Honeysuckle Questions

joelorigo

Well-known member
In the build docs for the Honeysuckle it lists a 51p ceramic cap. Tayda currently has a 50p. Close enough?

And the doc lists a GE diode. I received a GE diode with a transistor set I bought from small bear and never used. Is that ok to use?
 
I don't see any reason why a 50pF cap wouldn't work. Might mean a slight change in response off the clipping diodes but so slight that you probably won't even notice. I happened to have a 51pF from a prior project. I think I ordered them from Mouser some time ago. I don't think you have to go that far though. If in doubt, socket it and come back to it later if you wanna try out a 51pF.

As for the GE diode, pretty much any GE diode will do. I put a 1N34A diode in mine. Another one you can socket as well and experiment with.
 
The tolerance on most ceramic capacitors is +/- 20%, so a 51pf capacitor can be anywhere from 41pf to 61pf and still be considered in spec.

As such, there's a high likelihood that most capacitors marked 50pf will fall within the tolerance range of a 51pf capacitor; if you wanted to, you could even go the extra mile and measure your 50pf caps and find the one closest to 51pf - you may even get lucky and get one dead on!
 
Thanks. Right, so at +/- 20% a 50 is only 1 pf off the tolerance of a 51, at the worst case scenario. I have had this pointed out to me but since I had really no electrical background before starting building pedals, I'm still assuming there might be something I don't know in a specific circumstance.
 
I normally use a 47pF in those situations. Sometimes 51 is too much of a good thing. This is why I am careful to count the grains of sugar in my coffee.
Never though of pF caps as being "too much of a good thing". Now, a huge 220uF cap? That's too much of a good thing...especially when you have to find ways of bending those suckers over so they'll fit inside an enclosure. :p
 
This capacitor is a filter, it changes based on the position of the gain control, at maximum gain (where the filter cuts the most treble) the resistance is 551k ohms give or take because of the tolerance in the pot and the resistor, but if we assume its a perfect world its 551k, anyways 51pf gives you a filter at 5.66368khz and 50pf gives you 5.77695khz, as said before unless you're using some super tight tolerance caps or you measure them all to find the perfect one you're going to be close enough with 50pf!
 
Hey Joe - sorry mate I was being flippant. I do use 47pF caps where the circuit calls for 51pF because I know I will never hear the difference. And I don't have any 51pF caps.

Plus, for the record, I don't actually put sugar in my coffee. In fact I cannot bear sugar or milk in coffee. It has to be black.
 
Never though of pF caps as being "too much of a good thing". Now, a huge 220uF cap? That's too much of a good thing...especially when you have to find ways of bending those suckers over so they'll fit inside an enclosure. :p
I think I've been going a bit stir-crazy from trying different values of bright caps on a switch in an amp I was building for a guy. The amp in question had a 3-way bright switch with centre being off. I tried to make the caps small enough to be useful and audible but not so big as to be useless. I am not a fan of bright caps - if the amp was for me it would have no bright caps.

And i completely agree about 220µF caps. They're just silly and they're too big.
 
Hey Joe - sorry mate I was being flippant. I do use 47pF caps where the circuit calls for 51pF because I know I will never hear the difference. And I don't have any 51pF caps.

Plus, for the record, I don't actually put sugar in my coffee. In fact I cannot bear sugar or milk in coffee. It has to be black.
No worries. I like my coffee black too!
 
I'm back! Assembling this now and I just had a thought about running this at 18 volts. I know all the capacitors I have are over 18 volts. What other parts needs to be considered when running at 18? Is there consensus on what effect running Tube Screamer and Tube Screamer inspired pedals at 18v?
 
I'm back! Assembling this now and I just had a thought about running this at 18 volts. I know all the capacitors I have are over 18 volts. What other parts needs to be considered when running at 18? Is there consensus on what effect running Tube Screamer and Tube Screamer inspired pedals at 18v?
I've been running all my TS based circuits at 18v. Sounds better to me, overcomes some of the inherent "muffled" nature of it and the HoneySuckle sounds good at 18v. I have 2 multi-volt taps on my power supply and one can be 18v the other can be 9-12-15. So I've also run them at 15v. If you're caps are all rated as per the build doc (25v as I recall) you're good to go. Rock on!
 
Thank you! I just wanted to make sure it was only the capacitors I needed to worry about to go to higher voltages.

I have a Pedal Power 2+ that has some voltage options, I can't remember exactly which off hand. I also have a couple of voltage doublers (Xotic & Trutone). I'll experiment. I saw your build report about yours and based on that and the above I socketed D1-3. Starting off with the GE diode mentioned above and 2 MA150s.
 
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