A friend of mine gave me this pedal that was not working, its a Loco Box TubeManiax Over Drive from the 70's. When I took it apart, the wires were ripped of the pots, I soldered them back on, and it works great. This pedal sounds fantastic. After a little researching, i have come to find that these are extremely rare and hard to come by, there is nothing out there on these pedals. Is there any one out there interested in this pedal enough to work with me to put together a schematic? I can upload high rez images, and measure values etc. if your out there let me know.
We are out here ;D
(http://www.locobox.com/tubemaniax/tubemaniax_inside02.jpg)
more:
http://www.locobox.com/tubemaniax.html (http://www.locobox.com/tubemaniax.html)
of course these pic are useless so you should post juicy hi-res pics of the solder side of the pcb, components side, pot values etc. :icon_biggrin:
Quote from: stickninja on November 14, 2010, 12:15:09 AM
A friend of mine gave me this pedal that was not working, its a Loco Box TubeManiax Over Drive from the 70's. When I took it apart, the wires were ripped of the pots, I soldered them back on, and it works great. This pedal sounds fantastic. After a little researching, i have come to find that these are extremely rare and hard to come by, there is nothing out there on these pedals. Is there any one out there interested in this pedal enough to work with me to put together a schematic? I can upload high rez images, and measure values etc. if your out there let me know.
I think you've answered your own question. ;D
If its from the 70's how come it has a MAR2004 stamp in the box. :icon_eek: Probably a glorified Tubescreamer from the description. Curious though.
Duh, its the battery stupid. Nevermind.
all right then, I guess I will get to work. I will keep everyone posted, and get some hi rez images going....i was thinking of trying to overlay the two sides of the board digitally, any recommendations on how to do this? photo shop maybe?
OK, so here we go.......Did a lot of work today, and I hope it wasn't fruitless. :icon_confused:
So here is a shot of the component side of the board.
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs930.snc4/74357_1507330846480_1330586145_31237917_7314688_n.jpg)
The solder side
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs564.ash2/148686_1507331006484_1330586145_31237918_1387322_n.jpg)
I spent the day "digitizing" the circuit. I will begin the values list tomorrow and get that up asap. Any advice on how to identify the Jfets and Diodes? Also you will see I have M1 and M@. They are Mystery Components. I have a picture of them to follow, not sure if they are diodes or what, any help would be appreciated in identifying and figuring their values. so here is my composite circuit drawing.....
(http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7113/compositeexport.jpg)
And here are the mystery components.....
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1175.snc4/154698_1507331166488_1330586145_31237919_7606406_n.jpg)
Like I said, i will start with values tomorrow, but I need to know how to determine the polar orientation of some of those caps, and how to figure out values for jfets and diodes.
Sorry, i'm kinda new to this stuff, but I thought this would be fun to jump into. I was hoping someone out there might be able to help me take this to a cleaner schematic and PCB.
Hope I did well so far.
Sorry to make that image so big, just wanted to make the component labels readable
This stole time I should have been doing other things >:(
Mind the fact that I've rotated some transistors and moved a few parts around a bit.
(http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz249/Perrow_MLP/Stomp/LocoBox-TubeManiac.png)
Do I need to tell you it's unverified :icon_mrgreen:
Awesome man, i began to check it over vs. mine, cant finish right now I have to run, but i found a couple mistakes on my side that you fixed on yours, so i fixed them on my image, here's the new link for anyone interested.
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/7229/compositeexportv11.jpg (http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/7229/compositeexportv11.jpg)
Quote from: stickninja on November 18, 2010, 10:59:14 AM
Awesome man, i began to check it over vs. mine, cant finish right now I have to run, but i found a couple mistakes on my side that you fixed on yours, so i fixed them on my image, here's the new link for anyone interested.
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/7229/compositeexportv11.jpg (http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/7229/compositeexportv11.jpg)
Yeah, had to look at your photos to correct those faults ;) Fun to hear that you haven't found any errors on mine.
look the "Volz Overdrive"
Any data on that opamp? 6552 ??? I suppose that you could sub it with any old op amp however, is it a single.... dual?
Quote from: Govmnt_Lacky on November 18, 2010, 01:09:01 PM
Any data on that opamp? 6552 ??? I suppose that you could sub it with any old op amp however, is it a single.... dual?
Nevermind.... I see that it is a 4558 equivalent according to Boredom's pic above :icon_redface:
If anyone's interested I drew up a quick schematic from stickninja's layout, mostly just to see if there was anything special circuit wise. The caps in the feedback loop of the first opamp are just to show the position of the mystery components.
The switching is quite clever if you like that kind of thing, I guess most people will just be interested in the rest of it though.
(http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=44006&g2_serialNumber=1)
im working on the values now, can any one identify those mystery components? how do I identify the diodes? and lastly, I tried this morning and had a real hard time with it, is there anyone out there that can help with an eagle schematic for this layout?
The diodes look similar to the Japanese silicon diodes in a Tube screamer, I'd guess any silicon diodes would work, the exact sort of diode doesn't normally make much difference. The mystery components could be some sort of diode as well.
I've found two errors in my previous pcb design (at the pads next to R1-R5, too many). Reworked and beautified.
Should be a little less crowded now in the triangle between Q2-Q3-Q4. Included a "components only" view to make the numbering legible. A few resistor labels are a bit off graphically but you should be able to pair components and labels.
(http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz249/Perrow_MLP/Stomp/LocoBox-TubeManiac-Beta2.png)
And yes, I like them curvy traces ;D
nice man, you made those with the diy layout creator i assume....when you use that in PCB mode, does it export/print at scale? in other words, will the IC fit in that without manipulation?
QuoteThe diodes look similar to the Japanese silicon diodes in a Tube screamer, I'd guess any silicon diodes would work, the exact sort of diode doesn't normally make much difference. The mystery components could be some sort of diode as well.
I agree. I've seen those red and blue diodes in alot of older equipment. I think they are signal diodes. To get a real value measure their forward voltage drop. Try the same with the mystery components. If you can remove one and reinstall it without damaging it, try to measure forward votage to see if it's a diode, try measuring capacitance to see if it's a cap of some type. It definately appears to have polarity markings on it. (diode, tantalum cap)? Too bad they don't have any ID markings of any type to help. Bummer..or maybe the white end does id a capacitane value??
Quote from: stickninja on November 18, 2010, 07:57:23 PM
nice man, you made those with the diy layout creator i assume....when you use that in PCB mode, does it export/print at scale? in other words, will the IC fit in that without manipulation?
Yes, diylc (2.0 beta). I regretfully have to say that I've not yet come to the point where I etch, so I can't really answer that question, but I've seen people say that they do print OK, just have to find the right dpi setting in the program you use to print it. I seem to remember 166 dpi, but I might be wrong. Hope someone who knows chimes in, otherwise do a search on diylc and dpi :)
This thread (http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=76498.0) says 160 dpi.
good to know, I'm gonna continue work on trying to draw up a schematic today, i will test those diodes. as far as transistors goes, it seems that all of them have different numbers, would it change the sound drastically to replace them all with a more readily available model? and also, is there a way of knowing whether they are PNP or NPN other than searching the net for their model number?
If you want to do a faithful clone including the switching, then it would be useful to find out what Q4 and Q5 are, hopefully you can do that from the part numbers. Apart from that, assuming my schematic is correct all the others are most likely NPN transistors, it would certainly work fine if they were.
speaking of the switching, could you explain whats going on there? You said its ingenious, but im having a hard time working it out in my head, is there a way to wire it for true bypass with a 3PDT with out changing to much?
so the the forwrd voltage of all the diodes is .583, and the mystery components are at about .989, what could be used for these? any suggestions?
Quote from: stickninja on November 19, 2010, 02:50:49 PM
so the the forwrd voltage of all the diodes is .583, and the mystery components are at about .989, what could be used for these? any suggestions?
I believe, 1N914s or 1N4148s have about a 1V forward voltage to replace the "mystery components." ;D
Hi,
(i'm french so excuse me for my poor english...)
I want to make this pedal but i don't look the component's values (R, C, Q...) ?
Quote from: nicoguitare on January 11, 2011, 11:27:50 AM
Hi,
(i'm french so excuse me for my poor english...)
I want to make this pedal but i don't look the component's values (R, C, Q...) ?
Hi, they've not been measured yet. I'll sure a schematic will be posted here once they have been.
I'm looking forward to uncovering the mystery of this pedal as well :)
Thanks for your post, so i'm waiting !! :icon_biggrin:
posted about this redson od here http://generaledefoutre.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/redson-over-drive-11/ (http://generaledefoutre.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/redson-over-drive-11/)
yep!
...which is same pedal as the locobox tubemaniax...
Quote from: stickninja on November 19, 2010, 02:50:49 PM
so the the forwrd voltage of all the diodes is .583, and the mystery components are at about .989, what could be used for these? any suggestions?
cool!
I bet they are both silicon, but different
the smallest drop could be 1N914
it all depends on the test current
for sure: the higher drop is a higher drop. looks like silicon+germanium in one !!!
Thanks for post shematic
Quote from: nicoguitare on July 20, 2011, 03:05:35 PM
Thanks for post shematic
If you verify my PCB layout, please post that you did :-)
Thanks a lot for this! I have a tubemaniax i bought shortly after i got my first guitar and amp, it sounded really great,. very pronounced, tube-schreamer like.
stupid thing is,. at the time I was dissapointed it was an overdrive cause my postorder-amp (the animal,whekamp) already had a distortion toggle switch on it :P
It was only later when I realized it was actually a very nice sounding pedal.
Somehow the guts have dissapeared and are lost!,. only have the box now, which i never threw away cause it looks kind of great (wierd orange yellow),
and hoping i would find the schematic for it one day..
I know this thread is ancient but does anyone have a good verified schematic of this? I really want to build one out as I played one and it was really interesting.
In situations like this, a useful resource is the effectsdatabase. Bart Provoost does a fantastic job of tracing "family relationships" among pedals, where a particular pedal and design was produced under a variety of product names/brands. Perhaps one of those listed here - http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/locobox/70s/tubemaniax#links - will provide a schematic for you.