Tube boost + overdrive running off a 9 volt battery

[served]

Hey!

I have a question. You were saying that rising the voltage will make theese things sound better.
Well, I built PepperShredder

With this schematic

And I was thinking about feeding it with 24V. How will it work?

[frequencycentral]

Hey, frequencycentral, will voltage divider work for valvecaster / twincaster type OD pedal, that will run on 18V? The divider is for heaters in series... I want to do this because I don't have any 7806 regulators...

To run a 12AU7 heater from 18 volts: pin 4 to ground, pin 5 to 18 volts via a 36 ohm / 1 watt resistor. You should be able to measure around 12.6 volts at pin 5.

I built PepperShredder.......And I was thinking about feeding it with 24V. How will it work?

Should be cool! Just remember that the tube heaters still want only 12.6 volts though. So use a 7812. Or, as you have two tubes, another solution would be to wire together the two tubes' heaters in series.

[served]

Hey! Thats a good point. I will connect the heaters series. And will let you know!

[Rewind]

Here is my Werevalve:

[Rewind]

I noticed the bite in this pedal and could think of no better name than The Werevalve:

Don't judge my playing to hard:




Notice the detail "ut" which is "out" in Swedish/Norwegian. The "t" in "ut" is actually the authentic ancient rune "Wolfcross" to protect against wolves. And not the natural kind. Of course the Nazis later miss-used it as a symbol for something else.




Valvecaster with 24V DC, use any polarity, 12AU7 tube.
I have built a few extra. Cost: 50 Euro/70 dollar.
Shipping from Sweden or Norway.

[zambo]

Hey I ran three valvecasters together and guess what? It sounds awsome! I dropped the input caps to .001uf on the first two ans .022uf on the third. Its still pretty fat. I also ran a 12ax7 in the second stage. Here is a link to youtube clip.  . Check it out and please give some feedback. good or bad is fine.

[Renegadrian]

WOW! 

[served]

Yeah, WOW. Very good playing and good sounding pedal!

[differo]

damn.. my valvecaster doesn't even comes close to this one.. Awesome sound, just that good.
I'm definitely doing something wrong..

[zambo]

Well, Thank you very much! I will take those as great compliments! I am trying to figure out how to run these at 30 volts or so. I know the heater only gets 12.6 max  so where do I hook up the 30 volts? To the anodes? I am looking for a schematic but I cant tell the mechanics of it from vero board layouts. ( iwish I wasnt such a visual person). Any one have a clue? ( its a rhetorical question, I know Renegadrian knows...  )

[zambo]

p.s. Differo, I just daisy chained three together to get that much gain. My single doesnt get that much ( although its still maybe my favorite tone..) and I had to build it twice before I even got sound out of it at all. Just keep going on them and they will sound good. I figured out using heat sinks keeps me from burning all my parts up while I solder. Go figure... Cheers Gentlemen!

[Renegadrian]

Well, Thank you very much! I will take those as great compliments! I am trying to figure out how to run these at 30 volts or so. I know the heater only gets 12.6 max  so where do I hook up the 30 volts? To the anodes? I am looking for a schematic but I cant tell the mechanics of it from vero board layouts. ( iwish I wasnt such a visual person). Any one have a clue? ( its a rhetorical question, I know Renegadrian knows...  )

Yeah, more voltage goes to the anodes - if you use my layout here (or follow to get the idea) you see a red wire that gives power to two res (R2-R3) that go to first and second anode (pins 1 and 6) and then on the same line pin 5 (one of the heaters) is connected - to apply different voltages, you can use that very same layout, just connecting pin5 to the +12V and whatever upper voltage you want to that row with the red wire!

[zambo]

HA! I knew you would know the answer! Thanks mister! I have read most of this forum and you are a lot of help to everyone on here. Thank you on behalf of all of us.
I think my next one will be 24 volts at least. Maybe more I'm not sure. I will have to figure out how to regulate the power so I don't get the dreaded hum. I dont think a voltage pump will power three valves together ( and I am considering four ) .   

[Renegadrian]

Thanks for your kind words, I am still a noob but yeah as I've got a little of "already done that" I got some little experience to share and maybe be helpful to someone...

Regarding the voltage pump, what you must consider is the current that you need for the tubes...I guess you should start with a 1MA 12V PS - the heaters want 12V/150mA. The current required at the anodes is much less (around 15-20mA, but here I go guessing, following the tube datasheet).
So from the power input, you'd have one wire going to the heaters and one feeding the voltage pump. I dunno how much current can a voltage pump provide, but I guess it's enough to run a couple of circuits...
Read Rick's experience with the 555 smps - as the circuit needs more current, you have to step down a little with voltage, but hell I guess you can be still quite happy to have 150V and not 200V from that smps...

[zambo]

Here is clip of my latest build. They are getting better. Better tone control on this one. Still has scratchy gain pots. Any fixes for that anyone?   

[differo]

I just got my hands on a bunch of tubes (mostly 12au7 but some others too) and tried last night in my valvecaster - actually I don't know about you guys but I liked the sound of 12AX7 in my valvecaster! It doesn't differ that much from AU type, its quieter a bit but there is some overdrive to it, well basically it works - I tried ecc84 too that one was no hit - it worked but rather quite with little to no overdrive. What I like with tubes and particularly with this project is that almost everything works and its wasy to swap and test.
 

[volund]

Hi!

Nice design! built it with first cap at 0,022uF, and using 24v. Ran it with a battery (UPS), not humming at all. 

Tried out some different power supplies, none of them made the same sound.
Anyone know why a power supply for a laptop is making a hi frequent hum? Looked at the current in a oscilloscope, can't see anything.

Thank you all for a grate forum! Made me into a DIY Tube addict!

[BlueJay]

Tried out some different power supplies, none of them made the same sound.
Anyone know why a power supply for a laptop is making a hi frequent hum? Looked at the current in a oscilloscope, can't see anything.

My best guess is that most power supplies for computers and laptops are switched-power supplies, which operate at a high-frequency

[tranceracer]

Here is clip of my latest build. They are getting better. Better tone control on this one. Still has scratchy gain pots. Any fixes for that anyone?   

  The tripple tubber sounds great!

[zambo]

Thanks! I am actualy going to build a 4 tube version so I have more options for clean dirty and lead boost ( still trying to figure out switching on that though ). I have been gigging with the three tube version and getting really positive response from it. I recomend trying it if you are in a hi gain situation. I heard it sounds better than a triple rectifier from the audience