Distortion LTD harmonic percolator instructions unclear

[dylanthomaspals]

Hey all, thanks in advance for any help. It's amazing to be able to come to a place like this for advice before I take a chance and potentially screw something up. Who knows, maybe someone else here built one too already. I'm building a harmonic percolator kit I got from Distortion LTD magazine and I'm a little confused about the instructions and I was hoping someone would help me clear a couple things up. I don't know much about reading schematics so if I don't have clear directions I'm screwed. I'm including screenshots from the instructions/schematic


below and a link to the intuctions in full.  Firstly, the drawing says there are only ten track cuts on the vero but in the photo of their board I think I see eleven. So which is it?

And secondly, this part in step five about clipping the transistor leg and twisting one around the other. Very vague if you ask me and I can't afford to screw it up. Can anyone tell what this means and possibly explain it to me?

Thanks again for the help. Let me know if I can supply any more info to help make my questions more clear. Link and photos below:

https://view.joomag.com/distortion-ltd-issue-014/0440159001522971164/p18?short

[pinkjimiphoton]

@#$% nicholas kula dude. he steals our shit from here then claims it as his own.
his posts always have mistakes, too, but the big thing is the asshole has no ethics.
if ya wanna harmonic perk that works for vero, hollah back and i'll upload ya one,
but at least some of us won't bother with anything that douchebag touched.
he ripped me and dino off personally and never even apologized when called on it... so i can't offer support for anything
that ftard does. sorry.

[pinkjimiphoton]

try this. transistors can be pretty much anything. socket and see. this was built over a dozen times so it should be good to go

[BetterOffShred]

I built a few of these and they sound dope for sure. I actually used an MPSA13 as the NPN in one, it's pretty sweet.  Had to adjust the 91k to a lower value, and used bigger input/output on a friend's recommendation. It gets pretty raucous.  Never tried the Albini mods, but it looks easy enough to add to Jimi's layout, or the tagboard.  I think I added 2 columns to that one and got the dual clipping options.  DPDT toggle for input/output caps, and then that 4pdt toggle for the albini mods boom done

[dylanthomaspals]

@#$% nicholas kula dude. he steals our shit from here then claims it as his own.
his posts always have mistakes, too, but the big thing is the asshole has no ethics.
if ya wanna harmonic perk that works for vero, hollah back and i'll upload ya one,
but at least some of us won't bother with anything that douchebag touched.
he ripped me and dino off personally and never even apologized when called on it... so i can't offer support for anything
that ftard does. sorry.

Apologies. I seem to have struck a nerve. Hope I didn't offend, I just thought the thing sounded cool and wanted to try my hand at something on vero. I'm already almost done with this build so I think it makes sense to see it through. Guess I'll just keep plugging along and hope it works once I fire it up.

[idy]

 It looks like the extra cut should not matter: it appears to be row F column G, nothing attached to that part of the row.

That thing about the transistor is pretty damn annoying. Which transistor? Both? Why not make a real lay out....

I would suggest looking at the schematic and the "layout" to figure out where the BCE are supposed to go. Then figure out the pinout for the transistors you have. Then figure out how to get the legs twisted around with some insulation to keep from shorting.

The emitters go "up" on Q2 "down" on Q1. The collectors go the "other" way and the bases are the "Side" or "middle" leads.
Good luck, but the guys telling you to toss the board, get a new piece of vero and follow a proven layout are really trying to help you out! This kind of thing can be a nightmare. And most folks test a circuit before they stick it in a box....

[Rob Strand]

Grrrrr the darn JPEG compression setting was wrong and it stuffed-up my mark-ups on the layout.
Too late now, will have to do it again tomorrow.
----------------
Here's what I see:



I'm assuming on this diagram the transistor is viewed from the bottom:

this was built over a dozen times so it should be good to go

A nice compact layout that's easy to build.

[dylanthomaspals]

Grrrrr the darn JPEG compression setting was wrong and it stuffed-up my mark-ups on the layout.
Too late now, will have to do it again tomorrow.
----------------
Here's what I see:



I'm assuming on this diagram the transistor is viewed from the bottom:

this was built over a dozen times so it should be good to go

A nice compact layout that's easy to build.

Thanks a ton for your help. I think I figured it out and proceeded further into the build last night. I'll check what I did against this when I get home from work later. Can't believe how vague some of these instructions are. Really disappointed. Just hope I can get it working. Thanks again.

[Rob Strand]

Thanks a ton for your help. I think I figured it out and proceeded further into the build last night. I'll check what I did against this when I get home from work later. Can't believe how vague some of these instructions are. Really disappointed. Just hope I can get it working. Thanks again.

Yeah it doesn't help the cause.
No problem. Here's the fix.

You should convince yourself it is correct.  I would be buzzing the GT313A transistor pins with a multimeter diode range to confirm they are correct.  I couldn't work out top-view bottom-view from the Russian datasheet.

[pinkjimiphoton]

@#$% nicholas kula dude. he steals our shit from here then claims it as his own.
his posts always have mistakes, too, but the big thing is the asshole has no ethics.
if ya wanna harmonic perk that works for vero, hollah back and i'll upload ya one,
but at least some of us won't bother with anything that douchebag touched.
he ripped me and dino off personally and never even apologized when called on it... so i can't offer support for anything
that ftard does. sorry.

Apologies. I seem to have struck a nerve. Hope I didn't offend, I just thought the thing sounded cool and wanted to try my hand at something on vero. I'm already almost done with this build so I think it makes sense to see it through. Guess I'll just keep plugging along and hope it works once I fire it up.

no worries, my apologies. that dermadermdermdermer just rubbed my fur the wrong way. glad to see rob and the guys helpin ya out

[joelo]

Hi,
This is my first post. I have built only 4 pedals from PCB boards and I am about to start this one. I bought the kit a while ago before I had done anything. So this will be my first stripboard project.

So reading this thread, if I understand it correctly, it seems I do not need to make the extra cut that is in the photo (but not on the diagram) for it to work. Right?

And the other issue about clipping the transistor leg, etc. I'm not even sure what that's describing yet as I'm just trying to wrap my head around all this.

[duck_arse]

joelo, I'll say that the leg clipping business is just to remove the fourth lead, connecting to the case and un-needed in this instance, just so's I can also say welcome to the forum.

personally, if build instructions were telling me to tist legs and add insulation, I'd look for a different layout, or a different transistor type, withe legs in different order. but that's just me.

[joelo]

Hi guys. Since I already bought this thing and I wanted to try a strip board project I started it.

I am at the point in the instructions where the transistors are to be added. I see now the vagueness about this. Based on the responses above I'm sensing this is unusual. But I think I get how to do it.

I do have a more general question though. For the other transistor, Q2, the BC107B, one of the legs, B, is to be inserted in a hole that one of the jumper wires is over. I'm assuming they shouldn't be touching. How does one deal with this situation?

[duck_arse]

that is a poor bit of layoutering. easy answer is to just bend the legs a little so that they form a straight line, and use the three "f" column holes.

and yes, they shouldn't be touching. it is poor form to run a link across a component leg hole. although, you could use a "flying link" - an insulated wire/hook-up wire link that you loop above/over the components, but still close to board level.

[joelo]

that is a poor bit of layoutering. easy answer is to just bend the legs a little so that they form a straight line, and use the three "f" column holes.

and yes, they shouldn't be touching. it is poor form to run a link across a component leg hole. although, you could use a "flying link" - an insulated wire/hook-up wire link that you loop above/over the components, but still close to board level.

Thank you. Just to be clear, are you saying the leg in question, "B" on the revised diagram that Rob Strand did above, can be inserted in column F row K hole? Instead of the column E  row K hole? If so that's great! But why exactly is that ok? Is it because the signal travels across the rows so either hole will work?

And a "flying link" is an insulated jumper then? Since I have the jumper already soldered and not the transistor, could I use a piece of wire insulation on the transistor leg in question? Similar to what the instructions are saying about the Q1 transistor. 

[pinkjimiphoton]

yeah, just insulate the leg of the tranny, you'll be fine. this is a ridiculously maddening circuit... nothing to it, anything will run in it just about, but it can be a bitch to get to sound "just right". my advice is socket everything and just keep playing with it til it makes ya happy.

[joelo]

yeah, just insulate the leg of the tranny, you'll be fine. this is a ridiculously maddening circuit... nothing to it, anything will run in it just about, but it can be a bitch to get to sound "just right". my advice is socket everything and just keep playing with it til it makes ya happy.

Thank you. Good advice. But right now I'm just hoping this works when I'm done, and then I'll move on. There are some PCB pedal projects I'm interested in but this is all good learning for future strip board builds.

Thanks again everybody.

[joelo]

Hi again.
So I now have a couple of questions unrelated to anything above.

First, in the diagram, it shows a wire connected to the hole in row A column K that connects to "balance 1." However in the photos that are in the instructions, it looks as though the the wire to the lug 1 of the balance pot is connected to a different spot on the board. Am I seeing this right? Should I follow the diagram? There was a capacitor position that looked a bit different in the photos so I followed the diagram because I couldn't really tell where it was soldered. But this is very obvious.





The other is a more general question. How are the lugs numbered on the SPDT switch? If they are like the 4DPT it would be 3-2-1 starting from the top of the enclosure.

[joelo]

Just bumping this 

[joelo]

I finished it. The good news is that it gets power and works in bypass. Yay! The bad is that then I step on the switch, the sound drops to almost nothing. Turning the Balance knob makes a "swishy" sound. Turning the Harmonics knob doesn't seem to do anything. Flipping the diode switch makes loud pops. The other switch doesn't make any sound. Any obvious thing to try?