Have you built a Univibe speed rocker?

[R.G.]

Have any of you actually built a working 'vibe speed rocker pedal from a wah enclosure and a dual pot?

[joegagan]

never messed with a univibe except to play some boutique ones.

if a dual gang is needed, pot durability is gonna be a problem. a large allen bradley heavy duty dual gang requires some enclosure cutting to fit in the standard pot mount of a crybaby.

my experiments involved putting a second pot on it's own bracket.  i suggest slotted holes in your bracket, and you can thread the same 6/32 thread into the crybaby shell to eliminate a nut. the sltted screw holes allow you to line up with the original pot easily.

advantages to a second bracket:

-pot choices , more economical and varied.

- user can mix values not commonly avail in duals.

- the two pots can be varied in their relationship to one another. not sure if this has any relevance in a univibe circ(?)

never mind the crude protoyping workmanship in these pics, when proto-ing i favor speed over prettiness. they both work great, and that is what counts in the experiment.

[joegagan]

yes, there are dual gang a-b pots.

no, don't try the quick 'n dirty method i used to try and cram this into a crybaby:

[petemoore]

  OT...fine workin' mess Joe !!
  Reminds me of what I did before any Stompbox build reading...I used transformer bells [large] to mount 4 jacks and 2 pots in...between the pots ['u-frame' mounted to face shafts at eachother] was a ''wheeled'-flexible shaft'' [clear tubing which was held in place by the two potshafts >-l-< ['pot>'-tube-/wheel/-tube'<pot']...the tips of the potshafts about 1/2'' apart, the clear tube between them, then a re-inforced can lid to become the l [wheel] between the two pots, having the tube sticking through...
  Then I positioned the 2 pots on a wheel [the pots turn in opposite directions...] so the wheel stuck out a little bit on top and one side [spacing the transformer bells to accomodate]...worked as expected - [some loading issues]...really looked the mess.
  Anyone know a good place to start a search for all 'wah-mechanical' patents ?
  pot durability is gonna be a problem.
  A pot durability problem may seem immediately apparent as a problem in a wah, in a SS phaser, the scritch-pot added an interesting element [IMO] to the sweep speed treadling, a slow treadle could produce a quick 'indexing' of the sweep ... all of a sudden the phase is in 'this' position, which added to the random aspect of sweep, a 'feature' [not easily replicated] instead of a drawback...a blast of fast down where the 'wide'-slow section is...cool !
  Perhaps it's possible to damage a pot without opening it...touch of epoxy rolled off of one side of a steel string, onto the wafer or wafer scrape ?

[joegagan]

good one, pete. i can picture what you did.

more notes on putting two pots in one crybaby shell

on the added pot, better to have a round shaft instead of a 'd' shaft so the pot to pot ref can be tuned. after tuning, std. barrel pin is drilled in and locked onto the shaft.

for prototyping, i also epoxied two bakelite knobs with brass inserts together( back to back) to make a two-pot connector that can be locked onto each shaft independantly.

[MicFarlow77]

Hi All,

I haven't yet, but I'd venture to say that I probably could based on this pic:



As you can tell, there is plenty of room here to move the rack to the middle and use two pots, or a single ganged pot.

I need to order up some pinions from Steve and another dual ganged pot for the Uni-Vibe and see what I can work up that can be easily replicated (for me at least) and easily installed (for the average builder here) and customizable for whoever buys it.

Joe, I applaud your ingenuity and creativity! Great work to get something done when it needs to be done.

There are many on these boards who are a credit to the DIY spirit that drives creativity and you are certainly one of them!

Thanks all,

Mick

[MicFarlow77]

good one, pete. i can picture what you did.

more notes on putting two pots in one crybaby shell

on the added pot, better to have a round shaft instead of a 'd' shaft so the pot to pot ref can be tuned. after tuning, std. barrel pin is drilled in and locked onto the shaft.

for prototyping, i also epoxied two bakelite knobs with brass inserts together( back to back) to make a two-pot connector that can be locked onto each shaft independantly.

Hey Joe,

I'd think with the right bracket setup and pot location, you could turn one pot with respect to the other in the bracket to index them as it were. At least that is my thinking right off the bat, not having tried anything else that may indeed work as well.

Thanks,

Mick

[joegagan]

hey mick , thank you. i love your pedal. i predict you will sell more of them than you actually have time to build.

you stated what i didn't express very clearly - that the indexing of the pots relative to one another is one of the big plusses. in my experiments this provided great control of two circuits simultaneously, giving really nice sounds.

[MicFarlow77]

hey mick , thank you. i love your pedal. i predict you will sell more of them than you actually have time to build.

I hope you are correct. I have some more work to do before I start full production and I need to get a prototype out to John so he can do further testing, after that, production madness!!!!!!!!!

Thanks,

Mick

[joegagan]

sorry about the sidetrack rg

[BINGEWOOD]

I stuck a Neovibe into a Rotovibe shell.



Don't mind the rat's nest.  This was my first complexish build from a while back, still need to revisit and clean it up.



Not sure if this qualifies for what yer asking about RG.  I used a dual pot from Radioshack, seems to work well.

[petemoore]

  Looks good, and qualifies as one fine phase sound I reckon, speed treadle on phase is a great option to have [I have a Small Stone that uses the 'spring / string' pot-turning apparatus, very DIY, I started with a flat sided knob...pulley...'super' rubber band.

[BRingoC]

Bingewood, is that extra enclosure attached to the pedal? if so how did you do it, I am thinking of putting a pedal together and i may need extra room and was thinking of 'grafting' another enlcosure onto a larger one.

[sfx]

Probably a dumb question... might a Neovibe PCB fit inside one of those Univibe foot controllers that Dunlop currently sells?

[BINGEWOOD]

I used some lamp parts and washers/plastic spacer from the local hardware store to add the "sidecar".  I wanted to be able to turn the Neo on and off without changing the speed setting.  Sorry for the low quality of pix but I'm just using the camera built into my laptop under less than ideal lighting.









I had to sand the plastic spacer at an angle to match the sloped sides of the enclosures so the sidecar could sit flush with the bottom of the rocker enclosure.  I made a new bottom plate which covers both enclosures and is screwed in place using the usual wah rubber feet.

[joegagan]

sidecar, cool! i love that detail, very nice how you hooked it up

[analogmike]

I used to build them using a dual pot from radio shack, worked OK but the pot mounting was suspect.

From my website:

http://www.analogman.com/vibecont.htm

Making a Speed control pedal for Original Uni-Vibe type pedal like Ultravibe or original Captain Coconut (not CC2)

1. First you need a shell like a dunlop crybaby or univibe speed control pedal.

2. Take everything out of the case but the toothed rack which turns the pot gear and the bushing that presses up against it.

3. Get a pot at radio shack, part # 271-1732C Stereo Volume Control 100K dual-ganged with audio taper.

4. Grind down the shaft on the pot to make one round side flat, with a file on a vice or better yet a Dremel tool. Grind it off enough so the gear from the old Dunlop pot will just fit. You may have to remove a c-clip with snap ring pliers to get the gear off the old dunlop pot.

5. Mount the pot onto the wah case, will probably need to get some bigger, thin washers or grind down the mounting area as the mount is almost as thick as the flange on the pot. Use loctite or glue to keep it tight after it is mounted.

6. Adjust the gear so you do not run out of range on either end. Usually one tooth from max when you have the pedal pushed down all the way works best.

7. Cable: Get a 3-conductor patch cord to connect the controller to the coconut pedal, or some 3-conductor wire and a stereo 1/4" plug to plug into the Coconut and make your own cable. You can buy a wire with a plug already on it, radio shack has some in 20' lengths with another size plug recepticle on the other end. This is part# 42-2460 B, a 20' headphone cable. Cut off the 1/8" stereo mini jack and wire that end to the pot in the control pedal.

8. Wire the gear as below. Note the 2 middle lugs on the pot are connected together, and are attached to the ground lug on the plug. A jack is shown instead of a plug, but you should wire it up to the cable with a 1/4" stereo plug on the end with the corresponding wires going to the different contacts on the plug end.



Good luck!!!

[R.G.]

Mike, the reason I asked here is that a friend of mine has a vintage univibe, but no rocker. He wanted me to build him one, but I just don't have the time. Can you contact me by PM or email?

[Headshot]

Doesn't the original Univibe use a DIN connector to attach the speed pedal?   Also I believe the pedal won't work unless the speed controller is connected.

[R.G.]

Yes, the original uses a DIN, and also will not work without the pedal. The pedal contains the dual pot and the cancel switch. A very few of the originals will oscillate at the slowest of speeds with just the resistors inside, but most won't. An original without the pedal is essentially a bit of sculpture.

I hadn't looked in a few years. The going rate for an original on ebay is something between $1200 and $2500. That's scary. If I owned one, I'd sell it.

Kind of like "I wish I had enough money to buy an elephant."
"What do you want with an elephant?"
"I don't. I'd just like to have the money."