TH Black Eye (Soldano GTO) prototype build

V

vigilante398

Authorized Vendor
A little while ago in the "Must Build" thread I mentioned my love for the Soldano GTO and was asked if there were any PCBs out there in the world for it. I don't usually work in through-hole, but I decided to take a swing at it. Usually I make a little daughter board for the tube sockets so they can mount at a right angle to the main PCB, but mounting the whole PCB vertically in the chassis like this makes it way easier to build. I'll try to get it boxed up later this month so I can see how it fits, but first I wanted to hear how it sounds. Tayda ran out of the 22nF high voltage caps I planned to use so there's one random yellow film cap, but other than that I'm pleased with the look.

Also I'm pleased that aside from the tube sockets and the ribbon cable, every single part on this board can be purchased cheap from Tayda.

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Well good news and bad news. I designed this with the intention of it fitting in a 1590BB with top jacks, but as such the tubes come down too far and run into the footswitch. The easiest fix here is letting it be drilled for side jacks, that should pretty well take care of it. The only way it would work with top jacks is a low-profile footswitch and not using a footswitch PCB.

So tonight I'll try re-drilling the box for side jacks instead of top jacks (leaving power on top though) and see how the fit looks, and if that works out I'll let everyone know and see if I can get a drill template put together, then I can pull the BOM and put together a basic build doc and release these things into the wild.

The alternative option here is to use a 1590XX, which gives a luxuriously roomy fit even with top jacks, but "pedalboard-friendly" is always my goal, so I'm aiming for 1590BB with side jacks.
 
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Personally I’m not all that concerned about size. You’re shoving some large components in there so I never expected it to be a small pedal.
 
THeHammer82 said:
Personally I’m not all that concerned about size. You’re shoving some large components in there so I never expected it to be a small pedal.
Click to expand...
But it's allowed to be a small pedal. That's one of the big reasons I avoid power transformers in my pedals, I want them to be as small as reasonably possible. The two pedals I'm the proudest of are my single tube preamp in a 1590B (mix of through-hole and SMD) and my dual tube preamp in a 125B (all SMD).
 
vigilante398 said:
Well good news and bad news. I designed this with the intention of it fitting in a 1590BB with top jacks, but as such the tubes come down too far and run into the footswitch. The easiest fix here is letting it be drilled for side jacks, that should pretty well take care of it. The only way it would work with top jacks is a low-profile footswitch and not using a footswitch PCB.

So tonight I'll try re-drilling the box for side jacks instead of top jacks (leaving power on top though) and see how the fit looks, and if that works out I'll let everyone know and see if I can get a drill template put together, then I can pull the BOM and put together a basic build doc and release these things into the wild.

The alternative option here is to use a 1590XX, which gives a luxuriously roomy fit even with top jacks, but "pedalboard-friendly" is always my goal, so I'm aiming for 1590BB with side jacks.
Click to expand...
How can I get my hands on one of them!
 
Alright, so it fits and it works. I reused the first box I originally drilled for top jacks, because waste not, want not. Notes required to make this fit in a 1590BB:
  • Standard size (or smaller) 3PDT is fine, I used a standard size one from Tayda on this build
  • 3PDT breakout PCB like this is not required, and you can run wires if you don't want a big ribbon cable behind your tube, but I like the ribbon cables and I will include one of these 3PDT boards with each PCB. If you use a ribbon cable I recommend soldering it from the bottom, unlike what I did here
  • Lumberg (or knock-off) 2.1mm jack for power ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED
    • solder tabs for the jack must be bent outwards; not ideal, but it's the only way to make it fit
    • alternatively, some people like putting their DC jack on the side next to the 1/4" jack, nothing wrong with that and you will have a luxurious amount of room to put it in
I have something vaguely resembling a drill template, so I need to turn it into an actual drill template, then @benny_profane has offered to help put together a build document as I suck at that sort of thing. I am planning to offer CNC milled enclosures (no powdercoating or UV printing) with the vent slots like I have on my personal builds, but that will of course require me to find out how many people would generally be into that sort of thing so I could stock up on 1590BB's.

So I'm still not ready to sell these, but I'm getting close.

Also, as I look at this picture, I'm wondering if I could just rotate the footswitch 90 degrees, bend the ribbon cable over, and make the footswitch fit between the tubes so I could still make top jacks work. I don't know. I'll find out though.

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IMG_20220627_233003.jpg
 
I would definitely like to have a vented enclosure.

I had not heard of Sushi Box FX until this thread started and saw it printed on the board. I didn’t realize you had made so many awesome pedals.
 
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