ShamWah (BBE Ben Wah)

[MichaelW]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Well, confession time, it took me two boards to build this.

First one was a total fail. 100% stupidity. I didn't have any BC548 NPN's so I decided to sub with 2N3904's.
Like an idiot I forgot to check the pin orientation and put them in backwards.

You'd THINK that snipping out some trannies, cleaning out the holes and installing new ones would be a piece of cake. You'd THINK.....right?
Well not this time, in the process of removing one of the transistors I pulled the barrel AND a good bit of the trace with it.

I tried jumping it with a wire but it still didn't work, aside from looking ugly as hell. So I said screw it, and ordered a new board heh.

Just buttoned it up, gee works great when you put the components in correctly and don't burn the board.....

Thanks to all who chimed in on this thread. I went with the ShamWah per @Harry Klippton and @Guardians of the analog 's suggestion.

Shout out to @Guardians of the analog for walking me through how the inductor gets installed.

I'm not a wah player and it shows.....when I can think of something to play besides "Voodoo Chile" I'll record a demo heh.

But it sounds awesome! Still playing around with the "Q" control to see where I like it.
Also props to @Big Monk for the suggestion to get the travel for the pot right. I can see how this would sound underwhelming with just a 1/4 turn of the pot either direction.

I used a CryBaby shell, Eleca Halo inductor from Smallbear and a Black Bear 100k pot also from Smallbear.





The battery box was hitting the board so I pulled it out and make a patch with some foil tape.





Kinda hard to play sitting down. I may have to dig out a strap for a demo

 

[Harry Klippton]

Hell yeah. Your other thread made me get my wah (an actual BBE ben-wah) out last week, well that and I was learning waitin for the bus. Now I'm using it every time I get to play guitar.

I made a modification to mine too. I put some rubber feet under the heel of the treadle and taped them down with gaffer's tape to modify the physical travel of the treadle. That and a little tweak to the q control and I'm in love

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Hell yeah. Your other thread made me get my wah (an actual BBE ben-wah) out last week, well that and I was learning waitin for the bus. Now I'm using it every time I get to play guitar.

I made a modification to mine too. I put some rubber feet under the heel of the treadle and taped them down with gaffer's tape to modify the physical travel of the treadle. That and a little tweak to the q control and I'm in love
View attachment 51409

I want to build a sham wah but tbh I'd rather just buy a Ben wah for a decent price. I always thought they looked really really cool. Plus Ben Wah Balls

 

[Harry Klippton]

This thread needs a

 

[SillyOctpuss]

This thread needs a
View attachment 51411

I'm sooo stealing that. Yoink.

 

[MichaelW]

Hell yeah. Your other thread made me get my wah (an actual BBE ben-wah) out last week, well that and I was learning waitin for the bus. Now I'm using it every time I get to play guitar.

I made a modification to mine too. I put some rubber feet under the heel of the treadle and taped them down with gaffer's tape to modify the physical travel of the treadle. That and a little tweak to the q control and I'm in love
View attachment 51409

What was the issue with the travel? I used a standard 3PDT and all I have are the soft click ones. So it was super easy to turn off at the end of the travel, I had to experiment with some washers under the switch to get it to the right place. 2 white washers did the trick,

 

[Harry Klippton]

Well it was this video that made me do it

 

[Guardians of the analog]

Great job Mike

 

[szukalski]

Awesome! Ben wah balls brothers!

I need to get mine out also. So flexible.

 

[ThePanda]

You all are killing me with these Wah pedals!! GASing for one pretty hard.

This build looks so clean. Great job!

 

[Mentaltossflycoon]

Benoit

 

[Harry Klippton]

You all are killing me with these Wah pedals!! GASing for one pretty hard.

This build looks so clean. Great job!

Build one

 

[Feral Feline]

Why stop at one?

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Benoit
View attachment 51417

 

[MichaelW]

Well, I think I mentioned in another thread that I was having some issues with the pot I got from SmallBear for this Wah.
I had ordered the "Black Bear" 100k pot. And it got scratchy within a couple days of use.

So I sprayed it out with contact cleaner then compressed air and it worked fine for a couple days then got scratchy again.
After two cleanings I'd had enough and swapped it out for the Dunlop pot that came with the Crybaby host. Which worked fine.

I was going to try to exchange it at SmallBear, but then read this on their FAQ:

"My Dunlop/Black Top/ProPot has gotten scratchy. Can I quiet it down?
All of these pots, as well as the SBE Black Bear, are variants of an industrial pot that was developed originally as a joy-stick control. Based on a lot of anecdotal evidence and testing by some SBE commercial customers, we conclude that the lubricant that the maker puts in these picks up dust in some environments, and that sometimes makes the pot noisy.

The present version of the Black Bear is deliberately made without that lubricant. So far, we have not had complaints of shortened life, or of scratchiness. As for the other types, the scratchiness almost always disappears if you diasassemble the pot completely, wash the parts thoroughly with Deoxit or similar solvent, and reassemble."

So I thought I'd give that a shot first. I've never disassemble a pot before.
But when I got it apart some black bits fell out. I guess they were too big to get "sprayed out" with the contact cleaner.



Looks like little bits of rubber. Anyway, put it back together, re-swapped it with the Dunlop pot and now it works great...(so far, heh)

 

[Diynot]

Is there a drastic difference between the SBE and the Dunlop? Debating ordering the Black bear for my harbinger, but will save the $$ is there is not a noticeable difference. MadBean build docs say the Dunlop is fine, but the sweep of the speed relative to treadle travel is my biggest concern at this point

 

[MichaelW]

Is there a drastic difference between the SBE and the Dunlop? Debating ordering the Black bear for my harbinger, but will save the $$ is there is not a noticeable difference. MadBean build docs say the Dunlop is fine, but the sweep of the speed relative to treadle travel is my biggest concern at this point

I did not notice much difference. Although I think the Dunlop was a 250k or 260k. The Black Bear is a 100k as per the build docs.

 

[Nic]

Microscopic dead mouse!

 

[gtrman3280]

Well, confession time, it took me two boards to build this.

First one was a total fail. 100% stupidity. I didn't have any BC548 NPN's so I decided to sub with 2N3904's.
Like an idiot I forgot to check the pin orientation and put them in backwards.

You'd THINK that snipping out some trannies, cleaning out the holes and installing new ones would be a piece of cake. You'd THINK.....right?
Well not this time, in the process of removing one of the transistors I pulled the barrel AND a good bit of the trace with it.

I tried jumping it with a wire but it still didn't work, aside from looking ugly as hell. So I said screw it, and ordered a new board heh.

Just buttoned it up, gee works great when you put the components in correctly and don't burn the board.....

Thanks to all who chimed in on this thread. I went with the ShamWah per @Harry Klippton and @Guardians of the analog 's suggestion.

Shout out to @Guardians of the analog for walking me through how the inductor gets installed.

I'm not a wah player and it shows.....when I can think of something to play besides "Voodoo Chile" I'll record a demo heh.

But it sounds awesome! Still playing around with the "Q" control to see where I like it.
Also props to @Big Monk for the suggestion to get the travel for the pot right. I can see how this would sound underwhelming with just a 1/4 turn of the pot either direction.

I used a CryBaby shell, Eleca Halo inductor from Smallbear and a Black Bear 100k pot also from Smallbear.

View attachment 51404

View attachment 51405

The battery box was hitting the board so I pulled it out and make a patch with some foil tape.

View attachment 51406

View attachment 51407

Kinda hard to play sitting down. I may have to dig out a strap for a demo

Well, confession time, it took me two boards to build this.

First one was a total fail. 100% stupidity. I didn't have any BC548 NPN's so I decided to sub with 2N3904's.
Like an idiot I forgot to check the pin orientation and put them in backwards.

You'd THINK that snipping out some trannies, cleaning out the holes and installing new ones would be a piece of cake. You'd THINK.....right?
Well not this time, in the process of removing one of the transistors I pulled the barrel AND a good bit of the trace with it.

I tried jumping it with a wire but it still didn't work, aside from looking ugly as hell. So I said screw it, and ordered a new board heh.

Just buttoned it up, gee works great when you put the components in correctly and don't burn the board.....

Thanks to all who chimed in on this thread. I went with the ShamWah per @Harry Klippton and @Guardians of the analog 's suggestion.

Shout out to @Guardians of the analog for walking me through how the inductor gets installed.

I'm not a wah player and it shows.....when I can think of something to play besides "Voodoo Chile" I'll record a demo heh.

But it sounds awesome! Still playing around with the "Q" control to see where I like it.
Also props to @Big Monk for the suggestion to get the travel for the pot right. I can see how this would sound underwhelming with just a 1/4 turn of the pot either direction.

I used a CryBaby shell, Eleca Halo inductor from Smallbear and a Black Bear 100k pot also from Smallbear.

View attachment 51404

View attachment 51405

The battery box was hitting the board so I pulled it out and make a patch with some foil tape.

View attachment 51406

View attachment 51407

Kinda hard to play sitting down. I may have to dig out a strap for a demo

Hi! That is a very clean built. I wanna ask the value of your volume pot on the side of the body beside the led light. How do you wire those in the pcb? Mind sharing the wiring diagram?

 

[MichaelW]

Hi! That is a very clean built. I wanna ask the value of your volume pot on the side of the body beside the led light. How do you wire those in the pcb? Mind sharing the wiring diagram?

Do you mean the pot with the cream knob on the side of the enclosure? That's the "Q" trimmer.
It's an internal trimmer on the PCB by design but instead of wiring it to a trimmer I decided to wire it to an external pot so I can adjust without taking the back off.

As I recall it's a 50k trimmer, so I just used a B50k pot and wired it directly to the pads on the PCB. The trimmer pads are the same a regular potentiometer pads. Just solder one end of the wire to the pad and the other to the pot leg in the same order.