LK155 Posted December 29, 2016 Posted December 29, 2016 Ah, yup, 6'1", 175 lbs, handsome as all get out. Handy, too. OK, not that kind of clone. Santa took pity on me and left another BYOC kit, this time the Phase Royal. I thought my last recording incorporating some phaser effects (see Choral Lunatic elsewhere) turned out pretty well, so this pedal should fit right in. But holy smokes, this kit makes my other two (chorus and reverb) look like beginner stuff. Fairly complex...7 transistors, 5 IC's, 2 diodes, 4 pots, 17 capacitors, and 38 resistors. All to fit on a printed circuit board measuring only 2.25" x 2.75". Step one is always to identify and organize all the small parts............. Decided to get a decent small-item vice to hold the PCB for soldering, and it works great........ And found this old magnifying-glass-on-a-stand that may prevent me from going blind working on this tiny thing........ So the build begins. It'll take a while.
ElNumero Posted December 29, 2016 Posted December 29, 2016 I got to this thread really late. Just read the title. So you are cloning yourself? How does Marg feel about this? Double trouble? Or double the pleasure?
LK155 Posted December 29, 2016 Author Posted December 29, 2016 I got to this thread really late. Just read the title. So you are cloning yourself? How does Marg feel about this? Double trouble? Or double the pleasure? Double the number of guys shovelling snow. All resistors are now done (except for two, which get added later after other components are in place.) Very, very tight working spaces on this PCB. Twice I've soldered over a hole right beside the one I was working on. Bitch of a time trying to get the solder out of those microscopic holes. No, I don't have a solder-sucker contraption, and even if I did, it would likely be too big for this application. Gotta slow down and do it right.
LK155 Posted December 29, 2016 Author Posted December 29, 2016 Oh yeah, the enclosure got some paint and clear-coat yesterday. Same colour as the last build.
smokedtires Posted December 29, 2016 Posted December 29, 2016 Very cool. I'm decent welder but yet to get comfortable with soldering. Looking good.
TalismanRich Posted December 30, 2016 Posted December 30, 2016 +1 on the magnifying glass! I used to have a nice desoldering tool that had a tube that heated, and bulb sucked the solder right out. It was GREAT for reworking solder joints on PC boards. I wish I knew where it went! I haven't seen it in years, but I think the rubber bulb had rotted.
LK155 Posted December 30, 2016 Author Posted December 30, 2016 Progress.............. Transistors, IC sockets, electrolytic caps, trim pot, and diodes are now done. Bunch of film capacitors left to do, then on to the pots, jacks, and footswitch wiring. Still having issues with accidentally filling in innocent PCB holes when soldering. Connection points on this board are absurdly close together. Filed the tip of my soldering pencil down to a thinner, sharper point, and that helped. Managed to burn two of my fingers on the soldering pencil while trying to clean the (blazing hot, of course) tip with steel wool. Although grievous injuries, medical assistance wasn't needed, and they won't keep me from finishing this pedal.
bolero Posted December 30, 2016 Posted December 30, 2016 +1 on the magnifying glass! I used to have a nice desoldering tool that had a tube that heated, and bulb sucked the solder right out. It was GREAT for reworking solder joints on PC boards. I wish I knew where it went! I haven't seen it in years, but I think the rubber bulb had rotted. that is a great idea!
Conneazoo Posted December 31, 2016 Posted December 31, 2016 LK, that board looks stellar! Sadly, burns are a known risk. The pain will go away, but the tone will live on!
LK155 Posted January 1, 2017 Author Posted January 1, 2017 Board's just about ready to go into the enclosure. Footswitch and input/output jacks are all that's left. Beginning to have serious qualms about this thing working. There are no fewer than 228 solder joints, most of which are on that little PCB. What are the chances that all 228 are good? Maybe later today I'll find out.
TalismanRich Posted January 1, 2017 Posted January 1, 2017 I hope that thing gives you a great big swirlie!
Conneazoo Posted January 1, 2017 Posted January 1, 2017 Board's just about ready to go into the enclosure. Footswitch and input/output jacks are all that's left. Beginning to have serious qualms about this thing working. There are no fewer than 228 solder joints, most of which are on that little PCB. What are the chances that all 228 are good? Maybe later today I'll find out. It'll be all good.....you're a pro!
gattart Posted January 1, 2017 Posted January 1, 2017 Wow! I'd have ended up a 2"x2" blob of metal, with pcb-green edges as the only sign it might not actually be an entry for a modern art exibit... I'm new to tapatalk, and how cool is this, reading about Heritages and getting side-swiped into BYOC! Love it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
jmac Posted January 2, 2017 Posted January 2, 2017 Good luck with the pedal. I have a mess with my first attempt to build my own. Zendrive clone. Total failure. I will try again. This time I will solder wires on to the tone knobs first and then connect to the board. This seems easier. My soldering got better. Yours looks pretty good.
kidsmoke Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 Right on Lyle. That PCB looks super clean. What circuit is this pedal mimicking?
tulk1 Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 Lyle, that looks ... very professional. Are you going to paint it that orange-ish sorta like color; or whatever color that is, like the Phase 90?
LK155 Posted January 3, 2017 Author Posted January 3, 2017 Right on Lyle. That PCB looks super clean. What circuit is this pedal mimicking? MXR Phase 90, but with some extra features: the original had only a Depth control, this one has Depth, Resonance (or Feedback), Speed, Wet/Dry Mix, and a switch between 4 and 6 phase stages. Lyle, that looks ... very professional. Are you going to paint it that orange-ish sorta like color; or whatever color that is, like the Phase 90? Nope. It's already painted Bright Calypso. And "professional"? Doubt it. I'm actually a reverse professional....I pay money to have the privilege of putting this thing together. And the status as of today is: build is complete but it has just one little problem....there's no phased signal coming out of it. Am currently going through some troubleshooting steps with the help of an expert at the BYOC technical support forum. Figured I buggered up (that's a technical term, right?) a little piece of the board's conduit trace which is stopping the signal from getting through at some point. I'm sure they've seen worse problems before, and hope it's a manageable fix.
tulk1 Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 I'm sure no professional anywhere ever buggered up anything. Just because. When I worked at Black and Veatch we had a saying about out "professional" engineers - they never make mistakes, they just make revisions. So, Lyle build, rev 01 coming up!
LK155 Posted January 3, 2017 Author Posted January 3, 2017 Well, in the software business, program bugs are referred to as undocumented features.
LK155 Posted January 10, 2017 Author Posted January 10, 2017 Finally! A week later, this pedal is done. Actually, it was done eight days ago, it just didn't work. A minor detail, to be sure. But with the expert (and extremely patient) assistance of the gurus at the BYOC technical support forum, I managed to make it work. But it wasn't a pretty (or fun) exercise. Turned my hair white, in fact. Here's what I learned: > When correcting a build mistake, use the right tools to fix it. I totally screwed up two solder points on the PCB while trying to clear out solder that had accidentally filled them in. To that point in my life, with all the amp/tuner/receiver/pedal kits I've built, I had never heard of 'desoldering braid'. Found it while googling 'desolder', went right out and bought some, and it works like a charm. > Don't assume anything. Having continuity between two points on the board doesn't necessarily mean either one is actually getting the amount of voltage it's supposed to. > Don't use solid core wire on any connection that will require anything more than mild bending. Bend it a couple of times, and it'll break, leaving you with something else to fix. Use the small, stranded wire supplied with the kit. Haven't experimented too much with it yet, but this pedal sounds pretty good. If I ever get some spare time, I'll post some clips. So here's what it looks like today (I still haven't resolved how I'm going to label the controls)......... And here's the magic desoldering braid I had never heard of.......... Looks like my pedal board is getting filled in. It now has: Sonic Research Tuner Empress ParaEQ MXR Carbon Copy analog delay BYOC Phase Royal (the latest build) BYOC Reverb2 BYOC Analog Chorus I swear I don't know how this pedal proliferation happened........
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