SIB Echodrive clone: has anyone ever made one?

[Velcro Bottom]

Ha!

[digi2t]

We have progress progress progress progress.....

[ibarakishi]

[digi2t]

Not so fast there Captain Happy...

Found a few bugs that need ironing out, so we'll have to cut some new boards. Sorta in the "minor major" category, but need to be addressed. In the meantime, I'm going to try to bodge this build into a proper working unit. It's been an interesting ride so far.

But...

It does work work work work work.

[ibarakishi]

me excited trying to pass time while waiting after the news

[imJonWain]

Looks good! Just curious, What did you end up deciding on for handling the different voltages and what's your main supply voltage? I can see the stepdown transformer and a regulator. Are you using the transformer "backwards" to step it up for the B+ and the regulator for the heaters?

[digi2t]

I'm using a toroidal transformer to step up from 12vac. 12vac is common to lots of our projects, so not unfamiliar to most, and cheap to buy (much cheaper than DC adapters). I'm getting between 140 and 150 vdc on B+ loaded, which is in the same wheelhouse as the original. The same 12vac gets flipped to DC for the filament heater, as well as 5vdc further downstream for the power to the chips.

We're just sorting out some assembly and layout issues right now, so it'll be a few more weeks before we can say "yay" or "nay" to the whole thing. Phil is in the process of tweaking the layout for new boards. What I have now does indeed work, but it's far from something that I would throw to the masses as is.

Not the cheapest build. The transfo alone goes for close to $30 (in my neck of the woods), and they don't give the echo and memory chips away either. But, considering the market price of an Echodrive... yeah, worth it!

[digi2t]

So, an update...

The project slowed considerably, main due to the fact that your's truly goofed up on the schematic that I sent to Phil, and Phil basically translated my errors into reality (Oh the horror, the inhumanity!). After a couple of toasted resistors and two power supplies that Skylab'd, I finally spotted the error of my ways.
Also, the original transfo that I wanted to use was surpassing the output expectations, so I needed to downgrade to get the B+ voltage under control, lest I cook the power caps as well. Supply chain issues means that hunting down the transfos that I wanted to test with was.... an adventure. Anyway, after weeks of waiting I finally got them, and having butchered the validation board to correct the errors (thank you Dremel!), and the correct transformer hooked up, it lives...



B+ is sitting at around 185vdc, which only 20 higher than the original's spec. Right now, it's pretty noisy, but I'm attributing that to the fact that I've got long jumer wires with some 170vac running through them radiating everything audio around them. My hope is that with the transfo mounted to the board, with very short traces for the HV AC, and a ground plane, the noise should drop to a normal level. Still sticking with a 12VAC/800Ma power supply, which are cheap and plentiful.

With the drive full up, it has a great grit to it, and if you overdrive the amp as well, it's pretty blissful.

I managed to do a quick video of it in action. It's like waking up Frankenstein. Not pretty... but it's moving.



BTW... how the heck do we get the YT vids to embed into the post. Tried the youtube bookends, but no dice.

[ibarakishi]

for youtube videos you just have to copy the whole url, not a shortened version of it, then put it in the youtube brackets with the 's' deleted from the 'https' part of it. if its a shortened url link, then it won't work.

really excited to hear actual irl sounds from the pedal now! what is the drive on it equivalent to sounding like in your opinion?

[digi2t]

for youtube videos you just have to copy the whole url, not a shortened version of it, then put it in the youtube brackets with the 's' deleted from the 'https' part of it. if its a shortened url link, then it won't work.

really excited to hear actual irl sounds from the pedal now! what is the drive on it equivalent to sounding like in your opinion?

OK, tried the -s thing... all I'm getting now is a big empty space where the video should be. Maybe it's my browser. I'll keep working the issue.

The "drive" isn't like a full blown OD or anything. It's more like an organic grit, like something you would get from any tube drive. With the mix 50/50, it's more prominent in the echos, perhaps attempting to emulate worn tape. It's charming though. Mind you, I'm only playing through a little 15w SS practice amp, so I don't have the benefit of hearing it push some preamp tubes yet. Right now, it reminds me of my Faustone Klipper (Laney Klip preamp), with the gain set down low. Stays clean when you want clean, but a mild dirty sound when you dig in. EQ-wise, fairly balanced as well.

[digi2t]

Got it. I'm on an old Win7 machine, and no more Flash for Chrome. Added Ruffle to Chrome, and the YT vids are now visible.

[Velcro Bottom]

That right there is some bad-ass mad scientist shit.

[digi2t]

Design issues have been addressed, and the new version soon to be sent to production.

Let's try this again.......

[imJonWain]

It might be interesting to adapt this design into a psuedo reverb/delay with pt2399s.

[digi2t]

It might be interesting to adapt this design into a psuedo reverb/delay with pt2399s.

Don't think it needs to be limited to that. One could stick anything between the two triodes.