So I get bored at work a lot and end up reading a lot of forum posts on here. I also will randomly feed ChatGPT some schematics and just ask what mods can be made. I don’t know if any of them would work or sound good, it’s just more stuff to read and think about. Anyway, it suggested for a different style of “muff” fuzz (along with other mods) to try mixing a red led & 1N4148 in D3 D4 and a yellow & 1N34A in D1 D2. Now I’m not asking if this would sound good, I’m mainly asking about the way to solder them to the board. I believe I read someone reply to a diode post, saying something along the lines of since the led’s higher forward voltage, they’ll need to go in both diode sections across from each other. So my question is in the drawing…is that right?
Disclaimer: not a fan of AI in art & media, but in certain applications I’m sure it could be helpful (mainly this instance lol)
you’re much better off talking to real people who have the experience and can offer practical suggestions/options, based on the human experience of actually using and tweaking these circuits.
chatGPT is just going to sample the internet based on input keywords, shake the ever changing results in a barrel and spit out some suggestions.
Like I said in the beginning, never tried any of the suggestions nor was I really LOOKING for specific mods, just bored curiosity at work. Like I said at the end, not a fan of it. So I guess I’m asking you specifically now @owlexifry , the leds and diodes would go ACROSS not up and down like normal and that would be because of the higher forward voltage, no?
When I have a specific question I couldn’t google, @Feral Feline is the way
not sure what you mean by up and down / across....
with a big muff, the clipping diode pairs always need to be in an opposing orientation with respect to diode polarities.
notice how these diodes are in parallel, but the polarities are opposite.
regardless of forward voltage or diode type, this is the required arrangement.
also, if tweaking circuits and trying out mods is your thing - drop everything you are doing and go and buy a breadboard right now.
it is so much faster to learn / understand / experience / compare A to B / etc. with a breadboard, than it is to solder something into a board, then find it doesn't work/sounds shit/or whatever, then desolder, remove component(s) and then repeat.
you can simply just plonk different diodes into the required positions on a breadboarded circuit and hear the differences pretty much instantly, instead of getting fucked around with soldering etc.
not sure what you mean by up and down / across....
with a big muff, the clipping diode pairs always need to be in an opposing orientation with respect to diode polarities. View attachment 96672
notice how these diodes are in parallel, but the polarities are opposite.
regardless of forward voltage or diode type, this is the required arrangement.
I’m trying to find the thread that started this rabbit hole and I think it may have just been a misunderstanding on my end from Roberts reply and then snowballed from there
not sure what you mean by up and down / across....
with a big muff, the clipping diode pairs always need to be in an opposing orientation with respect to diode polarities. View attachment 96672
notice how these diodes are in parallel, but the polarities are opposite.
regardless of forward voltage or diode type, this is the required arrangement.
dudes an encyclopedia
also, if tweaking circuits and trying out mods is your thing - drop everything you are doing and go and buy a breadboard right now.
it is so much faster to learn / understand / experience / compare A to B / etc. with a breadboard, than it is to solder something into a board, then find it doesn't work/sounds shit/or whatever, then desolder, remove component(s) and then repeat.
you can simply just plonk different diodes into the required positions on a breadboarded circuit and hear the differences pretty much instantly, instead of getting fucked around with soldering etc.
Breadboarding has definitely peaked my interest, just not really sure where to start! Seems a lot more challenging/intimidating (which I’m up for) just not sure what I’d be doing.
Breadboarding has definitely peaked my interest, just not really sure where to start! Seems a lot more challenging/intimidating (which I’m up for) just not sure what I’d be doing.
it's like that when you're new to it.
even though i had built a number of pedals before breadboarding, i had no idea what to do with one or how valuable it would be.
so i started with an LPB-1.
start small to make things easy and possible.
then as you grow your confidence and understanding, you can work your way up to larger circuits.
e.g.
this would be a good one to do after an LPB-1. (ginormous fuzz)
(don't necessarily need these exact transistors, e.g. 2n3904/2n5088 would do)
tip no.1 - always pay attention to pinouts (c b e) / (e c b)
pretty much every breadboarding error i've had has been related to incorrect pinout orientation.
no solder required.
the 'trace lines' are already there. that's the point.
in this transparent board you'll see that the numbered rows / 'trace lines' have continuity. (a, b, c, d, e all have continuity), and each numbered row is isolated / insulated from each other.
so on this board, there's essentially a maximum of 60 nodes to work with. (30 rows x 2)
each row/node has x5 possible insertion points (a,b,c,d,e) / (f,g,h,i,j)
basically you build the circuit by plonking the component leads in the right places.
let's consider this schematic:
this point circled in red is a fairly busy node.
- C1, R2, R4, and the base (b) of the transistor (2N5088) all meet at this node, and hence would all need to insert into one row (theoretically).
but let's say it's getting cramped on the board and there isn't enough room/enough insertion points left/or enough length to include the (base) leg of the transistor (or other component). you could just run a jumper from that node/row and then run it to another free row where there is enough space or whatever, and guess what - because you've run a jumper from one row to another, both of those rows are now the same node and you now have double the insertion points available.
the great thing about breadboarding is you can get creative and then there's no single correct way.
Yeah. I think you misunderstood Robert. So, typically, pairs of diodes, hard or soft clippers, are in antiparallel. So each anode shares a common node with the other diode's cathode. What the switch in the post you linked does is move those nodes/pairs off board. Robert was merely saying, in regard to soldering the switch in, to pick one of the diodes to wire in at. Either will work because they're in parallel.
OWLEXIFRY for the WIN, and Jwin615 for another win, too!
When I started building I didn't want to read schematics, I didn't want to breadboard.
Both schematics and breadboarding were intimidating.
Like having a Paint-By-Numbers kit, you get something "arty" when the endeavour is done, but you're locked into the colours supplied in the kit, and if you paint outside the lines, it can get fugly really fast.
Then you start mixing the paints yourself, because the blue supplied was too "powder baby-blue", you add in a hint of yellow and suddenly you're getting closer to the TEAL you were after, and you slowly learn what colours to mix in what amount to get the hues you seek.
Then you start working on a blank canvas with no lines whatsoever...
= CREATIVE FREEDOM
Kicked myself hard for avoiding schematics, but even after I could get the basics of a schem through my brain I still avoided breadboarding for a very very long long time. Socketing things instead.
Well I kicked myself harder for not breadboarding sooner — it was easy-peasy, once past the initial mental hurdle, the learning curve is super-swift.
Nonetheless, socketing still has its place — I highly encourage socketing the diodes on your Muff PCB so you can experiment — you could even try your incorrect "cross-ways" orientation and see what happens, see what it sounds like. Creative freedom to try anything.
Here, let's have a quick boo at what that might be like, schematically speaking...
☟Okay, but on a PCB, those diodes will each have their own eyelets/pads, so "PCB-pads" added in...
☟Let's pretend we've socketed the diode-pads so we can place the diodes cross-ways (at least how I think you described placing them)...
Hmmm, doesn't look good. The diodes aren't clipping 'cause they're effectively not in circuit anymore, just some dead-ends to the electrons which will want/need to flow somewhere/elsewhere...
SIDE NOTE: Those clear-plastic breadboards look pretty cool on their own, and I bought a few of them when starting my breadboarding journey.
What I discovered along the way was that they're not so great for breadboarding from a visual standpoint — for me, they make things harder to see.
To a lesser extent, the solid-colour breadboards that come in blue or green or red... are a bit easier to read what's going on circuit-wise.
IMO, you cannot beat a clean bright-white breadboard.
With plain vanilla white as your backdrop, you can see what components are connecting to what far more easily.
same.
cannot be overstated how valuable and worthwhile breadboarding is.
and not only does it help you learn and explore circuits/mods a lot quicker, it gives you the option to try out and play a circuit that you might not normally care for or commit to building. really opens things up.
dudes an encyclopedia
