Idea of difficulty to trace, create, clone this wah board?

[4nkam]

I've been searching for alternatives to achieve this wah tone but I'm just not having any luck. so I'm wondering if any of you more experienced folks could take a peak and this board and gimme an idea of how difficult/practical it would be to attempt to trace the circuit, make a layout and clone it


This is the "basic" version of this wah so there are a bunch of component locations that are not being used. It's also doublesided as you can see.

[Seljer]

if theres is a will, it can be done. Not impossible
though you'd have to have the board at hand or some VERY good pics it

[4nkam]

I do have the board (Actually I have two versions of this wah so I have both boards) but I've never attempted anything on this scale before

[choklitlove]

curiosity: if you have it, why do you want to clone it?  to sell?

[4nkam]

Well, it's a very rare rackmounted wah and after years of looking, contact was finally made with the person that made these and he said he cannot build any new ones at this time. I LOVE the tone but don't want to risk ruining the circuit (they're both about 15-17 years old and kind of failing) which is what ended up happening to Hammett and Slash when they used the same wahs for such a long time. So, I just want to try and clone it so I could have the tone I dig and not worry about it messing up

[R.G.]

How difficult?
Not very. You can see the parts and all of the wires. Unless some of the parts are dirty tricks parts, it's primarily a test of your patience.

How long?
Depends on how good you are at transcribing circuit to schematic. 

It's mostly just slogging through it.

[WelshWonder]

Easy just time consuming. You need really high res images of the board. Must be sharp and clear, may be a case of takeing a few of them and jigsawing the final image in photoshop. Then, using Adobe illustrator, trace!

Provided you're patient, it'll work. I recently done this method to clone my TS9 layout.

Give me a shout if you need a hand.

[Dan N]

You should try! I bet the different building blocks are already in the schematics we have available.

[trevize]

I usually place the circuit board directly on the scanner, with some tweaking in apps like photoshop or gimp you can have a good b/W image useful for vectorialization (in illustrator or inkscape).

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

What chips are used? And what are the controls called? There aren't many ways to make a wah, even a rack mount wah.
Also, what makes it better than a traditional wah shoved into a rack?

[4nkam]

Thanks for the tips, I dunno why but I actually haven't even thought of the pic/scanning idea before so I'm gonna try that

I don't have the board in front of me right now but off the top of my head, there are a few chips including several LM324, tl074cn, some motorola (?) one, a couple that can't be read/no markings, etc. The only controls are low, high, and depth. From what I have been told so far, it seems to be a take on an SVF filter which gives it a very unique/cool wah tone and not like your traditional dunlop/vox style wahs. Expression pedals are ernie ball or boss volume pedals and the entire sweep range can be used so there's a cool/massive range. Compared to normal wahs, these are a lot thicker and GREAT for use with high gain situations.

You can see/hear slash using one here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SHoDKldosXk

[DDD]

IMHO too diffucult for a beginner.

[puretube]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=37028

[vanessa]

It looks like there was a more robust version judging from the PCB and it missing a bunch of IC's. Maybe you could hunt down that version's schematic to make the pot even sweeter?

[4nkam]

Yeah, this one is just the "basic" version. The other wah I have is the "full version" and that one looks CRAZY inside They have the same controls but more pedal location jacks, cable fault system/leds, and the actual tone seems a bit different too (more high end). No dice on getting a schematic or other info though. The company has been out of business for many years now and the former owner has no desire to build new ones or give away the schematics.

[Stratomaster]

That is one amazing wah...

I do not blame you for wanting to clone it to have that tone with no worries from now on.

Awesome.