Double Armentum Boosts

Crash102

Well-known member
I built two of these, one for a friend and one for me. Art direction was really different as he wanted something biblical and that's pretty far outside my wheelhouse. Was definitely interesting doing multiple consults and revisions. The 3BG boost comes from my love of the Office and one of Jim's best pranks ever.

To the build. The first one (the one where I didn't know what the heck to do with all that space and wires) went by smoothly without a hitch. Plugged it in and it worked the first time. The next one had me tearing out my hair. I accidentally soldered the footswitch plate upside down. or so I thought. I took that apart only then to realize that I didn't do that part upside down, I had soldered my potentiometer to the wrong side of the board. This started the process of learning out to remove a soldered potentiometer. I finally figured that out, and put it back together. Only to realize i had done the exact same thing with the potentiometer and footswitch upside down. I was so flustered by the end of it, that I wasn't sure it was even going to work with all the heat from disordering the potentiometers and wiring. Luckily, it worked great.

Key lesson learned, is that following the step by step guide every single time is probably the best bet. Can't be too confident.

 
Great looking pedals! You just reminded me that I got some 2N5089's in a couple of weeks ago (mine currently has 2N5088's). I've got to hear it with the proper gain now.

Those little mistakes will become fewer and fewer and easier to fix the more you do it. It's good to make them a few times to help keep you on your toes.

Nice work!
 
Great looking pedals! You just reminded me that I got some 2N5089's in a couple of weeks ago (mine currently has 2N5088's). I've got to hear it with the proper gain now.

Those little mistakes will become fewer and fewer and easier to fix the more you do it. It's good to make them a few times to help keep you on your toes.

Nice work!
Thanks. I just got a bag of the 5089s. Originally, I went to order them and only the 5088 were available. So I was glad to have them for these
 
So far, outboard wiring has been my least favorite part of all this. I test them before putting in the enclosure, and then have to undo the DC jack and redo it. I need to find a better way. Cause currently I'm losing a lot of time to the part that feels like it should be the easiest
 
You’re not alone. Off-board wiring can very often take as long or longer than filling the board (depending how big the board is). For test before box, a testing unit (similar to the pedalpcb auditorium, we had a thread about diy ones here) was a game changer for me.

https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/test-box-build-one-now.1694/

that way I feel like wiring the jacks and stomp in the enclosure (after testing the board) is easier for me than trying to wire up everything loose.

Cool builds by the way. Always fun to be able to make something for a friend.
 
Is there any mod/substitutions that one could do to the Amentum to give it a touch more drive? I love this pedal. I've probably built 4 of them already and given them to friends. I thought it would be fun to see if iI could sub in a part to give it bit more snarl, but I am still pretty dumb about electronics despite having built a bunch of pedals.
 
Cool Builds!

I was just, minutes ago, commenting in your Chiron build thread that I was looking forward to the Amentums! Et Voila!

@ryan z It's a very basic circuit, not sure how much more you can tweak it.
You could try different pot values, but I'd start with breadboarding/socketing R2 (1k3) and try 1k2, 1k, 47r.
Maybe experiment with a parallel cap to R2...
 
Keeping R2 value would keep the translator biased the same way. So I like the cap to ground idea. You could put a pot in series between the cap and ground as a gain control. But you could experiment with changing R2 as well since it’s a simple experiment, and I’m not sure if how it’s biased now is optimal for dirt anyway.
 
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