'SPITFIRE' Metal 'n' Blues Pedal...

[deadastronaut]

i'll have to give that a go one day...

[Maik]

Jip Rob, go for it! It etches more consistent. And it takes 4 to 8 min...

[mr_deadmaxxx]

Ok so I gave this one a go on the breadboard awhile ago..and to my surprise, the pedal itself has its own delay with two repeats..
Though there is an audible hiss in the background, and a volume drop as compared to the bypass signal. 

[deadastronaut]

delay ?   

less than unity?... theres something wrong there....i have massive volume on mine...much much more than unity...

[mr_deadmaxxx]

yes a delay..it's like you connected an echo base with this with 2 repeats setting..i disconnected some capacitors but still the delay doesn't go away so I guess this is like an added feature?
i dunno about the volume drop..even at max volume and max gain, it's still less than unity..

[deadastronaut]

WEIRD.... are you sure your soundcard on your pc is set right.!!!...thers no way it can delay!!!!...
but am interested in 'how the f... you get delay on it...

defo something wrong there....should be plenty of vol and gain

got a pic of breadboard...?....or soundclip?...

[mr_deadmaxxx]

Oh by the way, I used my laptop as input signal. I just played a song in the media player and set it to repeat every time the song ends. That's where I noticed the delay. The last signal from the song was repeated like the circuit itself has it's own delay. I listened again to the original song(without the circuit) and definitely there's no delay at the end of it. And when I connected the circuit again, tada the built-in delay feature is back again.

Can't provide photos for now as I disassembled it for a moment. But mostly I used mylar and ceramic capacitors. I used 100k for the tone control. One thing I notice on the volume drop issue is that when I remove the mod caps and just shorted them, the signal is boosted a little, but still not on unity.. I tried placing another JFET stage at the end to recover the volume loss but all I got was weird distorted signal. 

[deadastronaut]

sounds like you need to turn off 'monitoring' on your sound card!...i get delay if i have that on...

try unticking  a few settings on your laptop sound device!..


you shouldn't need a recovery at all....which version were you looking at v3?....its fine, ive built 3 of them..

[Maik]

Put a pot for delaytime and then it´s V4!

[mr_deadmaxxx]

Yes, I was following the V3 layout on my breadboard..

[deadastronaut]

talking of v4.. . i just knocked up a layout of WGTP'S mods...unverified,

not sure about how to switch between those caps either???......rotary?...what do you think?...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7464107/WGTPSPITFIREV4.pdf

from WGTP'S MOD schematic..
http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/WGTP/Spitfire-BSIAB+mod.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

[Maik]

Hm, rotary? Then it´s 5 knobs...
Couldn´t it be done with an on-on-on switch?
4 knobs and a switch looks better 

[deadastronaut]

yeah 4 knobs would be best...for 1590b...

i guess it could have a 0n/0n/0n...with a tweak of the cap values yes..!..

if we came off the 1uf then had a 6.8n  to a 6.8n = 3.4n

then the same 6.8n to a 10n= 5n ish..

the the same 6.8n to a .....hmmmm..... thats what i was thinking...

[gigimarga]

Hello all and many thanks for your fabulous work deadastronaut!
Spifire becames very fast one of my favorite distorsion pedal...I've built v2 and I want to upgrade it to v3, but I can't find any schematic of v3...have you posted one?

Best regards!

[deadastronaut]

hi gigimara, great, glad you built it and like it...nice one..

here ya go!... v3 is pretty much just the same, but simplified switching..more straight to the point!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7464107/SPITFIREV3.jpg


the pdf's are in my gallery (robert henry)

[WGTP]

I'm glad your in London and I'm in Newcastle - Oklahoma, USA in case it doesn't work.  Wish I knew more about switching.   Might just use sockets on standard switch and pick the 2 values that work the best for you. 

[deadastronaut]

ha ha...i'll find ya!!!!... 

i would bread it first anyway, but yeah thats probably best...just socket and choose..

did you bread your mod version?..

[WGTP]

The Mu/SRPP stage is on the bread board, but is running into 2 Fetzer valve type Jfet stages after that with 2 LED's to ground from the input of the last Jfet.  I have tried the various mods I've posted.  Also simmed a lot of the tone control stuff.  Should work if I drew things correctly.   

[Ronan]

I've been thinking of getting some V3 PCB's made up, doublesided 1.4" x 1.2". The PCB's would mount/hang from 16mm gain and vol pots, with the tone pot and switch connected with wires. Any interest? And would this be OK with you Rob if I made some pocket money/hobby money from doing this? If not, that is fine, no problem. I've had this PCB drawn up for near 3 weeks but haven't pulled the trigger, maybe waiting for some new development, when in fact I like it just the way it is!
Here's a pic.

[deadastronaut]

@ian: hi man, looks good, go for it...i haven't any problem with that!... as long as you verify your boards..

might i make one suggestion though, when i built mine i had the 3 pots in this way.... vol.. lugs facing down...tone pot lugs facing up...gain pot lugs down.. so they all aligned in a straight row...

so you could have all 3 pots on board...with careful measurements allowing for pcb/ lugs /component height (against pots) and pcb height in box/and  importantly knob spacing when fitted etc....

i was thinking about this the other day funnily enough, great minds and all that!..

there would even be room for a battery then if needed/wanted too...

i use my etching as my drill template, ive never done onboard pots, then drilled to fit etc.....so it would be interesting..and very neat and tidy too...cool.