The Klon Centaur - no introduction required really. Arguably the most famous of all overdrives for guitar? Likely the most expensive of all overdrives...
This layout took a lot longer than I thought it would. In the end, I also realised that I could have shaved a row off, but hey... maybe I'll come back to it another time.
I used the schematic from Aion FX, minus the pulldown resistor on the input, as this layout does not have the input buffer switch, so it's not really needed. There's room on the board if you want to add it, just remember to increase the value of the other 1meg diode to 2meg.
KLON CENTAUR - VERO LAYOUT
KLON DIODES
CAUTION: nerd alert on the diode videos. Thought it was pointless to post a demo video, so here's a deep dive down the rabbit hole of the mystical Klon Centaur diodes.
13 comments:
Good evening, i would like to say, your layout doesn't work. There is no gain and i need to set my Amp vol to full when i want hear something 🤔
Hello - I'll check the layout. Have you checked for errors, or tried to trace the signal with a probe? what are your voltages?
Bias on tl072 was quite good, 4.7V, but charge pump i had on one pin 9V (correct), but another pin, where should be -9V, i had 6.2V and this value was going slowly down to 2.3V, place where should be 18V, in my board was 6.5-7.4V. I used 7660 charge pump and like i wrote before, i Heard Klon with max volume in my Amp. I changed also tl072and now there is no gain. Best regards 🤘
OK - so that narrows it down a bit. Check everything around the power supply, such as the 10uf caps spanning the vero traces correctly.
Are you using a 7660 that has a boost mode? i.e. pins 1 & 8 can connect to incease clock speed?
With elko everything is like on your layout, polarity, values. I use icl7660s.
I've gone over the layout a few times and can't see any errors compared to the schematic. So hopefully that side of things is ok - please let me know if you spot something.
What volatges do you have with the opamps removed? Is the 7660 from a good supplier? I've had ones that don't work from ebay suppliers out of China.
I bought 10 pcs. Changed, test, changed,test etc. Yesterday i checked once more all the rails because of shorts. What do you think, i remove 4.7kO resistor which goes to LED and made a jumper, because i wanted to have a little bit different light. LED with resistors. Do you think IT could be a problem?
No resistor with will kill the LED - get rid of the jumper and worry about that later.
I'd be looking for shorts & you didn't say where you got your 7660s from. Reputable supplier or ebay from China? I've bought a bad ones from China, which is whay I ask.
I bought them on Amazon and they are 100 % from China. As i remember, pin 8 7660 i have 8.8V and pin 5 between 6.3- 2.3V. about jumper, there is jumper and from jumper goes cable to extra PCB with resistors and LED. I tried also without LED and Klon works the same. I'm gonna try it once more today with another 7660, then with 072. We will see 🤔
OK - hard to say about the quality then.
If you buy from a local store or something like Mouser or RS, it will cost more, but you know what you're getting. I no longer buy any semi-conductors from ebay or Amazon, Alibaba etc - I think some sellers offload inferior products or cheap fakes.
If you have a little breadboard, you could quickly recreate the voltage doubler circuit to test the ICs.
Have a look at Electrosmash as a reference to voltages
https://www.electrosmash.com/images/tech/klon-centaur/Klon-Centaur-Schematic-Parts.png
Without the right voltages on the opamps, you will have trouble - and without some basic test equipment, you will struggle to find what is wrong.
Hi, i checked everything once more. You can mark your layout as "Verified". One of my 7660 was broken down, and one 072 also. 🤘
That's great news - glad you worked it out. For a while there I was worred that I had made a mistake on the layout that I could not see. Bad ICs is an annoying thing to deal with.
I watched also the schematic and you made a great job 🤘 i used 1n34a diodes, maybe next time i will buy (also from good source 😀) different diodes. You've been doing really great job with layouts. Best regards 🤘 and thank you very much 🤘
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