tonepad rangemaster

[winnetouch]

Hello. I'm building myself a tonepad rangemaster. It's a treble booster and I used the mods that make it a brian may sound alike. I already had enough trouble finding the dpdt button switch (would you believe that I couldn't find it in any specialised electronics store, but found it in the guitar place I always hang out but never thought to look there ).  I build it and the signal flows through. But it only emits a clean sound. Could it be the transistor I used? I'm not really a big expert on electronics so I believed the guy at the elctronics store that a C560B would do the job. Also the pot doesn't do a dang thing I'm pretty sure it's suppose to regulate the volume of the booster.

I used this layout:
http://www.tonepad.com/getFile.asp?id=83

This is what it looks like now:

[petemoore]

  Datasheet for the transistor available ?
  Socketing the transistor for this circuit is good for it or the next one [ie the sockets work good and the board is relatively small/inexpensive], swapping transistors of Germanium [which vary a lot, and sometimes even work good].
  GEO has a Treble and Bass booster article [basically the same 1 transistor gain circuit as RM but with a passive treble/bass control up front which attenuates signal before entering]. The article dissects the Rangemaster circuit an excellent introduction into basic circuit functions...required a printout and a good bit of 'side referencing' [some printed out, some online] for me to grasp much of it at first.
  Transistor polarity is a go or no affair, refer to the data sheet or plug the transistor into inexpensive DMM with 'hfe checker' to find pinout.
  Both Circuit polarity and transistor polarity can be inverted and must be a match. circuit polarity inversion involves reversing the polarity of polarized components including transistor. Transistor polarity inversion involves changing from PNP to NPN or NPN to PNP...confused ?
  Choose a schematic and data sheet for the project, make certain the pinout and type of transistor data matches the power supply polarity of the circuit chosen [NPN Neg ground, or, PNP positive ground.].
  Everything matches the schematic perfectly:
  The transistor is Germanium, it's leaky stuff [compared to Silicon], leakage varies greatly from one AC128 to the next AC128, the Hfe meter 'sees' leakage as gain and so..back to GEO to build the testjig for GE transistor selection.
  Or...off to find a suitable, measured for Hfe/leakage, ''documented gain/leakage'' transistor online, Smallbear, Banzai.
  While that's coming in, read read read, RG type is faster for me to refer to, it's also top billing/must read for this exact circuit.

[winnetouch]

I'll be completly honest with you. I didn't understand a thing you said Sorry but I'm really a newb and don't understand much of anything. I'm only building this because I need a cheap alternative since I'm not really good friends with money . I only use the diagrams and pcbs. I realy just need a simple straightforwad explenation. But thank you all the same

EDIT: I just realised that the tip of the output jack isn't connected to anything. Is it suppose to be?

[winnetouch]

I'm asumming you ment this:


But I don't understand how this is suppose to save my problem. This doesn't even use the same circuit board. I don't want to start all over again I had too much of a headache etching this PCB as it is I'm really sorry but I don't understand much of the things you told me. Me being a non englisg speaking person doesn't help much when it comes to technical words

[o2bthecream]

There's a jumper wire missing between the 3rd lug of the pot and the collector of the transistor.

[Top Top]

The rangemaster on its own is generally clean and not overdriven. It is the amp you plug it into that will become overdriven, so don't expect the pedal to sound overdriven on it's own, even when you get the other issues worked out.

[BadIdeas]

What TopTop says is true. You will probably only get distortion if using a tube amp, not from a solid-state (ie transistor-based) amp. Your effect may very well be functioning just fine.

However, I have just looked up the BC560 and 2n5087 pinouts for you and they appear to be reversed from each other. If you want, you can try turning it around.

DSICLAIMER: I have no hands-on experience building effects using transistors as of yet.

As for the pot, do you know if it is a log or linear pot? It should be a log pot. One is marked with an "A", the other with a "B". I can never remember which is which, so you might just get the opposite of what you have.

One more thing. Try not to bite your tongue off. 

[winnetouch]

:P:P:P (I'll try not to) - I love smileys

Yeah I probably used the wrong pot. I used a leftover from my ruby amp and that uses a 10 k linear. I was suppose to use a 10k LOG POT (Argh.... How could I make sucha a mistake). I'll replace that and try again. I also see that I missed that jumper wire. I see I missed a lot of things. Thank you all for your help. I'll try to fix the thing today and report back on the succes.

Are there any treble boosters that wirk with transistorised amps? I use a vox AC30 pathfinder, 15W for pratice at home.

[winnetouch]

It works 

It was the jumper wire that I missed and the pot was wrong. It is very clean but it works on my transistor powered amp to . It even works on my little ruby.