STFU Optical Noise Gate

[Cybercow]

These two were a straight-forward build with no complications. Just followed the BOM, populated the PCB from 'lectricFX and all went well.

The STFU is a surprisingly simple circuit that does an excellent job at noise reduction, acting more like a soft-gate than a slam-it-shut gate. Built two of them and A/B's them to find they do indeed perform identically.

After drawing up the artwork, had the enclosures professionally printed and drilled by AmplifyFun.

And of course, gotta share the schematic.

 

[DailyDovetails]

Sweet build. I haven’t had a noise gate in a while. I might look into building one of those.

 

[Synchrony Pedalworks]

Nice job!

 

[jessenator]

I love the design. Hilarious. Nice build overall!

 

[Silver Blues]

Great build!

 

[Barry]

Love it, great design!

 

[RockmanCentral]

Any suggestions on how to make this like the Decimator II G-String with 4 connections?
IE- Guitar in/out and gate in/out.
My HJS is designed like the G-string and it works great!

 

[falkry05]

Another question - is the anode of the vactrol really connected to ground? Several of the DOD 230 gates have the anode tied to pin 7 w/ 10k and cathode to ground, which I would think is normal. Unless we're relying on the inverting input driving negative, which the supply isn't capable of.

 

[Feral Feline]

Another question - is the anode of the vactrol really connected to ground? Several of the DOD 230 gates have the anode tied to pin 7 w/ 10k and cathode to ground, which I would think is normal. Unless we're relying on the inverting input driving negative, which the supply isn't capable of.

You might get a better response here:

General Questions

forum.pedalpcb.com

At least, more people will likely see the question, rather than in someone's old build report.

 

[Cybercow]

Another question - is the anode of the vactrol really connected to ground? Several of the DOD 230 gates have the anode tied to pin 7 w/ 10k and cathode to ground, which I would think is normal. Unless we're relying on the inverting input driving negative, which the supply isn't capable of.

Yes. The Anode leg of the diode side of the Vactrol IS tied to ground. It is fed thru a 10K resistor (R16 - to its cathode) from the 2nd half of IC2 (LM358).