ProTone Pedals Body Rot II

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 03 Jul 2014, 11:07

I added some pads for wiring points following the shots.

PCB

PCB horizontal mirrored

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 03 Jul 2014, 21:54

mirosol wrote:Here. Attached.
And the pots measure:
-Distortion 100K log
-Low 50K lin
-Mid 2K lin
-High 25K lin
-Volume 50K log

I don't have any idea what that pink thing is. It reads 8n6 capacitance and 165K resistance when measured in the circuit. Bands are looking like green-green-red-black-brown.

This does have a lot in common with Krank Distortius Maximus on the topology, but it isn't 1:1 enough to call it a clone.

The value 43kOhm is wrong it is 430kOhms.

Tall Steve · Post by **Tall Steve** » 04 Jul 2014, 03:06

J0K3RX wrote:The paint or sticker or whatever that is looks good but the insides look like an 85 year old with a neurological condition soldered it for spare bingo money... And the boards look like they were etched by the same 85 year old man with a pocket knife... If I were to buy one of these and open it up (which would be the first thing I would do) I would think this must be a counterfeit! But oh no... they are all this way, everyone I have seen so far has looked like pure sh!t inside!?

See, I posted my apology thinking mirosol might've had to kludge the soldering a bit to get it to work, and I didn't want to criticize his work if he did. Lord knows I've made some ugly fixes myself. If that's what they all look like off the line though, Pro Tone's giving DBA a run for their money.

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 04 Jul 2014, 11:36

As my opening post says, i just bought the unit as broken and thought i'd share the guts. That's the extent i have in common with ProTone Pedals :)

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 04 Jul 2014, 19:54

Manfred wrote:
mirosol wrote:Well, it doesn't sound bad at all and the EQ works well. It gets amazingly close to HM-2/HM-3 territory with a design that's 1/6 in size. I would say it's a "ProTone" tonewise, not saying anything about the build quality. The low and mid pots have their lugs 1 & 3 simply soldered against each other. That's something i would never do myself...

Aren't nearly all boutique pedals like this? Slight adaptations on other designs and many with slightly or more sub-par design and build quality? I see nothing weird about that as the whole world is doing it. Some are selling TS's for $600, so ProTone Pedals are a bargain. Besides, cloning this in 1590B with a neat build would definitely have more user value than the original..

One more thing about the pink "resistor". It's daylight now and those two first bands could be grey-grey.. or blue-blue.. instead of green. If it really was just a resistor, those bands would indicate value of 8.82k. Which means that it wouldn't read 165k on a meter in any possible scenario. And that would also mean that there's no cap between 2N5088's collector and distortion control's ground.
I had have I closer look at the pink one on the shot now, you are right, the bands are grey, grey, orange, black, braun,
this results in a 883 Ohms resistor with 1% tolerance. It doesn't make sense but for baffle the viewer.

I could not rest until I found information about the pink part.
What a surprise the pink one is an old axial capacitor.

: Capacitor.jpg (7.87 KiB) Viewed 3172 times

I found the information on this page
http://www.robotroom.com/Big-Trak-2.html
The capacitor in same shape with the Bands red, red, orange, grey, grey has a value of 22 Nanofarads,
from this it follows that the coupling capacitor has a value of 10 Nanofarads.
A had have a look at capacitor color code sheet.

The fourth band stands for the tolerance, grey is not determined.
The fifth band stands fot the voltage rating, grey means 800 Volts.

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 04 Jul 2014, 21:03

ProTone Pedals Body Rot II is a Distortion Maximus clone with some mods and millenium bypass.

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 05 Jul 2014, 18:28

Huge thanks for the footwork on the cap and for drawing the schematic. I had a weird feeling about the pink thing as it looked like a resistor, acted like a cap and if it were just a resistor, there would have been a real issue with the circuit function.

I'm drawing a stripboard layout asap :) So one more time, Thanks!

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 05 Jul 2014, 19:37

mirosol wrote:Huge thanks for the footwork on the cap and for drawing the schematic. I had a weird feeling about the pink thing as it looked like a resistor, acted like a cap and if it were just a resistor, there would have been a real issue with the circuit function.

I'm drawing a stripboard layout asap So one more time, Thanks!

Hugh thanks too for sharing the shots and taking the values down.

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 05 Jul 2014, 19:46

Who owns a Body rot III pedal and could take any shots?

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 05 Jul 2014, 19:52

That'll deserve its own outing thread :) I'll buy one as soon as i see one for cheap enough.

If you are interested in doing the same magic to any of my other pedals, just drop me a line :) I'm running a blog on my personal collection at http://mirosol.kapsi.fi - Most of them are current production cheapos, but still..

Anyway. Back to business. Here's my stripboard layout for the Body Rot 2. It'll fit easy in 1590B with five pots. And this one won't have pot lugs soldered against each other... I tend to have two wires in a single hole if needed, so that's why the layout is as it is. Currently unverified.

[updated layout below]

andregarcia57 · Post by **andregarcia57** » 06 Jul 2014, 16:58

mirosol wrote:That'll deserve its own outing thread I'll buy one as soon as i see one for cheap enough.

If you are interested in doing the same magic to any of my other pedals, just drop me a line I'm running a blog on my personal collection at http://mirosol.kapsi.fi - Most of them are current production cheapos, but still..

Anyway. Back to business. Here's my stripboard layout for the Body Rot 2. It'll fit easy in 1590B with five pots. And this one won't have pot lugs soldered against each other... I tend to have two wires in a single hole if needed, so that's why the layout is as it is. Currently unverified.

There is a cut in the 100ohm resistor?

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 06 Jul 2014, 17:56

andregarcia57 wrote: There is a cut in the 100ohm resistor?

Yup. My mistake. Here's the updated version.

[updated layout below]

chriscustom · Post by **chriscustom** » 07 Jul 2014, 16:50

Manfred wrote:ProTone Pedals Body Rot II is a Distortion Maximus clone with some mods and millenium bypass.

BodyRotII_Schematic.JPG

So it will be correctly.

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 07 Jul 2014, 19:01

Thanks chriscustom for the correction. Layout updated. (if one of the moderators would be so kind to discard the previous, erroneous ones, i'd be grateful.)

Manfred · Post by **Manfred** » 07 Jul 2014, 22:51

chriscustom wrote:
Manfred wrote:ProTone Pedals Body Rot II is a Distortion Maximus clone with some mods and millenium bypass.

The attachment BodyRotII_Schematic.JPG is no longer available

So it will be correctly.
[ Image ]

Thanks for correcting.

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 10 Jul 2014, 06:33

Someone at our blog built my layout, so consider that verified.

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 11 Jul 2014, 06:20

The bass/lows pot may be a log in the original (can't confirm it at the moment as i'm ~550km away from home). One of the blog readers pointed that out after building my layout. I updated it for log taper on that pot. Good thing is that this works for sure as at least two people have already built it succesfully. Anyway. Here's the final, working and good sounding stripboard layout for this effect.

andregarcia57 · Post by **andregarcia57** » 28 Jul 2014, 21:56

I built this pedal surprised me.
I played some time with my GT2 to clone the only thing missing was a little more bass.
hugs

andregarcia57 · Post by **andregarcia57** » 02 Nov 2014, 12:40

one question ... can I use 1mA in volume? and 2.5k instead of 2k?

-Distortion 100K log
-Low 50K lin
-Mid 2.5k in place of 2kb
-High 25K lin
-Volume 1ma in place of 50ka

mirosol · Post by **mirosol** » 02 Nov 2014, 16:35

andregarcia57 wrote:one question ... can I use 1mA in volume? and 2.5k instead of 2k?

-Distortion 100K log
-Low 50K lin
-Mid 2.5k in place of 2kb
-High 25K lin
-Volume 1ma in place of 50ka

Mid pot is fine. The volume substitution is rather big.. It will affect the frequency coming out of the tone stack. Do you have another 100K log or 50K lin? Those should be better subs...
+m

ProTone Pedals Body Rot II [traced]