Vampire Slayer DIY PCB?

Got mine printed and powdercoated last night, also swapped the tube for a NOS Tung-Sol. May have to see if I have any more of the black M3 screws, they're a little smaller and look a little cleaner I think.

The UV prints are coming out a lot more crisp now that I replaced the water pump. Yes, UV printers have water pumps. No, they're not fun to work on.

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I've thought about it, I think one other person asked about Vampire Slayer so far. I don't currently have any other pedals in the works for PCBs right now, I'm not looking to expand my PCB lineup in a hurry. PCB design is hands-down my favorite part of building so I could just sit here all day and design new projects, but a) there are already people for whom PCB sales are their bread and butter and I don't want to steal anyone's thunder, b) my main focus and main source of pedal-related income continues to be selling finished pedals to end-users, so I want to keep that focus.

With regards to how it works, it's a lot like a FET buffer in that a tube has a naturally high input impedance and low output impedance, particularly when used as a cathode follower like Vampire Slayer. There are zero solid-state devices in the signal path, it's all tube. Not much to it, really. Just a couple triodes running in parallel as cathode followers. Input impedance is right around 1MΩ and output impedance is around 600Ω I think?

View attachment 42096

I was interested to see how it works, so I made an LTspice model of this and have several questions.

You have used 680nF in the schematic but 470n in your build. Why?

What tube type have you used? You have used a 100V rating for caps but if you use 12AU7 there is about 122V at cathodes. If you use 12AX7 there should be around 40V there.
 
I was interested to see how it works, so I made an LTspice model of this and have several questions.

You have used 680nF in the schematic but 470n in your build. Why?

What tube type have you used? You have used a 100V rating for caps but if you use 12AU7 there is about 122V at cathodes. If you use 12AX7 there should be around 40V there.
Solid questions.

470nF was used in place of 680nF because I have 470nF on hand and don't have 680nF on hand, and the value of the cathode cap in the cathode follower isn't as critical as the fact that it's "big". The difference in frequency response between 470nF and 680nF here is minimal, and going to a smaller cap would just start rolling off low end.

You're absolutely correct, with a 235V rail I'm measuring 110V at the cathode, 105V at the other end of the 1k resistor. 12AT7 would be the better choice here, I'll make a note in the build doc not to use 12AU7. Thanks!
 
I'm definitely interested in picking one of these up. I live mostly in the acoustic world and tube buffers do some magic to piezo pickups.

Is bumping up the input impedence as easy as increasing R3? I'd like to try ~10M
 
I'm definitely interested in picking one of these up. I live mostly in the acoustic world and tube buffers do some magic to piezo pickups.

Is bumping up the input impedence as easy as increasing R3? I'd like to try ~10M
Yup exactly that. Back when I sold these commercially I had a few upright bassists request that for exactly that reason.
 
VAMPIRE SLAYER IS FINALLY AVAILABLE FOR SALE!!!

New website, new format, new person handling stuff, but I'm still very involved.


Enclosures are no longer available on the same page, you can order them separately here:

 
Got mine printed and powdercoated last night, also swapped the tube for a NOS Tung-Sol. May have to see if I have any more of the black M3 screws, they're a little smaller and look a little cleaner I think.

The UV prints are coming out a lot more crisp now that I replaced the water pump. Yes, UV printers have water pumps. No, they're not fun to work on.

View attachment 55569
GEEZE that's a tiny footswitch!
 
The new site looks great

Is there anyway to get powder coated enclosure from y'all or the drill templates to get tayda enclosures
 
The new site looks great

Is there anyway to get powder coated enclosure from y'all or the drill templates to get tayda enclosures
I'm not planning to offer powdercoats, but I do have tayda templates for most of the projects. I think I'm still missing Vampire Slayer, but it shouldn't take long to get posted.

I'll update this list here when it's done.

 
Heads up I think there may be some minor mistakes in the BOM. Double check the schematic if you're ordering individual resistors.

It shouldn't be a problem for most people since most people order resistors in packs of ten or more
 
`I just checked the PCB to the schematic, component ref's do not match so follow value on PCB's I would say.
27k resistors should be 2 off (R1,R2 on PCB)
47k resistor should be 2 off (R5, R6 on PCB)
1M resistor should be 1 off (R3 on PCB)
All else seems fine to me.
Cheers
Mick
 
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