very inspiring!

I modded a FAB Echoa few weeks ago, based on the info found here. I just made a few things differently and added more controls as follows:
- Traditional SPDT switch inside FAB Echo enclosure for the Mix Mod
- Added a stereo jack for the foot controller

Controlled by the foot controller:
- Infinity repeats mode controlled with a momentary switch
- Two selectable Delay time pots (dpdt push-button switch)
- Modulation effect using an oscillator (dpdt toggle switch)
- Factory mode (another momentary switch)

Sound sample/video here:
http://youtu.be/vomqV3gZEgg

I hope you guys like it! Cheers!
Gui

I know this is an old post but i'm modding a pedal for the first time and decided to make my echo my first victim.

I wanted to know, for the momentary switch for infinite feedback mod, how do you set it up? is it a matter of just getting a 2 or 3 pin momentary footswitch and then soldering the pins to the ends of the resister that you short for the inf. feedback mod?

I also want to replace the current pots with pots that aren't stuck to the board so that i can reorient them however id like when i rehouse the pedal entirely. I would also like to do this with the input and output jacks, and the footswitch as well.

Can anyone here recommend which pots and which jacks i should stick to in order to replace the current ones properly?

Thanks in advance for any future help you guys can provide me

[Mark Hammer]

I wanted to know, for the momentary switch for infinite feedback mod, how do you set it up? is it a matter of just getting a 2 or 3 pin momentary footswitch and then soldering the pins to the ends of the resister that you short for the inf. feedback mod?

Yes.

I also want to replace the current pots with pots that aren't stuck to the board so that i can reorient them however id like when i rehouse the pedal entirely. I would also like to do this with the input and output jacks, and the footswitch as well.

Can anyone here recommend which pots and which jacks i should stick to in order to replace the current ones properly?

There is a lot of surface-mount stuff in there, with small traces.  My advice for a beginner would be to leave well-enough alone.  Dealing with broken or lifted traces is no picnic.  I realize it's only a $20 pedal, but you still want it to work properly at the end, and not become one more thing to get around to fixing.  Those enclosures are not exactly friendly to modification.

Thanks in advance for any future help you guys can provide me

Our/my pleasure.  It's what we do here.