My new own design pedal.. the TEXAS BROWNIE

[dschwartz]

yes, i breadboarded it first and tweaked for a week or so..i strongly recommend breadboarding before building..

[Jimmy-H]

First of all, a really good design Daniel !
I like how it sounds.
And it looks great.

I made a scheme with all the changes you wrote.
The only thing that I have to figure out yet are the caps , for now I just put some caps to start with.
But I'll figure it out when I build it.
But I don't have the time yet.

Could you take a look at it Daniel, and check if it's alright?

[dschwartz]

hey!!! good work!!!!
it´s really nice that you took the time to do that!!

- S1 is ok, but the 680 resistor is actually 1k or so (680 is too much gain), and the 22nF to gnd is ommited..
- The 200p (or so) goes to the mid lug of the pot
- S2 is a SPDT, the point "to TS" is connected to the 100nF of the 1st u-amp OR the 680n of the 2nd. (in other words ommit S2 -1)
- tonestack is ok (i have other values, feel free to try)
- The vol select is a spdt (i use the other sw for the LED) it just takes the output from the mid lug of either pots..

again .. good work!!

[snap]

in the case S2 would pop, just wire a pulldown 1meg resistor to ground
on the righthanded sides of C14 and C3 each.

[Jimmy-H]

hey!!! good work!!!!
it's really nice that you took the time to do that!!

- S1 is OK, but the 680 resistor is actually 1k or so (680 is too much gain), and the 22nF to gnd is ommited..
- The 200p (or so) goes to the mid lug of the pot
- S2 is a SPDT, the point "to TS" is connected to the 100nF of the 1st u-amp OR the 680n of the 2nd. (in other words ommit S2 -1)
- tonestack is OK (i have other values, feel free to try)
- The vol select is a spdt (i use the other sw for the LED) it just takes the output from the mid lug of either pots..

again .. good work!!

So I have edited the scheme with your remarks Daniel.
But I didn't omit the 22nF cap.
Because I will use a on-off-on switch.
In this way you have three different values.
Up    :  22nF + 68nF = 90nF
Mid   : 22nF
Down: 22nF + 22nF = 44nF

Thanks for your time to look over it!

So here is the updated version:

[dschwartz]

hey ..congratz!! i did´n thought about a 3 position switch there..cool idea!!..tough i´d choose more extreme caps..there´s too little difference between 22, 44, and 90nF, try
22n, 33n and 100n for a 22/55/122nF combination..with 100nF at high gains it sounds similar to a big muff..but much nicer (i hate those)

[Jimmy-H]

hey ..congratz!! i did´n thought about a 3 position switch there..cool idea!!..tough i´d choose more extreme caps..there´s too little difference between 22, 44, and 90nF, try
22n, 33n and 100n for a 22/55/122nF combination..with 100nF at high gains it sounds similar to a big muff..but much nicer (i hate those)

Thanks!

Yeah I was planning to experiment with the caps when I start building this.
But it's good to have everything on paper in advance.

we'll wait for your next design!

[zencafe]

good work Daniel!

Very nice beast!

Greetings

Douglas

[hoopshot]

Daniel,

What kind of caps did you use for the larger values in the signal path? All of the poly
caps of this value that I've seen are pretty large. It sounds like people don't like using
tantalum.

Thanks,

--Will

[Jimmy-H]

Hi Daniel,

It's been a while that I contributed something on this forum.
Ah well been busy....

I finally had the time to finish this box.
It surely is a great design Daniel.

At first when I build it, I got oscillation from Hell!!
But shielded wire on all the off-board wiring in the audio path solved it (thank God!)

As you can see, I stayed close to your design, with scull and all.
Only it's a shame, that I placed the low-fat a bit to high, now the toggle switch is covering most of it.

I also used a two coloured led with the light emitting border.
Blue is normal, red is boost.
I thought it was a nice eye catcher!



As you can see, the knobs are close to the footswitch
But if you mount the footswiches as high as possible, you don't touch the knobs when engaging them.

So here are some more pictures:







The Guts


And scemo, layout and pcb transfer(scale down to 50 percent)







Keep on doing the good work Daniel!

[biggy boy]

Looks good Jimmy
I like to LED effect, you used just the one LED?
Thanks for making the layout and PCB, very nice of you to post it!

The Gain wires? Do thous two wires tie together as a jumper?
Or do they go to something like a switch?


Glen

[Jimmy-H]

Looks good Jimmy
I like to LED effect, you used just the one LED?
Thanks for making the layout and PCB, very nice of you to post it!

Thanks Glen!
And there is one led with two colours.
It's blue when the effect is on, and red if the boost (the other volume knob) is engaged
I also like that light-effect allot.
And that PCB and layout is a natural thing!
That's what we DIY-ers do it for isn't it?

The Gain wires? Do thous two wires tie together as a jumper?
Or do they go to something like a switch?

That wire is just one wire (indeed like a jumper), that I placed on the back side of the board.
Maybe the best thing to use is a shielded wire.
I made the layout that way, otherwise it becomes a little mess!

[danielzink]

Looks good Jimmy
I like to LED effect, you used just the one LED?
Thanks for making the layout and PCB, very nice of you to post it!

Thanks Glen!
And there is one led with two colours.
It's blue when the effect is on, and red if the boost (the other volume knob) is engaged
I also like that light-effect allot.
And that PCB and layout is a natural thing!
That's what we DIY-ers do it for isn't it?

The Gain wires? Do thous two wires tie together as a jumper?
Or do they go to something like a switch?

And the orange wire that goes from J4 to the pad over between R3 and C7 - is a single wire as well ? optical illusion - looks like it connects to each side of C3.

Thanks, Dan

That wire is just one wire (indeed like a jumper), that I placed on the back side of the board.
Maybe the best thing to use is a shielded wire.
I made the layout that way, otherwise it becomes a little mess!

[Jimmy-H]

And the orange wire that goes from J4 to the pad over between R3 and C7 - is a single wire as well ? optical illusion - looks like it connects to each side of C3.

You mean the wire that goes from drain Q4 to drain Q2 (9 volt)?
That's a single wire yes.

[dschwartz]

ohhhhh myyyy godd Jimmy!! thats a hell of a good work you´ve done!!! looks amazing!!!
i have to add that the gain pot is actually a 500KB, works much nicer than the 1MA. and for oscilations, i added a little cap to groung at the input of the first muamp..

did you liked the sound of it?

[Jimmy-H]

ohhhhh myyyy godd Jimmy!! thats a hell of a good work you´ve done!!! looks amazing!!!
i have to add that the gain pot is actually a 500KB, works much nicer than the 1MA. and for oscillations, i added a little cap to ground at the input of the first muamp..

did you liked the sound of it?

Thanks Daniel!
I really liked your version to!
As for the gain knob, maybe I'll try that in a while, but it's working fine now....
Thanks for the hint.

If it's the 100 pF cap you are talking about, than it's already there, but the shielded wires did the trick with my build.

And the sound, I love it   
And it's true what you said about the versatility of this design.
I also like it with a slide, with the gain all the way up, and only one FET-stage (that's raw) and the second switch in the middle (low fat).

Once again thanks Daniel, and we will wait for the next design of yours!

[dschwartz]

i´m very happy that you like it. but now that you "cracked the code" i´m a little worried about my IP. I have no problem with the schems being public, but i´m not really comfortable with the PCB being public. I sell this pedals in really small quantities, and i know that this one specifically has a lot of potential and it´s my pride and joy. I have had issues with people cloning my pedals before for sale and i know i can´t really do anything about it but rant.

I have no problem if you share the pcb via private email with your peers if it´s going to be built for personal use, cause I´d be really bummed if i see someone else selling clones of this.

[Jimmy-H]

I'm very happy that you like it. but now that you "cracked the code" I'm a little worried about my IP. I have no problem with the schems being public, but I'm not really comfortable with the PCB being public. I sell this pedals in really small quantities, and i know that this one specifically has a lot of potential and it's my pride and joy. I have had issues with people cloning my pedals before for sale and i know i can't really do anything about it but rant.

I have no problem if you share the PCB via private email with your peers if it's going to be built for personal use, cause I'd be really bummed if i see someone else selling clones of this.

Oke, if you are uncomfortable about the PCB and layout, I will remove it here.
I'm surely not a commercial guy, so there is no worries.
I thought because all the information was public , that there was no problem to share the PCB.
But I respect your feelings, so thanks for sharing your information to help me build this pedal !
Still I will wait for your next design!!