Jake's Dr. Boogey build

[therockdemon]

I just made a perfect one.  



Here's the method:

I used a Crofton JP-5001 steam iron (with no water) 7 clicks from the max heat setting (in the "cotten" range").  I thoroughly cleaned the copper with one of those grease dish scrubs, Tarn-X, nail polish remover, and finally water (to wash away the nail polish remover since nail polish remover dissolves toner).  I placed the clad board on a cutting board with 1 sheet of toilet paper on top, and then the PREHEATED iron (this keeps the copper perfectly clean).  After about 45 seconds of preheating, I removed the iron and toilet paper sheet, placed my print (used paper from the Duck magazine) on the copper, 3-4 sheets of toilet paper on top, and then the iron.  I only ironed it for about 30 seconds if even that long MOVING CONSTANTLY (the toilet paper allows you to move without the iron being uneven or sticky on anything... instead, you get nice even pressure), picked up the board from the edge with tweezers and set in the freezer for about 30 secs.  I turned on the faucet to very warm water, and moved the board under the water.  Letting the water pour directly on the edge of the board (and the edge of the paper), the water washed off the magazine paper with NO TONER left on the paper IN ONE SINGLE PIECE!!  You can't beat that...  I'll be sure to perfect the ferric chloride etching process before I risk losing this bad boy.

I got my Mouser and Thai Shine shipments, as well as my multimeter, clad board (obviously) and a few other things.  Just need that damn chloride!

[J0K3RX]

I just made a perfect one.  No pictures needed... you'll see later though.  Anyway, here's the method:

I used a Crofton JP-5001 steam iron (with no water) 7 clicks from the max heat setting (in the "cotten" range").  I thoroughly cleaned the copper with one of those grease dish scrubs, Tarn-X, nail polish remover, and finally water (to wash away the nail polish remover since nail polish remover dissolves toner).  I placed the clad board on a cutting board with 1 sheet of toilet paper on top, and then the PREHEATED iron (this keeps the copper perfectly clean).  After about 45 seconds of preheating, I removed the iron and toilet paper sheet, placed my print (used paper from the Duck magazine) on the copper, 3-4 sheets of toilet paper on top, and then the iron.  I only ironed it for about 30 seconds if even that long MOVING CONSTANTLY (the toilet paper allows you to move without the iron being uneven or sticky on anything... instead, you get nice even pressure), picked up the board from the edge with tweezers and set in the freezer for about 30 secs.  I turned on the faucet to very warm water, and moved the board under the water.  Letting the water pour directly on the edge of the board (and the edge of the paper), the water washed off the magazine paper with NO TONER left on the paper IN ONE SINGLE PIECE!!  You can't beat that...  I'll be sure to perfect the ferric chloride etching process before I risk losing this bad boy.

I got my Mouser and Thai Shine shipments, as well as my multimeter, clad board (obviously) and a few other things.  Just need that damn chloride!

That's great! See, everybody has their own way of doing this stuff... I do a similar method but instead of toilet paper I use a piece of standard printer paper. I also use wetsand paper to clean the copper and I also use it to remove the toner after the etching process is done. I think P320 and P600 grit. The 320 is real fine and almost buffs it to a nice shine and the 600 is real good for getting the copper ready and also for removing the toner after the etching is done. The good thing about the wet sand paper is that it seems to last forever and I sand right under the faucet with the water running...  I don't mess with any chemicals like acetones or tarn X...  I would have never thought of the freezer thing! You can get the ferric chloride at radio shack by the way... it's kinda expensive there but in any case they do have it. I found that heating the ferric chloride in the microwave until warm seems to make it work a lot better... You can either let the boards soak in the ferric chloride or do what I do and slip on some of those latex surgical gloves and use a dish sponge over a bowl rubbing the copper with the dish sponge soaked in the ferric chloride in a circular motion you will be done in about 3 to 5 minutes... I don't think the ferric chloride is really dangerous if you get it on your skin(and I have) but it will turn your skin yellow so that what's up with the rubber gloves.  If you use the sponge method it's faster and you can use less ferric chloride. Also you can use ferric chloride that would almost be useless for soaking and ready to dispose of, in other words, you get more mileage out of it. Might want to trim your boards down a bit so your not etching all of the useless real-estate around the outer boarders.   Your transfers look perfect by the way!

[therockdemon]

Well, here we go!  FYI I used Jim's sponge method.. which worked great!  (Thanks Jim)  The holes appear to be around .03" or .04" I think, and I'll be drilling with a .039" bit.  I'm testing with a non-carbide bit first on a dummy I made, and if that doesn't work out so well, I'll buy a carbide or diamond set.  I see good circuit board drillbit sets on various sites, but I'm not going to pay extra if I don't have to.. thus the test dummy first.  The terminals I bought for attaching the pots and input say they require a .06" hole, but I'll figure something out as far as that goes.  I have learned to test these things on dummies first!  =]  I haven't even started the Tweak-O yet, and I want that totally completed before I start any soldering on the Boogie.

P.S. I know.. the corners are still on.  I can easily shave them off later, but for now they'll give me something to grab onto without fear of hurting the circuit with pliers.

[therockdemon]

I've been lazy lately... but not today!  I just tooled and wired up the Tweak-O pedal with a 3PDT switch, LED, and all that extra junk... all done today and it took forever due to learning and making small correctible mistakes, but what's to expect from my first pedal, right?  The only thing I didn't do was paint, and to be honest, I'm not too worried about it.  I have an arsenal of acrylics and Krylon coatings since my grandfather's girlfriend has a sort of business working with the stuff.

The Boogie is a "go".  I'm doing that one next... possibly this weekend!

FYI I changed my username on here in consideration to privacy.  =]

[therockdemon]

I'm unbelievably tired, but I just COMPLETED the Dr. Boogie.  I just assembled it today and it's in FULL WORKING condition, completely boxed up with all groundings etc.

One question... when biasing the JFETS, I was able to get each of the 4 trimmers to drain 5.5V except for #3 (not sure on proper terminology with this but I think I got my point across).  That one would only go to 5.0 even, and then it would stop and refuse to go higher.  Thoughts?  I thought these were supposed to sound best biased around 5.0-5.5 and I guess I'm in that range anyway.  It sounds good, but that one JFET has me a little confused.

[J0K3RX]

4.5v to 5v depending on what you like... 4.75v...

[haveyouseenhim]

I've always had great results by getting it as close as i can get to 4.5v

That's just my 2 cents

[therockdemon]

I ended up biasing them all to 5.0V, which I actually tend to prefer over 4.5V.  I have my EQ all dialed in and it absolutely sounds awesome.  I'm finding the treble knob is EXTREMELY sensitive, and the presence knob seems to have no effect whatsoever.  The circuit has more noise than I anticipated, but with the signal chain I'm using it sounds perfectly professional.  guitar -> tuner -> boogie -> decimator -> everything else -> mesa boogie stiletto ace 2x12 (oh yeah)

[therockdemon]

One other question too, guys.  Why is the input supposed to be 'stereo' and the output only 'mono'?  For the input, I have sleeve going to ground and tip obviously going to the switch (and eventually to the board input).  Is ring supposed to connect to something?  I do believe everything else on the pedal has been properly cared for, and it does work and sound awesome.  Just that ring lug has me wondering, like when you've put something together and it works but there's a screw left over from somewhere (lol).

[Keeb]

It's for the battery. That way the battery is ungrounded and won't drain if you unplug the input (most commercial pedals say that you should unplug the input when not using the effect).
Since you hook a mono plug to the input jack, the ring will touch the sleeve connection of the plug and will be grounded too.

If you wire the power to switch (so stomp switch turns power on and redirects input to the effect) you'd have "pop".
If you only use a power supply you could wire both input and output with mono jacks.

If you have noise issues you could wire the input jack, volume and gain pots with shielded wire.

[therockdemon]

Ah, that made no sense to me and I just wired the battery directly to ground (and it works, but I guess it has drain issues).  Oh well, that could be an easy enough fix, but I don't see myself ever using this battery without a power supply.  I might end up eventually making another one of these for gig situations, and when I do I already have several things in mind I'd like to do differently.  This Dr. Boogie was my first "hard" pedal. 

I think the hardest part of the whole project was painting!  It took me quite a while to get it absolutely perfect, and when I FINALLY did, the LED hole which used to be perfectly sized to the LED was now slightly too small, and I couldn't get it back up to the proper size by filing or etching away with a scratch awl without chipping away paint (ugh).  Had similar problems with all the pot holes.  The hardware all fit after drilling, and the pedal looked spectacular after finishing, but after adding hardware to the painted pedal, it quite frankly looks pretty bad.  So, I'm going to have to try drilling AFTER painting next time.  The paint itself did turn out great though, I used only two Rustoleum products:  automobile primer & matte white enamel.  I baked after every layer, and used 320, 600, 800, and 1500 sandpapers in my process.  It wound up being stunningly hard, scratch resistant, PERFECT, and wouldn't take on any more paint after sanding with the 1500!  In fact, I tried to sand back down with the low grits again and add paint after I had chipped the LED hole and just couldn't get it to hold paint well again.

I'm overall very happy though.  Basically just those two things (battery to stereo input jack, paint chips) were wrong, and I'll consider shielded wire next time.  The circuit sounds great, and I can get the circuit to be totally silent with the decimator, so in other words it cleans up nicely.  Once again, very happy =]

[therockdemon]

For my own reference in future:
http://gaussmarkov.net/wordpress/thoughts/wiring-up-a-1590b/