Phase Evolution!

Started by frequencycentral, May 23, 2009, 09:31:04 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

frequencycentral

This build was a bit of an accident. I recently built a Phase 45 with JC Malliet's mods. The original concept was to fit the entire circuit including the pots on a piece of 9x37 hole perf. After buiding and testing the main board I wasn't really happy with the quite subtle phasing. All that hard work wasted? No way was that going to happen - so I cludged in a further two phase stages on a daughter board for a deeper phase effect. I never would have been able to squeeze a Phase 90 onto a board that small, so adding the 6x14 hole daughter board was a bit of a win really, getting the flexibility of the Maillet mods with a four stage phaser in the size of enclosure I chose, and with the pots mounted on the board which is my preferred building method.

As it evolved from one thing into another, there are two boards. If I was doing this again as an intentional build, I'd do a different layout with everything on one board. The possibility is also there to add as many daughter boards as you wish.......








Here is my original Phase 45 with JC Maillet's mods layout. R23 is mounted on the copper side of the board:





Here's the layout above but with the daughter board hookup points indicated:





Here's the daughter board layout. C4 is mounted on the copper side of the board between pins 1 and 5 of the 4558. R4 and R5 (both 10K) are mounted under the 4558's socket:





Here's JC Maillet's original schematic, the red letters, A,B, C and D correspond to where I hacked in the two extra stages:





Here's the daughter board schematic:



Finally, here's a link to JC's project on his site: http://www.lynx.bc.ca/~jc/pedalsPhase45.html
http://www.frequencycentral.co.uk/

Questo è il fiore del partigiano morto per la libertà!

biggy boy

 :icon_eek: Simply amazing Rick.
I don't think I could pack all that stuff so nicely and neatly into a box three times it's size.
The outside looks great too!

Toney


Br4d13y

hmm  im looking through your layout and i think i have found a mistake you hav made. rick, there are no tubes!!!!!



all kidding aside though   awesome build, i might just have to get my feet wet in the phaser world with this :icon_mrgreen:
freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4

Taylor

Where do you get that ribbon wire?

frequencycentral

Quote from: Taylor on May 23, 2009, 01:58:30 PM
Where do you get that ribbon wire?

Ebay, search for 'rainbow ribbon cable'. I wouldn't build without it.
http://www.frequencycentral.co.uk/

Questo è il fiore del partigiano morto per la libertà!

biggy boy

Quote from: frequencycentral on May 23, 2009, 02:03:02 PM
Quote from: Taylor on May 23, 2009, 01:58:30 PM
Where do you get that ribbon wire?

Ebay, search for 'rainbow ribbon cable'. I wouldn't build without it.

Not a pretty but another option is to use strips of cable taken from a hard drive / floppy drive cable, that's what I use.

azrael

Now...what everyone wants...clips?

This thing looks might tasty, and might be perfect for my needs!

frequencycentral

Quote from: azrael on May 24, 2009, 02:51:43 PM
Now...what everyone wants...clips?

This thing looks might tasty, and might be perfect for my needs!

Ok, later this week!
http://www.frequencycentral.co.uk/

Questo è il fiore del partigiano morto per la libertà!

azrael

Cool, I'm looking forward to it. I find the Phase 90 too phasy, but still have reservations about the 45.

That said, I own a fulltone deja-vibe.  :D
One can never have too many pedals, though, haha. ;)

frequencycentral

Quote from: azrael on May 24, 2009, 09:52:58 PM
Cool, I'm looking forward to it. I find the Phase 90 too phasy, but still have reservations about the 45.

That said, I own a fulltone deja-vibe.  :D
One can never have too many pedals, though, haha. ;)

Too phasey - is there such a thing? I found the stock 45 far too subtle though. I'm on a phase odyssey ATM, I'm just doing a perf layout for R.G's Phase 180 Plus, using LM324 quad opamps to keep it managable, though matching 8 FETs will be a giggle. Planning to do an 8 stage Ross too. You're right, you can't have too many pedals, I have half a dozen dirt boxes, so why not do a few phasers............
http://www.frequencycentral.co.uk/

Questo è il fiore del partigiano morto per la libertà!

azrael

Haha. Maybe too phasey is the wrong phrase? Dunno, the Phase 90 just wasn't for me.

Man, I've been more active on DIYSB, and I gotta say, builders like you are killing me, haha. I have this unnatural urge to build lots of stompboxes now...The Vibracaster, DLS clone, new phaser, etc...Good stuff!

StephenGiles

Looks very nice, I'm a Badstone man myself :icon_cool:
"I want my meat burned, like St Joan. Bring me pickles and vicious mustards to pierce the tongue like Cardigan's Lancers.".

azrael

^Haha, actually, that was the other phaser build I was looking at doing. Did quite a bit of reading on it, found the layout at topopcione that you (I believe?) and some other users contributed to.
Looked like quite an undertaking!

Also, the manual feature of the Bad Stone reminded me of the Deluxe Electric Mistress's manual mode. Pretty neat!

Mark Hammer

I am also not sure how a person could find something "too phasey", but I do understand where a person might want a subtler sweep since the P90 has no depth/width control as a standard feature.  If you stick a 500k pot in series with the 1M fixed resistor feeding the gates of the FETs you can tone down the sweep to something approaching agentler shimmer or undulation.  You may even want to make that a 1M pot instead of 500k (haven't tried that value yet).

Note that the net effect of the added resistance is to constrain how high up the sweep goes.  It has no effect on the low end of the sweep.  Stated another way, it does not reposition the sweep to a different range, but simply limits the maximum amplitude/width of the sweep from its initial starting point.

Just a point worth mentioning in passing.  The P45 appears to have the resistor/cap network between drain and gate which is supposed to reduce distortion of the FETs by transient peaks. http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~houshu/synth/PhaseFet0205.GIF

frequencycentral

Quote from: Mark Hammer on May 25, 2009, 08:41:51 AM
I am also not sure how a person could find something "too phasey", but I do understand where a person might want a subtler sweep since the P90 has no depth/width control as a standard feature.  If you stick a 500k pot in series with the 1M fixed resistor feeding the gates of the FETs you can tone down the sweep to something approaching agentler shimmer or undulation.  You may even want to make that a 1M pot instead of 500k (haven't tried that value yet).

Note that the net effect of the added resistance is to constrain how high up the sweep goes.  It has no effect on the low end of the sweep.  Stated another way, it does not reposition the sweep to a different range, but simply limits the maximum amplitude/width of the sweep from its initial starting point.

Well worth looking at R.G's Phase 180 Plus for implementation of this idea, ie the 'Width' pot.
http://www.frequencycentral.co.uk/

Questo è il fiore del partigiano morto per la libertà!

Mark Hammer

I'd still recommend inserting a fixed resistor in series with that pot if you want the full rotation of the pot to be of use.  All well and good to have that sucker sweep waaaaaaaayyyyyy up high, but a notch or 2 or 3 well above the range of the instrument or speaker is a notch unheard.

Cliff Schecht

Usually I feel lazy after seeing a thread like this, but I have 2300 boards shipping in from China sometime this week :D.

Here's to hoping that all of the boards artwork is correct!

mth5044

Ohhh where are the sound clips?  ;D

R.G.

Quote from: Cliff Schecht on May 26, 2009, 02:40:45 AM
Usually I feel lazy after seeing a thread like this, but I have 2300 boards shipping in from China sometime this week :D.

Here's to hoping that all of the boards artwork is correct!
You don't do a two-board prototype build on new artwork??  :icon_eek:
R.G.

In response to the questions in the forum - PCB Layout for Musical Effects is available from The Book Patch. Search "PCB Layout" and it ought to appear.