Anybody build their Gristleizer yet, comments on it?

[jacobyjd]

Actually, looking back over my work, I may have done the rotary right. Before I dissassemble that I may power up the module and test it as is to see if I hit the nail on the head (blind luck)

- Strategy

Haha--at least you'll have sound clips to work with so you know how it's SUPPOSED to sound. I had no clue when I fired it up

[Taylor]

Uh Oh. I did get the "open" type, the second one, that make and model from Smallbear. I'll see what I can learn from my multi meter with this and probably have to resolder...darn. Although, I have some Lorlin 3P4T's which would work in a pinch, but i assume ignoring one of the poles...?

OK, well I'm glad I asked about that. At the risk of sounding like a total noob, where can I find a tutorial about using a multi meter to identify switch pinouts? (if such a thing exists)

Well, it depends on your meter. If you have a continuity setting, use that. My meter doesn't have a continuity tester, so I put it on the lowest resistance setting. If there's a connection between the 2 leads, the meter will show some amount of resistance (very small). If there's no connection, it will just say 0 or whatever the display shows when the leads aren't touching anything.

Turn the switch all the way to one side, and pad 1 should be connected to pad 2 (or pad 5), and pad 6 should be connected to pad 7 or 10.

[Strategy]

Great, I'll verify my work with the continuity tester AND the sound clips!

Thanks guys!!! 

[Strategy]

 

I am really close to being done and pulled up a pad. The wiring on the DPDT switch, pad 1, broke off, so I was doing my usual desolder routine and the whole pad came off  This has actually never happened to me.

Where else can I take my rewire into the board to make that connection?

ARGGGGGGHHHH

Strategy

[Taylor]

Did the pads on both sides come off? Pad 1 of the DPDT connects to the drain of the JFET.

[Strategy]

Yeah, both sides...when I desoldered the joint and pulled out what remained of the wire, everything came out 

I can probably connect this wire to the Drain leg of the transistor socket, though it will be a tight squeeze and fragile. That's the transistor nearest the switch on the layout correct?

Thanks much for the details
Strategy

[Taylor]

Yep, it's the one marked D G S... you want to attach it to D.

[Strategy]

I hate stuff like this because it introduces an extra layer of error on top of invisible errors...complicating the troubleshooting process 

Thanks for your help, should get to this tonite. Then wire the output jack and it's ready to test.
- Strategy

[Taylor]

Visible errors are better than invisible IMO. 

But yeah, that's frustrating. I find pro boards like this much easier and less accident prone than homebrew boards, but one thing that's annoying about soldermask is that it makes dealing with this kind of thing, or adding extra components, etc. really hard without any exposed copper. 

[Strategy]

  Success! I think!

The circuit mostly works even the reaaaaally iffy kludge where I'm wiring the DPDT sw1 wire to the D leg of the JFET. Very dodgy. But, I am getting nice and choppy trem and filter action. I really like the tonality of both. There's ticking, but to me- it's musical. This is a mangle box.

The only thing I'm still not sure about is the 2P6T. A couple of settings on the switch show weak or non existent modulation so I need to see if this is an issue of wrong pinout or just the settings...or maybe I need to tweek the trimpots to get those settings to have action.

I'll listen to jacobyjd's sound samples tomorrow and go from there.

thanks for everyone's help
- Strategy

[Skruffyhound]

There are of course 2 switch positions that don't do anything , only 4 throws on each pole are used, but you probably knew that.

[jacobyjd]

Strategy--one thing you'll have to do is tweak the trimmers for the triangle wave to get it tuned in right. Also, if yours is like mine, the triangle is setting always needs the bias bumped a little hotter anytime you switch from either of the saw or square waves.

[Strategy]

There are of course 2 switch positions that don't do anything , only 4 throws on each pole are used, but you probably knew that.

I think what I've done is chosen the wrong four so that the 'not do anything' throws are mixed in with 'do stuff' ones. Now to desolder this switch and re do it! 

[Strategy]

In the process of rewiring my 2P6T, ALL of the joints on the DPDT broke. I was able to get some of them rewired, but the DPDT pad 4 is totally torn off. I swear, I've never had this much trouble with desoldering a pcb. I'm so bummed 

is there somewhere else I can bring that wire back into the board?

- Strategy

[Taylor]

Yikes! Here's an image of the traces:

http://img97.imageshack.us/i/gristlepcb.jpg/

Don't mind the wonky looking labels, just a weird glitch. The traces are right, though. As you can see, the traces leading to the switches are somewhat serpentine, a result of having to run them all over the place and get them to the edge while keeping the board rather tiny. So, as you can see pad 4 connects to the rightmost 6n8 cap.

[Strategy]

Thanks Taylor! Strangely enough I was able to re-secure the torn pad (!) back onto the board by sticking a discarded component leg through the hole and soldering the whole assembly together. It's secure on both sides so I wired to that.

I would have to say my only suggestion for any revisions is to make the switch wiring pads bigger, although, now I can see this would add a full centimeter around at least two sides of the pcb if you did the DPDT and the 2P6T pads as bigger sized ones.

The 2P6T switch...there are a couple of settings there that still don't seem to do anything, the settings are all in just a different order now. I think I'm encountering the old, "maybe this is how it's supposed to work and it just seems weird to me but I'll get used to it" category. Now what's a little weirder is that when I'm on triangle wave, the trims don't seem to affect the modulation tuning or if they do it must be very subtle. I'm using 100K bourns trimmers...Did I goof on the value here? What am I looking for on the tuning?

Sorry to have a million troubleshoots on this build, I think the universe is serving me, a counterweight to my year plus of stupidly easy beginners luck on projects that probably should not have been so easy

- Strategy

[jacobyjd]

you should hear the changes when you turn the trimmers--from what it seemed to me, you're hacking off the two sides of a square wave...or something. If I had a trimmer in one extreme, it sounded like a sawtooth, in the other, reverse sawtooth.

[Strategy]

you should hear the changes when you turn the trimmers--from what it seemed to me, you're hacking off the two sides of a square wave...or something. If I had a trimmer in one extreme, it sounded like a sawtooth, in the other, reverse sawtooth.

Interesting. I'm pretty sure that the trimmers are not adjusting the waveform at all. I don't have an oscilloscope which would be handy in this situation. It is possible that these trimmers don't have the right pinout?!? Seems weird though. Again, encountering issues that I've never seen before on this project.

- Strategy

[Taylor]

What type of trimmers are you using?

[Strategy]

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=3386X-1-104LFvirtualkey65210000virtualkey652-3386X-1-104LF

100K...

- Strategy