Building the Echo Base PCB

[El Heisenberg]

Drill plans for the enclosure would be cool in the PDFs.


That was the only problem really. Im no good at drilling straight. And poor planning led to a big hole that i dont want inthe front o the enclosure. It was gunna be beautiful but now it looks bleh



Soubds great tho. So easy to biuld even using the crap i did.




The clean signal kill switch mod is sorta flawed cos you cant bypass the echobase without turning the clean back on.

[El Heisenberg]

And i think i might be getting a tiny bit of that distortion with my humbuckers. I usedmm the 22k sub resistors but left in the diodes.

[Taylor]

The clean signal kill switch mod is sorta flawed cos you cant bypass the echobase without turning the clean back on.

It's not flawed, but some thought is required by the person doing the mod. I realize that the point of me putting those PDFs together is to make things easier and keep people from reinventing wheels, but, at the same time I think a little bit of DIY helps hone our skills.   This is the kind of thing that doesn't require any actual electronics theory, so we can reason our way through it.

So, when the pedal is bypassed, we need to reconnect the connection that is broken by the clean kill mod. To do that, we need to duplicate the clean kill switch, but make this duplicate only connect those points when the pedal is bypassed; otherwise the clean kill switch is in control of this connection. We need an SPST minimum. If we take a look at the way the bypass switch is wired in this pedal, we notice that it only uses a single pole and a single throw, even though most stomp switches are DPDT minimum. That leaves us with a free pole and throw...  

[snarblinge]

thanks guys for bringing this to my attention,as this mod is on my list, I wish it had come up before I placed my parts order, but al least it did before I start the build and can't figure out why it does that.

[El Heisenberg]

Eh, i already thought about that, taylor but i used an old SPDT switch from a wah for the bypass. Couldnt imagine wasting a 3PDT if i only need one pole. Dont have any stomp DPDTs.

[El Heisenberg]

Well i took the 3PD out of my DH pitch shifter to use it in this. Clean kill works when bypassed now.

Though lifting the diodes would raise the volume of the delay.


Im still interested in the waveform  mod in the pdf at the bottom.

But i wanna use a toggle switch to just switch from each extreme. When the 25k pot is turned left or right it acts as either 265k resistor or a 25k resistor? Correct? To swirtch it in id just have to switch in a 25k instead of the 240k?

[Taylor]

Im still interested in the waveform  mod in the pdf at the bottom.

But i wanna use a toggle switch to just switch from each extreme. When the 25k pot is turned left or right it acts as either 265k resistor or a 25k resistor? Correct? To swirtch it in id just have to switch in a 25k instead of the 240k?

No, you're thinking of this wrong, but it's my fault for not creating a schematic which shows what the mods are doing schematically.

The pot is not working like a variable resistor, it's just panning between the portion of the circuit where the LFO is a square, and the part where it's triangular. If you want a switch, just replace the pot in the diagram with an SPDT. The pole replaces the wiper, the 2 throws replace the outer lugs of the pot. Still put the 240k resistor where it is in the drawing.

[El Heisenberg]

Eh my fault for not bein able to think it thru! Thanks

[El Heisenberg]

haha!!! +10000 on the waveform toggle mod. It sounds great!

[Barcode80]

I've made a drill template for Taylor's arrangement of components. It is meant for 125B enclosures, but with some alterations you could use it for the BB enclosures:
http://www.pjpedals.com/projectfiles/EchoBaseDrill.pdf

Enjoy!

[Taylor]

Thanks Barcode, so this will work with onboard pots - the way I did things in the first post? Very cool. 

[Barcode80]

Thanks Barcode, so this will work with onboard pots - the way I did things in the first post? Very cool. 

Yep, I literally just used the template 15 minutes ago to drill an enclosure and mount the board/pot assembly. The only caveat is that the in/out jack placement may need adjusting depending on the size and shape of the jacks.

[1878]

Built this up today & I have a problem or two.

1. The bypass switch doesn't engage/disengage the effect. It switches the LED on/off, but the effect is constantly on.

2. The effect itself is VERY distorted. The pots work as they should though.

I'm not sure if the modulation is working or not as the repeats are so distorted. Any ideas where I should start looking ?? The only sub I've made is the 22k/47k resistor humbucker mod.

Thanks in advance.

[Taylor]

Built this up today & I have a problem or two.

1. The bypass switch doesn't engage/disengage the effect. It switches the LED on/off, but the effect is constantly on.

So we know the switch wiring is good, and the 4066 is getting power and the switching signal, but the switch sections that control switching the audio are not switching. The first thing I'd check would be all the resistors around the 4066. Reflow your solder joints and check that you haven't put in any wrong resistors. You do have your tails switch wired up, right? Does the bypass work in either tails position?

2. The effect itself is VERY distorted. The pots work as they should though.

I'm not sure if the modulation is working or not as the repeats are so distorted. Any ideas where I should start looking ?? The only sub I've made is the 22k/47k resistor humbucker mod.

Thanks in advance.

I wonder if whatever's messed up that's causing the switching not to work is also not biasing the 4066 i/o, which I would think could slam the signal into one of the power rails. Trace through the circuit with your audio probe to see where it begins being distorted, and let us know.

[1878]

Thanks for the reply.

I haven't had a chance to use the audio probe yet, but I've checked the resistors and they all seem to be the correct value etc. I've also just noticed that the LED had stopped working !?!? I swapped it for a new one and it's fine. I've got a couple of 4066's too, so I may swap one & see if that helps.

[Taylor]

Another thing: the LED flashes with the modulation, so even if you can't tell by the sound yet, you should be able to tell if the modulation is working that way.

[newfish]

Another thing: the LED flashes with the modulation, so even if you can't tell by the sound yet, you should be able to tell if the modulation is working that way.

...assuming you have adequate supply voltage.
I chased my tail figuring out why the modulation didn't really work / flash the LED - until I realised my 'test' battery was on its way out.

Best to check this with a wall-wart - then you'll know for sure if there is a fault on the board somewhere.

FWIW, this pedal is well worth the debugging - hang in there.

[El Heisenberg]

Is there a way to increase the delayed signal volume to the same as the bypasssed? You cant really cut the clean to use vibe mode since the vibe signal is SO quiet

[slacker]

On mine even with the the 47k to 22k resistor swap, with the level on full, the delayed sound is at least as loud as bypassed. If you want more volume from the delay find the 10k resistor from the wiper of the level pot and make it smaller, it's the one next to pin 1 of the CD4066.

[El Heisenberg]

Cool. Maybe i put a 15k in there since the green is so hard to tell from the black.