Building the tap tempo tremolo

[Hides-His-Eyes]

Pretty self explanatory there mate. Something's grounding out your pots.

[Taylor]

The resistor next to the wave distort pads is not involved in the wave distort function - they both connect to 5v but their functioning is independent, so don't worry about that.

If your pots' 5v connection was getting grounded, we'd expect the 5v connection of the wave distort pot to be the same. Can you post a pic of your build, or tell us how you've wired the pots?

[blues_mang]

Taylor, I finally finished up mine and I just wanted to say what a great design and great pedal. I never thought the day would come that my Tremulus Lune would be pushed off of my board, but this pedal has finally done it. Everything I ever wanted in a Tremolo. Here's the pics of my build:





Hats off to you sir and keep up the great work.

[Taylor]

Great build! Nice clean job.

[blues_mang]

Thanks. This is truly a great pedal and I'm hoping to get some clips recorded soon that I can share.

[EDLK]

I just completed my 2nd full build of this circuit. After not be able to debug The first build trying everything suggested and previously tried to get rid of the ticking in the first three wave forms.  I started from scratch, new board, new components, nothing reused from the first build. I have yielded the same results.  You can see from my previous posts all that was tried on the first build.
The only new symptom and effect I can add is that with the led disconnected the tick in the first three wave forms is half as loud as with the led connected.
Needless to say I am getting close to bringing the pedal out to the driveway and running it over with my truck.
If not for the tap tempo ability of this circuit, Which is what makes this trem unique ,  I would have had my tantrum long ago.
I am out of ideas, anyone who is willing to take this on would be my hero.
Ed

[Taylor]

Sorry you're having so much trouble Ed. This might be something to try:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=84020.msg774688#msg774688

[EDLK]

I did try this, it did not reduce the ticking any more than when the led was diconnected.

[Hides-His-Eyes]

Does it still tick with the guitar disconnected from the input? (bridge the ground switching on the input jack if you use that)

The ticking might represent transients in changing the amplitude of noise going INTO the pedal, rather than any inherent problem.

[EDLK]

I will give anything a try at this point however I have tested it in several location a nd different amps.  As well as different power supplies and batteries.  The tick is only in the firs three wave forms and non existent in the others.
Tested with just a jack in the input to switch the unit on the tick is the same as when played through the complete rig

[EDLK]

I played around with the led and wire leads coming off the board to the led.
With the LEd disconnected the tick drops in volume by about 75%
Even with the wire leads disconnected from the led, if you put the ends in close proximity to one another the ticking comes back up in volume.
The farther you spread the ends of the leads the more the volume of the tick drops out?
I tried the 10 k resistor from ground to the pos. side of the led. and could not notice any change in the tick.
Perhaps I am not placing it correctly?
The tl072 and the tapflo are the only two components reused from the last build.
Could the problem reside in either of those?
Ed

[LocalGuitar]

This may be a beginners question.  I've beautifully soldered everything to teh PCB.  I also connected the 3PDT as well as the momentary switches.  My question is about the input/output jacks.  The diagram (update with LED hard wired directly to the board not the 3PDT) shows 1 wire going to each from the 3PDT.  I have the mono jacks with 2 terminals on each.  What goes on the other terminals?  Is it a ground?  I noticed on some of the completed pics in this thread that it appears the input jack has 2 wires going to it and the output jack only 1 wire.  Also I am uncertain if the wires off the 3PDT are supposed to go to the tip or the ring terminal on the jack. 

I am anxious to plug this thing in and see if it works.  I just don't want to fry anything out by wiring in the jacks wrong.  I'm a bit of a newbie.  If anyone can clear this up for me it'd be great.  Thanks.

[Taylor]

Yes, that wiring doesn't show the ground, since it's kind of assumed that you've built some pedals before this one. It's really not a good first project.

The wires shown from the switch to the jack go to the tip of the jacks. Connect the sleeves and the ground wire from the 3pdt switch to the ground tab of your power jack.

[EDLK]

there are some great off board wiring diagrams available at Tonepad.com

[LocalGuitar]

Thanks for the clarification.  I am an aircraft electrician by trade so I am quite familiar with electronics although I am fairly new to the DIY Pedal market.  I built 2 pedals years ago and decided to try this one.  With the help of the posts in this thread I'm confident I can weed out any issues that I may run into once I fire it up.  Thanks again.

[jonny]

I've just been doing a whole heap of breadboarding using the taplfo and i think I may have a cure for ticking! So putting a 10uf* cap inbetween the base and emitter(or gnd) of the transistor completely removed my ticking. I don't know why this really works, when I first heard the ticking i was like hmm.. lets try putting caps in places that may help and this seems to do the trick.

I get absolutely no ticking with my amp on 10 before if i turned it up to 5 or 6 it would be insanely loud with ticks. At the moment i'm doing my trem passive so when i actually finish this thing up we'll see if it's really a cure... Also it doesn't alter the waveform as far as I can tell too. When I made this on the square wave I never got it quite right, I'll test it on my actual board soon..

* (i'm using 22u used 3.3u and you could still hear a little ticking so 10u+ should be okay i think)

[EDLK]

what type of cap are you using, film or electrolytic?
Thanks Ed

[jonny]

I'm using an electrolytic (+ve to base) , but I tried this on taylors board and it didn't help that much  , even though what I have on the breadboard is basically the same deal. It might be worth a try still, i'll post back later when i give it a better go.

[EDLK]

I tried a 10 u and 22 U on the Tr1
It did cut the ticking by 60-70%, however, it did not knock it out of the signal
Also it flattened out the the 2nd and 6th wave forms to a point they would be un-usable.

What type of Opto are you using, where did you purchase it.  I have been using the nsl-32 from small bear

[jonny]

i'm using a homemade one ~500k off 10k on roughly the same as the nsl-32. Double check you have it on the emitter and not the collector. If you put it on the collector you'll lose a lot of depth. (you could try a small cap collector to ground but this will mess with your depth.)

So on the 2nd and 6th waveforms, how do they become unusable? It doesn't seem to be affecting the waveforms at all for me. Also a larger than 22u cap may help you, but if it's messing with your waveforms it'll probably make that worse.