Sunday, November 1, 2020

SOLA SOUND: Tone Bender MKII Professional, 0.15" Vero

Not strictly my layout, as this is a very close copy of the D*A*M layout / the original Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII board.  

I haven't tried the larger pitch vero before, so I thought I would give it a go.  I am enjoying the space between tracks - definitely don't have to keep an eye on solder bridges.

This is a little different to most MKII schematics, as it has a 10k resistor from base to ground on Q1, and a 47k on the collector of Q2.  I've read that this is best for leaky OC75 transistors (which I have a few of).  The 100k bias resistors were mainly used for OC81s.   


SOLA SOUND TONE BENDER MKII PROFESSIONAL - VERO LAYOUT

SOLA SOUND TONE BENDER MKII PROFESSIONAL - VERO LAYOUT


SOLA SOUND TONE BENDER MKII PROFESSIONAL - ON THE BENCH

Using some old mustard caps, and new electrolytics - carbon comp resistors to complete the mojo / vintage look.  I plan on starting with an OC75 for Q1, then see what happens with the other two.  Nearly all of my OC's are Valvo, which were pulled from amplifiers in an old telephone exchange.  

Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII - bench shot


After a bit of playing around, I ended up running with OC75s for Q1 and Q2, and weird Philips ATZ10 transistor, fresh out of the pack from 1967 for Q3.  The wires are temporary, I'll swap them out and neaten them up when I box this up.  

It's sounding pretty nice, I've only tested at low levels at the moment (the Mrs was home), but very it's promising.

Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII - bench shot


Sola Sound Tone Bender MKII - bench shot









5 comments:

  1. If I were to built this with OC81D-like HFE, what gain would I be looking for? I read somewhere that building an MKII with the combination 50-55/55-60/70-90 is possible, right?

    Btw, where do you get these beautiful vintages veros? I can't find them here in Germany.

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    Replies
    1. Hello.

      I buy my vero from RS in Australia. Nearest I could find for you is RS in the UK. They only have one board with the vintage size pitch (3.8mm)

      https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/stripboards/0433832

      Another online store in the USA sells pre-cut boards. https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/pcb-vintage-style-circuit-board-mkii-fuzz

      I’ve never made a MKII using OC81 transistors, so I can’t say for sure. Sorry if I have asked you this before, but do you have a breadboard? Highly recommended for testing transistors in circuits.

      You’ve probably seen the values in the component values table, but you must change some resistor values for OC81 transistors. This layout only works for OC75 or similar leaky transistors.

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  2. Thank you! :-) Then I'll get myself a breadboard. I normally built the circuit and use sockets for the transistors and relevant resistors to test them, but a breadboard would be easier of course.

    Something else, as you have many Germanium circuits on your website, would you be willing to make a layout of the Red Witch Fuzz God V1, which is Germanium?:
    https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?t=1584&start=20

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fair enough. I had some early failures with transistors falling out of cheap sockets from Tayda, so I gave up on them and changed to a breadboard for testing. Also provides a chance to tweak a few other values, which can be fun.

      Fuzz God looks interesting - I’ll get on to that later.

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    2. I won’t do a layout for the fuzz god until I get around to breadboarding it. I’m unsure about the schematic and I don’t want to post something that might not work.

      Delete