Dr Boogie Build journal/log

[deadastronaut]

started testing. woops I soldered the input jacks back to front so the tip was ground
fixed that, there's still squealing if you turn the mid up, and when it does work there's no sustain on it however it does sound badass.
I've roughly biased by ear, and the wiring is an absolute mess, I might redo it

questions:
do i ground to the enclosure?.....the jacks will do that..
do i ground the backs of the pots?..i never do...
will crummy soldering cause noises?....maybe!..
i have a 5k pot for Mid, what do i do to halve it to 2.5k?....you could whack a 5k resistor to outer lugs to make it 2.5k....IIRC..

whoops euro already answered...

cheers

questions:
do i ground to the enclosure?.....the jacks will do that..
do i ground the backs of the pots?..i never do...
will crummy soldering cause noises?....maybe!..
i have a 5k pot for Mid, what do i do to halve it to 2.5k?....you could whack a 5k resistor to outer lugs to make it 2.5k....

Did you use shielded wire on your input?...otherwise you may have built a radio too!..

[Blatant]

oh its a radio alright, if i touch a component, or even move my hand over it the oscillation changes tone. I'm pretty pleased it worked first go, so now I just need to tweak it.
any ideas on the sustain/note decay?
might try the 9v filter or buffering the input.

[deadastronaut]

its a funny old beast when it comes to biasing, heres what i do anyway..by ear..

i turn my guitar down low...then bias the trim that makes it sound gated...this way you'll get the proper attack and decay ....

then do the rest to taste...thats my method..i wouldnt go by voltages on this.....by ear!!!!...

[Blatant]

which trim does the gating? I followed the gaus PCB. trim1?

[deadastronaut]

cant remember off hand.... youll know when you try it...

[Blatant]

you could whack a 5k resistor to outer lugs to make it 2.5k....IIRC..

you mean connect lugs 1 and 3 via the resistor?

[deadastronaut]

yep  ....

5k connected to pin 1 and 3....

did you get your trims decay /attack sorted?.

[Blatant]

nah I didn't try to be honest. it sounds okay, a little fizzy though.
I'll probably have to redo all the offboard wiring i think.

[dc098]

I have built two of em so far.  You wanna keep your wiring as short as possible, shield the input and output. 
There are some great you tube videos as far as biasing.  I ended up biasing a little hotter to keep it stable

[Blatant]

Yeah I followed the biasing videos, and kept it to about 4.5v and it was terrible, by ear is the only way I can get it to work - I'll emasure the voltages tonight.

Another interesting note, my bass knob is reverse taper (woops) will reversing the wiring work?

[Earthscum]

I haven't tried the boogie yet, but I've found my preference for high gain fet circuits to bias the first stage at 4.5V, and all others following the gain pot at 5.5-6V.

[Blatant]

re-wired it today and added in the LED indicator. here's a before shot



notice how messy that birds nest is

as for the LED, when i press the switch the LED flashes bright then dims so its barely visible.  I've got a resistor on it at the correct value (220ohm) and as far as I can tell it's wired correctly.  Any suggestions?
as an interesting side note, the pedal no longer works >.> I think it needs to be biased again haha. CBF tonight so I'll do that tomorrow. Its getting to that point where my eyes are too full of solder smoke to focus.

here's after. Much neater

[deadastronaut]

led dims?..... are you using a /dead/dying battery?....

use a psu to bias it...

[Blatant]

using a 1spot. confirmed working on a chain of 5 purchased pedals. its running my build solo at the minute though

[Blatant]

Okay I had a blonde moment.
3PDT switches. schematic had the lugs like so:
- - -
- - -
- - -

I wired it
l l l
l l l
l l l

hah, dint even notice.. Thank christ for my trusty multimeter with the continuity tester. Figured it all out in the end.
sounds FREAKING brutal. I'm happy. it stacks nicely with my kanji as a boost (not that it needs one haha).
exceptional on my amps clean channel. I could probably spend another hour or so REALLY dialing in the bias, but for now I'm annoying the neighbors \m/

thanks to all who replied patiently with my dumb questions in particular deadastronaut

[deadastronaut]

GREAT!....YOU ARE NOW A METAL MEISTER!!!....

i love mine through a clean marshall channel....@#$%ing nice!........


finished pic?....

[Blatant]

completed pic:
I have white paint for the wording of the knobs but I'm loathe to ruin a good thing

[deadastronaut]

looks good to me!....yep its a good thing to know when to stop tinkering...

i finished my double dr boogie...its great now!...

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=36392.msg784168#msg784168


btw 'letraset rub on letters are good for a quick labelling job...you can get white letters off the web...
or you could use waterslide stuff...

[Blatant]

looks good to me!....yep its a good thing to know when to stop tinkering...

i finished my double dr boogie...its great now!...

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=36392.msg784168#msg784168


btw 'letraset rub on letters are good for a quick labelling job...you can get white letters off the web...
or you could use waterslide stuff...

your build looks sick mate, much more flexible I bet!

I did plan on using waterslide but the decals I got borked my printer so I'm not game to try again haha.