Animals Pedals Diamond Peak

[HamishR]

I almost feel like this should be in the requests section! I recently bought an Animals Pedals Diamond Peak Hybrid Overdrive. It's rare for me to buy an OD but as a huge Skreddy fan I had to try it because I heard some clips which rather impressed me and I do like the Skreddy Hybrid OD.

The Diamond Peak sounds like a Skreddy Hybrid OD but I like it even more because it has more low-end punch. So I decided to have a look inside... It's actually all silicon, no germanium like the Skreddy. I have worked out all of the resistor values using various SMD codes and they mostly tally with the Skreddy circuit. But there are a fair few SMD caps with no markings - how can I work out their value? I probably need to remove them to measure, right? I am not confident about doing that myself.

Also there is one blue MKT-style through-hole cap marked "µ12K63". Am I right in reading that as a 63V .12µF/120nF cap?

 

[Robert]

But there are a fair few SMD caps with no markings - how can I work out their value?

You have to remove them and measure out of circuit. Be careful if they're film, if you hit them with the soldering iron you'll watch them curl up and die instantly right before your eyes.

 

[HamishR]

I really don't have a clue about SMD stuff - most of them are kinda off-white in colour. I don't think they should be allowed to make caps without markings. It's not fair to us who are interested in how things work.

I'm hoping that this circuit being so close to the Skreddy circuit that we might be able to guess the values?