Building the Meat Sphere

[1878]

Could I use a normal stereo jack in place of the switching jack for the effects loop ??

Thanks.

[jmasciswannabe]

You could do that  and wire it so that as long as you had a pedal o patch it would work. Otherwise, your signal would stop at fx send.

[1878]

Finished it a couple of days ago.

I never thought I'd have use for an envelope filter... Love it !!

[nocentelli]

Love the graphic: Where did you get the rotary switch knobs?

[1878]

I think they were on Ebay. I buy or acquire a lot of stuff for 'future use' if it catches my eye though, so they could be from anywhere in all honesty.

[Taylor]

Whoa, great build! I think Allied Electronics sells similar knobs.

[Jopn]

So many sexy builds!  Hopefully the PCBs come back in stock in August as expected.  I'm itching to get this beast of a project going!

[4floorsofwhores]

Re those great knobs. I just found some at poodle's pedal parts.co.uk. Lovely. Might finally box this one up

[Nicofromfrance]

I'm going to order parts for this build, but as I see pot tapers (A,B,C pots etc) are not the same between USA and Europe, what are the correct tapers to order for the Meatball? I mean I can't tell if the tapers in the build pdf are USA or Europe standards.

In USA:
    A - Audio or Log taper
    B - Linear taper

In Europe:
    A - Linear taper
    B - Audio or Log taper

(from the build pdf:)
Potentiometers
2 - B10K
1 - B1K
1 - B100K
1 - A100K
1 - B5K

Thanks!

[nocentelli]

The decay pot is 100k audio, the rest are linear as far as I know. These tapers work well in my build.

[Nicofromfrance]

Thanks for the quick answer!

[JaviCAP]

Hello,

It's August 17th... whn these new pcbs will be available?

Thanks in advance.

[GoranP]

yeah i'll be taking one as well when they come back in stock.

[nocentelli]

Can anyone suggest a simple-ish way to add a switch to position the FX loop either a) "normal", i.e. post-input, pre-filter or b) pre-input?

[4floorsofwhores]

Finally finished my build. worked fine until i broke a rotary switch boxing it up. I've tried everything to get the switch out without damaging the board. ANy thoughts anyone? gutted

[Vince_b]

Try a solder sucker. I hope it doesn't sound rude lol

[Taylor]

I have used a desoldering iron from Radio Shack for this type of thing. It's just one of their cheap irons attached to a solder sucker, but it's easier to use than separate tools.

[soggybag]

Finished it a couple of days ago.

I never thought I'd have use for an envelope filter... Love it !!

Great build 1878, love the graphic design.

I built one of these some time ago and was just revisiting my build. I was never really happy with the performance. It's really finicky, some settings don't do much, and I really need to dial in a rudimentary envelope filter sound. Rereading this thread, and ran across these posts by LaceSensor:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=92894.msg860876#msg860876
and
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=92894.msg863314#msg863314

I used VTL5C3s for the photo couplers. I think I'm going to take them out, add some sockets and try some different types here. LaceSensor mentions green LEDs, seem to remember seeing these in pictures of the original Meatball. Will post results...

[soggybag]

A quick test of some random LED and LDRs, and there's a noticeable difference in the envelope. I'll have to experiment more. I think there was more range of difference here than experimenting with the op-amp.

I used some random yellow LEDs and some LDRs from futurel, PHOTOCELL2. http://www.futurlec.com/Photocells.shtml These seem to have the 10K to 1M range suggested by LaceSensor.

[LaceSensor]

The original Lovetone pedals use 5mm diffuse green LEDs
Thats what I have used in the two of these that I have built.
I took a best guess at the LDR and 1M/10K works brilliantly. I have a real 96 model to compare to

However, an oddity: In my last build, 4 x 1458 chips wouldnt envelope at all.
So I tried some other op amps. Only ones that worked were ne5532s....
So ...go figure?!