What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

Joben Magooch said:
Three gaffes this week.

First: I got some cheapo bare enclosures and wanted to try a hammertone finish. Cleaned it up, wiped with acetone, thin coats to start, etc. Did the thing, looked nice. I've heard it said before that baking/heating your finishes helps to harden/cure them so I got a $5 toaster oven at Goodwill and gave it a shot. Well, the five buck oven didn't have any kind of temperature control, just a timer. I figured 15 minutes would be a good starting time. I was wrong. The entire finish bubbled up and melted and cracked and turned into swiss cheese all over. So that one is back to the square one.
Oh well, it's just for fun.

Second: I ordered some parts for a build, needed two 10kB mini pots and one 50kB. I ordered two 50kB's and one 10kB. No matter, had another order to place soon thereafter so went to add a 10kB and I guess wasn't paying attention and didn't see the extra zero; ordered 100kB. I'm sure I can just slap a resistor on it but that's annoying to me. :ROFLMAO:

Third: The aforementioned second parts order... I ended up putting that order together sneakily at my work desk and I guess didn't keep a close enough eye on it. Ended up being ONE cap short and it just so happened to be a value that I didn't have any spares of. Again, can probably patch a couple together and get there, but...ugh :LOL:

I guess that's what I get for not paying close enough attention all around. Live and learn... (y)
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If you have any remaining patience, you can use a method used to turn toaster ovens into reflow ovens. The heating element control is cranked full and the power is switched with a solid state relay based on readings from a thermistor you put in the oven, all run by whatever microcontroller you choose. Might be overkill, but it's on my lazy to do list to find a donor oven and do this for baking paint, polymer clay, etc...

I feel your pain, though.
 
About baking finishes: As far as I know .. it should be enamel. I use 230-240 degrees for one hour.

This is Rust Oleum primer + paint with a coat of their clear satin enamel over it. ( and a nice patina of dust ) Baked in a toaster oven at that - at it's lowest temperature.
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MichaelW said:
Holy bejeezus.....this was a sphincter clencher.......
According to my DMM I got it right.....but.....you never know. OPA1678's for the Median Compressor. I ordered the wrong size....sigh. These were VSSOP not SOIC-8....duh...

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I had to look up vssop because those look to be the same-ish as the msop I endure...

These are Runic RS 8412 opamps, rail to rail low power. Korg has them on a lot of contemporary devices like the Nutext power tube reactor or the harmonic distortion pedal. ( I may or may not be cloning the power tube reactor)

I use low temp solder paste and a hot air station. I also have an infrared pre heater for larger boards.

Hand soldering with a wand is well beyond my motor skills.


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Joben Magooch said:
I got a $5 toaster oven at Goodwill and gave it a shot. Well, the five buck oven didn't have any kind of temperature control, just a timer.
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A shop toaster oven is a handy thing to have. Mine gets a fair bit of use. New ones are actually surprisingly cheap if you want to step up to one with temp control. Get em before the tariff pricing kicks in!

www.walmart.com

Mainstays 4 Slice Toaster Oven with 3 Settings, includes Baking Rack and Pan, Black, New - Walmart.com

Buy Mainstays 4 Slice Toaster Oven with 3 Settings, includes Baking Rack and Pan, Black, New at Walmart.com
www.walmart.com
 
In fact it's more "off" the workbench now, but that's been a project I made for my wife. She works with kids and sometimes will do games to test what they've been learning. She used bells and I thought I could get things more exciting.

It's a game buzzer based on 555 timer chips. I added the possibility to cut the buzzer sound because it's not the best. I might try to add different timed buzzer depending on the input, but for now it’s good as is.

I did not made a build report since it's not an effect pedal.

Enjoy !

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Got my ass kicked to take a good picture of this blackout finished Tonebender MKI.5. Like it wasn’t enough getting my ass kicked earlier trying to find a nice transistor pair for it (BTW, if you’re looking to build a MKI.5, you should NOT settle for a Fuzz Face pair… the circuit topology is the same but the Sola Sound is biased thru leakage, you need some SERIOUS leakage to make it sound like it should, or it will be just a fuzz face-ish thing.
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Nic said:
In fact it's more "off" the workbench now, but that's been a project I made for my wife. She works with kids and sometimes will do games to test what they've been learning. She used bells and I thought I could get things more exciting.

It's a game buzzer based on 555 timer chips. I added the possibility to cut the buzzer sound because it's not the best. I might try to add different timed buzzer depending on the input, but for now it’s good as is.

I did not made a build report since it's not an effect pedal.

Enjoy !

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Man that's rad. I used to teach kids. They would have loved this.
 
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Bench checked the HV and that checked out, figured the routing mostly, now all I need is a little time to finish the off board wiring before I give this a test drive. Although the case is definitely overkill, the rack form factor is definitely working for how I play and record.
 
@Feral Feline has a post going about combining FV1 pedals - reading that got my hydra bumped up to next in line.

Just made a pretty good dent while listening to a Will Oldham interview that dropped today on the WTF podcast.

Just got the wiring left to do tomorrow.

This one’s got a custom oops bushing in one of the jack holes from a slip of the step bit.

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What the RS8412's were for : A low voltage sustainer amp board with AGC. Could be run on a lipo but I'm already running enough risk of setting a rig on fire.

A lot like trying to get a straight answer about wah inductors, getting any straight DIY info about sustainers is nearly impossible. I think one of the best sources of info is the reverse engineering of a Sustainic Stealth, and that is where the topography of this AGC came from. https://scientificguitarist.wixsite.com/home/sustainer-reverse-engineering. The buffer/agc is so nice I made a standalone pedal out of it. Very useful on clean guitar - 1 knob compressor!

I am delighted to see it work on 4.8 volts, and performs better than the original BOM on which I based the pedal ( scratches head ). Using a Toshiba 2SK209 instead of 2n5457 and that is likely the biggest reason.

Waiting on a couple of amp chips for evaluation : LM4861 and SSM221. They might be identical parts for all I can tell.

I *think* most of the people here understand the stubborness of ploughing through a concept in order to understand why it works versus following a recipe and simply getting the thing to use.

I have an abundance of room in the cavity of the not-a-rickenbacker it's going into so the size of the board isn't an issue. When I get it to where I'd be okay with my name on it, I'll publish gerber files/kicad/yadiyadi or mail you a board if you're interested. I haven't really looked at best practices for publishing a "resource" here but I'd rather do that than put it on my own neglected webshite.




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AceHyzer said:
Same and I took one look and noped out and reordered the right size. You’re better with an iron than me, @MichaelW!
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In full disclosure, I f'd one of them up. When I checked it for continuity I had nothing on pin 8. I went to try to fix it and in the process destroyed the pin 8 leg. I mean it was completely gone! I still have no idea what happened.

I wound up subbing an OPA2134A in its place. The compressor is fantastic! Might be the best compressor I've built yet but still running it through its paces.
 
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