Mozz's Mods

[UrenragK]

Looks great!

[golem]

So I guess I'm just checking for understanding, with the fancy winding machine the machine does all of the winding work? You just set it up and give it the parameters?

[mozz]

Yes , you program how many turns per layer and how many total turns. You adjust tension on 2 felt pieces the wire runs through or like me use a external tensioner to be more consistent. You can guide the wire by hand if you want.

There are a few dozen parameters you can adjust including human factor, rpm, wire gauge, wire insulation thickness, wire manufacturer, bobbin height, magnet type that are totally independent of what you program the machine to wind.

On the other hand there are scripts you can write to mimic whatever pattern you prefer, such as 1st 2000 turns close spaced and next 6000 turns more widely spaced to mimic scatter winding.

I actually have 2 complete sets of single coils here waiting for a guinea pig. Both are A2 magnets, 2000 tight/ 6000 scatter and 3000tight/ 5000 scatter. Both sets measure pretty close the same resistance and inductance so I am expecting them to sound pretty much the same. It's my first fortray with A2 strat magnets so I expect them to not be as sharp or defined as regular A5 but a lot more clear than a flat/ muddy A3.

[mozz]

I always keep this in mind when winding strat single coils. I'm sure Leo Fender taught the operators how to wind a coil. The ideal coil would be tightly spaced and tension would be fairly high but not too tight that you break the wire. So, once he taught the employee they followed his instructions then after he walked away they wound them some easier way. That might be fill the edges first then go back and fill the middle, do a quick back and forth scatter so it would get done quicker and I'm sure more tricks.

[ID10t]

Genius. Authentic.

[mozz]

Tele body, very light. 2 lbs, 5 oz. Maybe pawlownia? Not really sure. Solid maple neck, fretboard is part of the neck. Supposedly made by someone in Michigan? 21 frets and adjustment at the heel. Old Traynor PA cabinet. Pictures show aluminum dust covers on the speakers. I can't find any stock pictures with speakers like that so i figured they were changed out. The factory Marsland speaker had a bad rep. Took the chance and bought it, it is loaded with CTS speakers so next 4 build Champs/ Deluxes will all be getting these.

[Rollin Hand]

My dad had a couple of those big Traynor bins in our basement . I am sure he acquired them through his store -- he had a few amps that people brought in to repair and left if it was going to cost too much to fix.

One set was cut down, and the cut ends capped with plywood to form 2x12s. Guess where I got my first cab?

I also had an old Marlin tube head to power it.

[mozz]

I think the original vertical 4x12 was rated at 48 watts, so i can bet many were blown up and the cost to replace 4 speakers wasn't worth it.

[Rollin Hand]

Either that or a recone (my dad did that too) would take too long, and they had to leave. We weren't exactly on the beaten path.

[Buddha Pickups]

As much as we'd like to do a perfect set amount of turns per layer and keep that pattern, something always need a little filling in low areas as I go.
I think you're absolutely right though that every girl winding the pickups at fender developed their own way to wind.
I've never lacquered my bobbins either, I always tape over the magnets with kapton tape.

[Jaymo]

I actually have this one.
https://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-arb ... -3552.html
I know i did not pay $58, it was more like $20-30. Only problem is you have to use the corner of the ram.

03552_I.jpg

If you have a metal lathe with a 4 jaw chuck, you can chuck up the ram and mill a flat bottomed hole in the center of the ram.
Cross drill it for a pin, and make round punch inserts to go in it.
Cross drill the inserts to hold them in.
Pull the pin and swap out to different diameter inserts.

[mozz]

Wish i had a small machine shop. I've got it down now just the quantity i do make isn't that big of a deal. I have a plexiglass jig i used to use to hammer them in, either way the press is easier and only saves a minute.

[mozz]

Picked up this cabinet. Whoever made it did fairly nice work and the guy said he had a older Gibson tube amp in it years ago.
So since i had a tweed deluxe chassis with all octals sitting here, i went for it. Guy told me the speaker was a Eminence but didn't know what model. 20x20x12, pretty big cabinet. $80 so i bought it. Will have to make spacers of 1" on the sides but once polyed it won't look too bad. Guy who made it was some woodworker but i slowly found out he must never have built a guitar cabinet before.

Trying to put the chassis in i realized the screws from the handle were sticking into the cabinet inside over 1", i guess he used what he had on hand. Changed them out. Looking at the speaker i realize it is a Legend 1275, not bad and almost worth what i paid total. Looking closer i see 8 screws holding the speaker in. Usually you only use 4 screws. So i start to take them out and realize they are really really short, barely 1 or 2 threads holding the speaker into the t nuts, no wonder he used all 8.

Get the speaker out and it's like new, measures 8 ohms and my octal deluxe has taps for 4.8.16 so i am good. Reading up on the legend 1275 appears it is British voiced, now i start to think i really want a American voiced speaker for this tweed so i will most likely swap it for something i have here, a CTS or one of those Jensen C12n I got late last year.

Looking at the cabinet again, it appears it's a old style floating baffle board, which Fender used, great for a tweed amp.
Pull the baffle board, oh no, it's a 1/4" thick. Pretty flimsy with that heavy speaker. Definitely swapping it out now. I have some old 12" Alnico pulls from consoles and organs, so 10-15 watts speaker should be good enough, if it blows, it blows.

Reinforced the baffle, glued and screwed now, so have to let that dry overnight then back to the chassis fitment.

[mozz]

New circuit boards, new cat.

Got a few hundred pcb's. Some are for the stomp switch, you solder this to the switch and then all your wires come straight off. I think it saves time and also saves your stomp switch, from when you are soldering and if you overheat the switch, the terminals melt the plastic and then they often stop working. You solder the middle one, go about your wires and come back over time until you get all 9 soldered, or great for premaking or prewiring the switch.

The green board is a MXR dist+ clone. I made 2 so far, one has the original LM741 chip and the other has the oldish UA741 but both are about the same. 1 I used 1% resistors and fancy caps, the other I used regular parts. They might sound slightly different but both sound better than my stock unit and have a slight but more output due to higher value VOL pot. I have a few hundred (or thousand) old germanium diodes and i picked 2 with different dropping voltages on purpose. I think i used 1N198 and 1N277. That gives more asymmetrical clipping and sounds more pleasing to the ear. I've got 100 LM741's here so if anybody wants a dist+ let me know.

Cat is a Maine coon mix who a co-worker said does not get along with her other cats. He's doing fine with our puggle dog. He's only a few months old and he's pretty big already, i have never seen such a baby for attention and he is like a built in alarm clock every morning.

[Mossman]

This is some cool stuff! I don't know how I missed this thread... You're pretty industrious!

[jtcnj]

I know very well what you speak of in overheating the footswitch terminals..
Great work!
Never got my Fuzz Face builds sorted; they work but meh.

[mozz]

You've got to tweak the voltages. Most people put a trimmer on Q2 collector in place of the 8.2k. I have found if you adjust Q1 collector, the 33k, put a 50k or 100k trimmer there. As you adjust that voltage down, Q2 collector will go up, and as you adjust that voltage up, Q2 collector will go down. Kind of depends on the transistors gain and leakage. You should get a nice fuzz with no gating, and with the guitar volume turned down it should clean up very nice. Usually shoot for 4.5v negative on Q2C, cheap carbon zinc battery, not alkaline. Pedal needs to be first on your board. Humbuckers may overdrive and might not clean up as well. By clean up i mean go from "White Room" to " Can't find my way home" by just turning the volume down.

[jtcnj]

thanks for the info.
I did incorporate a trimmer set to the target voltage for a point in the circuit but dont recall the value.
The main thing I have not done yet is make the little test board to document the gain and leakage of the transistors I have to chose those in (hopefully) the preferred range. the values of which I have somewhere but dont recall.

[mozz]

Actually all the hoopla about needing certain gains and leakage is just that. Adjust the trimmer until it sounds good. Voltage will be approx 4.5v. If it is very low or very high you have problems.

[mozz]

Well this is definitely overkill but hey, why not. Pete Cornish inspired overkill. Power filtered on input, 8 isolated separate 9v regulators, separate 9v AC. Each iso will have 2 outputs. 300ma each and 9vac is 2amps. Transformer is from Weber whom has it specialty made. These regulators were putting out about 9.5 volts, which is ok and about what a new battery puts out, so 2 of them i modified to be exactly 9v, probably use them for the fuzzface and tonebender. Power jacks on the back and front of the aluminum case. Case was from a guy on reverb who makes chassis to your specs, luckily I measured perfect and it fits very well. Only problem is going to be added weight, so loaded up with pedals it's gonna be a bit heavy to move it. Not that i'll ever use it in a band setting. I may also fit in a stereo buffer circuit if i can fit it, last pedal is going to be my old Arion stereo chorus as i just love using it with 2 amps.

Probably take the rest of the week after dinner to finish wiring it up. Was reading about the super velcro dual lock, that seems the way to go.

[ID10t]

Well this is definitely overkill but hey, why not.

20210322_195930.jpg

Can I order one? Nothing exceeds like excess.
Seriously, I do wonder how much you have into it when finished?

[mozz]

Not counting the pedalboard, probably about $150 so far. I may throw different color leds near each jack. This could be addicting. My mind is already wandering into relay switched version with soft touch momentary switches with indicators. Actually not that hard to make, just the pre-design and layout take a lot of thought before you start drilling.

[mozz]

Each regulator board has a tiny led, testing it to measure if the voltages were correct. You won't see these once the cover is on.

[andrewsrea]

^ I've been using a tried and true 2A linear & regulated 18VDC power supply (packaged like the PS you get with a laptop), which plugs into a regulator / distributor-isolator / filter box (that I designed and built). Coupled that I eliminate most PS grounds to the pedals (99% of the pedals have the PS ground connected to the signal ground), my pedal boards have the lowest noise floor I've ever encountered (tested on a scope). I have regulated 18VDC & 9VDC ports, which are isolated by 47 ohm resistors and filtered by 22uF caps. Which you have to be careful, as many pedals use the same premise to self-isloate, which if you use too large of values, you'll end up with an RC caused signal loss.

I've giged this heavily from 2006 to 2014 and it performed 100% each time.

I read a whitepaper (I think it was from Manley Audio), where switching supplies are the way to go for the ultimate clean power vs a transformer. The theory if you have the transformer near an audio device (a pedal, guitar, etc.) there is a chance of 60 cycle hum and traditional regulation is subject to sub-harmonics from RF interference, which causes a white noise. Supposedly, you can go straight from main voltage (120VAC in the US) into some device which switches at the megahertz range, can be set for regulating low voltages and the root-cycle (and thus, all harmonics) easily filtered out. Also more efficient, so you don't need a 1000ma supply to manage a 500ma load.

I think I heard the Vertex pedal guy say he now prefers the switching supplies, as well.

It is something I want to learn and try. However my pedal boards are in the -75dB range according to my DAW meters and quiet to my ears, that I don't have any concerns in live or studio applications.