freestompboxes.org

Yes, you can use a 3mm green led. To test the ldr-led position, you need to protect the ldr from external light, so you can just close the windows and turn off the room light. This way, you can test, adjust, test again, adjust again, and when you have the positions set, you put the ldr-led combo inside an enclosure.

Just a thing, I think that dc jack is too much at the edge of the board.

Thanks Marcao ! This is what I though - it will be try and test approach.

Regarding DC jack I believe that it is good because they will need to align with the case outside. You are probably confused with pots. Eagle component package stencil that I have available does not represent the type that I will use. They will be placed on the top of the PCB and not at the side. I did not have appropriate package for pots with correct stencil but these connectors are good and this is only what I am interested at the moment. I will use these pots so after soldering they will sit on the top of PCB.

i would imagine 3mm green ones would work fine. in my experience, you don't need to seal homerolled vactrols usually.
once its in the box it doesn't matter in most cases. the key is more differences in spec with the ldr than anything else.
i would just mount the led;s with enough lead to be able to play with them a little bit. instead of sealing them, simply turn the project upside down so the ldr is away from your bench light... true, it won't be exactly the same as being in the enclosure, but should be more than dark enough to see if its working. it will then work better in the enclosure. i often just stick it under my bench for a minute to cut back some of the light pollution.
i've built these with 3,5 and even 10 (!!)mm leds with great effect.
the next one i build i'll mount one led near the ledr, and put the other one on the case so i can see the compression working i think.
your board looks great!! i'd love the gerbers for it if it works out well, i've built enough of these for friends it would be worth it for a small run of boards i think.
thanks for posting bro!! rock on!!
PjP

Thank PjP !!! It is good to know that it should work even if it is not totally dark.

I will upload tonight Eagle files (schematics and board) so that anyone can generate gerber and excellon files from it. Eagle is free for this board size. Different PCB manufacturers require different way of exporting them so uploading just gerber files is not that helpful - neither you can updated anything if required.

If this is working I will order 10 PCBs to be build in China and share it here.

Here is the Eagle schematics

Here is the Eagle board. Remove .sch extension after downloading board file. This forum did not allow me to upload .brd extension file - therefore I added sch extension.

Simple create a new project in Eagle and add these two files in the project folder. Open one of these and you will be able to switch in between them.

thanks bro!! apparently the thumbs up button thing isn't working. nice work!! and thank you for sharing with the community!

Finally assembled. Few dummy errors (shorted stereo inputs - so mono jack shorts the signal to ground - you can see that I raised middle legs to fix it). Pots are connected with wires to PCB which is really BAD, BAD idea. Soldered wire can quickly rip out copper from PCB when moving pot around. Once it is ripped it is almost impossible to fix. I don't think that my 100K pot is now working

Leds are hardly visible lightning when activated. Is it how it should be ?

Even in this state I enjoyed playing it for almost a hour in a pitch dark room - yes, I did not put in the case yet

There is an interesting effect - after initial attack and release sound gradually increases. Vey nice effect when playing balads or slow solos such as Shine On Crazy Diamond intro.

I will upload fixed schematics later on tonight.

hahah yeah, the leds should barely flicker, but glow brighter as the notes fade out.
personally, i'd lay it out for a 1590a... should fit easily... if ya go with 9mm pots you can even board mount them.
that said, nice clean looking build.
as a hint, never twist pot leads, it can turn them into radio antennas . better to keep the wires short and straight. twisting a PAIR of wires can help with ac hum, but thats at significantly higher currents. don't worry about doing it. may look nice, but causes more issues. just keep 'em as short as possible and it will work better. twisted wire with ac is good... audio... dc, not so good.z
making popcorn and camping out... look forward to your final version!

Totally understand twist pot lead comment - thanks. It is a little bit your fault Jimi as well sow some of your videos yesterday (I think some crazy fuzz breadboard project) and pots with twisted wires that led me to wrong assumptions that it is good practise as it would be on high voltage valve amps.

1590A hm... it will be a stretch to fit without double sided PCB board. I never fitted Nurtek PCB mounted jack on such a small space. Need to think about that. Now that my schematics are working I will try to laydown it. This PCB will be difficult to self build but it could be a good case for china manufacturing. We can get more in one batch and price is the same for single or double sided.

9mm pot is not tall enough be screwed on top of the case due to 3PDT switch. We do not want any light to go through and we need PCB attached to case on more than one side). I have two ideas at the moment: adding a vertical PCB board to hold pots only or making additional holes so that leads go through them first before they come back for soldering to remove a possibility of them twisting and ruining PCB. Later is easier but I hate wires and still board need to be PCB need to be better attached to case so still thinking ....

hahaha sorry bro,
i didn't know about the twisted wires thing until relatively recently. i thought wrongly it would help. used to use solid core wire, too... nope. both are a bitch and add more probs... the twisting is really only for power supply wires, and comes from minimizing hum in the heaters of valve amps/

i see the dillemma with the board mounted pots. i am an idiot how about the 16mm alphas with the long pc mount legs maybe?

what we did at blackcat if necessary was use cut off leads from resistors or whatever to reach from the pots to the boards. its stiffer than regular wires, and ya still got some wiggle room.

yes.. if you use an indicator led on top of the pedal, make sure the polution from the indicator is blocked from the circuit in the case too, cuz it will mos def screw it up.

prob with china manufacturing is suddenly your great idea is being pimped all over the net in 20 dollar pedals ';)

i DID build mine into a 1590a, but i used vero for it. been thinking about asking chris's permission to get a small run of boards made up for this. my buddy phil is an ace with layouts, i just like the smallest boxes possible so i can have way too much crap on my live board

Mine is in a 1590A, but it's not an pots-jacks-switch onboard layout.

Sorry guys for not responding earlier. I was busy with assembling some BOYC stompbox that still does not work.
Here is updated Eagle files and better board layout for 1590B. There are less wires, no patch wires and I included holes for pots cables so that they go through PCB board before cable is soldered to keep solder join safe from cable movement.

While I am here - do you guys have a bad experience with solder ? Here in UK it is difficult to buy lead solder so I used no lead one. It is causing me all sort of problems due to bad connections or high resisteace. I have switched to solder with 4% silver. I hope that I will have more luck with it.

And finally I will work on 1590A layout. I don't have high hopes that it will fit on one layer only but let see. Definitely it will not have NEUTRIK PCB input and output jacks so these will have to be connected using wires.

No problem to make a vero board layout for 1590a

stojanos wrote:While I am here - do you guys have a bad experience with solder ? Here in UK it is difficult to buy lead solder so I used no lead one. It is causing me all sort of problems due to bad connections or high resisteace. I have switched to solder with 4% silver. I hope that I will have more luck with it.

You need a good temperature controlled iron and good technique to use lead free, things most beginners lack. On top of that everything has to be spotlessly clean.

Leaded solder is much more forgiving and better suited to beginners. It is getting pretty scarce (in the UK) but if you ever see a reel grab it. I have picked up a couple at reels at amateur radio rallies that will probably see me to the end of my soldering days.

Here is the 1590 layout. It is on two sides so difficult to diy. Therefore I am happy to oder 10 of these from china to be professionally made. I don't need 10 of these so I would need to sell some here. Who do I need to ask for permission to sell here? I would sell it for 5pounds including shipping here in UK and 10dollars including shipping for international. It would be with me in 7 days. Thanks.

stojanos wrote:Here is the 1590 layout. It is on two sides so difficult to diy. Therefore I am happy to oder 10 of these from china to be professionally made. I don't need 10 of these so I would need to sell some here. Who do I need to ask for permission to sell here? I would sell it for 5pounds including shipping here in UK and 10dollars including shipping for international. It would be with me in 7 days. Thanks.

I ment PCB with layout that will fit into 1590A case.

Amazing effect. I built it almost stock. Changed the input cap for a lower value, 4.7nf or 6.8nf are perfect. With that cap the frequency response is really flat. I've also added a 100pf in parallel with the 220k resistor.

The only thing that bothers me is that it adds some gain on top. In a clean amp you can't notice it but in a amp set about to break up you can definitely hear that the gain is increased. I've removed the LDR and found that the distortion is still here. It is ok? I've tried a couple op amps without luck...I guess this is how it behaves