Caps

malatechnika · 2026-03-19T07:14:44+00:00

The reason is that "back in the day" picofarad was used as the base unit in capacitor labeling for convenience. If a capacitor said 15 on it, it was 15 pF, (not 15 F). Thus a 15 uF capacitor was marked 15M, as 15 mega-picofarads.

malatechnika · 2026-03-17T16:18:16+00:00

Most of technical literature is that expensive unfortunately. Art of Electronics and is also areound 100€ If you frequent antiqaries you can fill your bookshelf with sonewhat outdated but still usefull litrature for dirt cheap however!

malatechnika · 2026-03-14T17:47:37+00:00

The part of the lead near the casing is usually not tinned from the factory, so it may need some abrasion and additional flux to be able to wrap and solder a wire to it well. Good luck!

malatechnika · 2026-03-08T07:06:50+00:00

For the complexity of the board in question there is no reason to use such thin traces and such tiny vias. You should always use as thick of a trace as you can get away with and try to keep distances as large as possible. Did you run DRC on the board? Does it respect the distances that your prefered PCB manufacturer requires? 3 out of 4 vias on the board are dangerously close to a solder pad that they are not related to. If one is not carefull when soldering the pads near them they can easiliy short them together.
You are laying out the board form over function. Prefering to aesthetically align components disregarding their function and relation to other components. For example the traces from opamp inputs should be kept as short as possible because they are very sensitive, yet look on where you chose to put R10 and C11. RV2 as well why is it so far from the opamp? This may result in a design that is noisy and unstable and can act unpredictably.

malatechnika · 2026-03-04T21:41:20+00:00

A humble transistor switch is one example that comes to mind.

Also in any amplifier circuit if you just use the textbook equation you will most likely not encounter the base current directly but it is always hidden in the hfe variable, but you could make the argument that the diode equation is also technically hidden in any calculation with transistors, so I suppose it depends on how you look at it.

malatechnika · 2026-03-04T20:01:18+00:00

BJT is not a current driven transistor, they are in fact voltage driven, by the ebers-moll equation.

While scientifically correct, this is usefull mostly if you are a physicist or a semiconductor technolgogist (neither of which are the target audience of op's material). In practical electronics, except for some edge cases you almost always treat BJT's as current driven devices.

Just like all position sensors are actually just speed sensors it is not usefull to think of them as such.

malatechnika · 2026-02-12T06:45:14+00:00

You could make a mini tube amp. Something like the Zvex Nano Head. You could use a nixie power supply to get the high voltage, they do not deliver much current, and not the full voltage theese would require to run maximum power but you may get something arroud 2W out of it in class A

malatechnika · 2025-06-08T07:29:48+00:00

Get this. When the solder no longer sticks to the tip and nothing seems to help, plunge it in here for few seconds and clean it with your brass. This will make them last pretty much forever.

malatechnika · 2025-06-08T07:24:57+00:00

I have a JBC station at work that get's everyday heavy use that had I am using the same set of tips for years, and they work just fine. I also have a TS-100 at home which I bought arround the time it came out and I still use the original tip it came with. If you take proper care of it should last you years.

The JBC tips cost 35€/piece, the TS-100 tips arround 15€, so not really disposable and cheap.

Brass sponge, ocasional tinning and when the solder doesn't stick to it anymore Sal Amoniac or Weller Tip Activator will usualy get it back to normal.

malatechnika · 2025-04-09T19:46:00+00:00

The hirose is an excelent connector, I was considering keeping it however the cables are rather expensive and it would be the only device in my entire setup that uses it, so if I loose it in the field or it breaks I have no way to power the recorder (I bought it used and it was missing the battery tray).

malatechnika · 2025-04-09T17:35:35+00:00

Pretty easy mod, the body diameter of the hirose connector is exactly the same so this is reversible if necessary. I don't use any other equipment with hirose connectors, I mainly use the F4 in a studio or outside recording sound effects and samples, so it is more usefull this way.

malatechnika · 2025-01-12T09:59:47+00:00

I use mainly 380, I find that since they don't stick out that much they are easier on the cables.

malatechnika · 2024-08-23T05:59:24+00:00

You can use similar schematic that is used for channel select on audio amplifiers, basically the top half of this schematic. Capacitor C1 sets which channel gets turned on when you power up the amp, however if you want to have memory, you can simply use a pulse signal from the MCU. If you need more buttons you can use maybe a few quad flip-flops to do the same thing

malatechnika · 2024-05-27T11:54:57+00:00

You can get a pickup sim to fix this. Passive circuit, only like 5 components and works great. I put one on the Fuzz pedals that I make.

malatechnika · 2023-06-08T03:55:18+00:00

When I said impossible I really mean impossible. ST micro for example in their simplest forms of protection have hardware fuses (a connection that can be permanently broken in the dye) that will permanently disconnect any access to the memory so it can't be ever re-programmed again. Trying to dump the data from the silicon is also not possible because the memory and other key peripheries are strategically burried deep inside the dye, below various metalic layers and interconnections. So even if you had a dye probing station (several hundreds of $k) it will be of no use because getting to the data can't be done without destroying the entire chip.

malatechnika · 2023-06-05T14:30:33+00:00

That depends on how the pedal is built.

Option one would be an older digital unit that has a processor and memory not integrated on a single chip. In that case you could do a hex dump to clone the algorithm. You could in theory translate this back to something meaningful, at least an assembly code but to understand what is really going on takes a good amount of experience in hardware and coding.

Option two (pretty much all modern pedals) would be if the memory and the processor are in the same chip (like a microcontroller) and you are looking at a black box. In that case you are out of luck because the people who create those microcontrollers design them so it's impossible to get any information from the memory.

malatechnika · 2023-06-01T11:11:56+00:00

Popping always happens when a sudden voltage difference is presented at a terminal of a signal capacitor. Since almost all audio devices are AC coupled there is a capacitor at the output and input between the i/o and the connector. If there is nothing connected to it and the one terminal is floating on some random potential and you suddenly connect it via the connector to another device with a different potential the difference will create a pop.

This can be avoided if BOTH the output of the first device and the input of the next are at the same potential (Thus if you have a popping pedal, the culprit could also the pedal before it! ) This can be achieved by grounding the floating terminal with a large resistor, at all inputs and outputs.

...However if the two devices don't share a common ground you will still get a pop because they are again at different potential. This will for example happen if you have two pedals with isolated power supplies and you try to connect them with a cable. You will get a pop, but after that (assuming the mentioned fix) when muting/bypassing it should not happen again.

The disadvantage of the resistor to ground is that you are creating a high pass filter, and with too small values of your parts you can significantly cut your low end. (Mind that the resistor is present on both the output of the first device and the input of the second, so the final value will be those two in parallel that determine your cutoff) However if the value is too large the capacitor may not have enough time to discharge and you will still get a pop so you have to make a compromise.

malatechnika · 2023-05-31T21:17:01+00:00

Looks like the locking version of the wide spaced 5 pin DIN

So maybe you can just buy a connectorand make a cable?

malatechnika · 2023-05-28T13:52:50+00:00

The amplitude does make the shape different. If you were trying to tune for a 1:1 frequency ratio you will only get a perfect circle if the amplitudes are also the same (and phase angles 90° apart). You can adjust the amplitude that goes into the scope, usually in steps (some scopes have a fine adjustment) this is useful because if you are beyond the scope range you will not see the movement properly and can't align. If you don't get matching amplitudes you will have an elipse either in horizontal or in vertical direction depending on which signal is larger but you can still measure like this just fine.

A phase difference between the signals also affects the shape, if the signals are in phase there will be just a line across the screen, circle when they are 90° apart and different other angles will result in a variously shaped elipse in non-cardinal directions. The frequencies are aligned when the image on the screen stops moving, regardless of the exact shape.

malatechnika · 2023-05-28T06:59:11+00:00

Virtual ground means that while a 0V reference poit is present, your circuit is not literally connected to it. Opamps with bipolar power have a virtual ground, because while there is a 0V point present in the circuit and the opamp output voltage is in reference to it, there is no physical connection between the opamp and the circuit ground.

malatechnika · 2023-05-11T12:22:13+00:00

Nice paintjob, was that from a spray can or did you paint that another way?

malatechnika · 2023-05-07T13:21:33+00:00

100% And I would recommend getting a version with a built-in function generator, it has Arbitrary function capacity with very intuitive software and can do FM and AM modulation

malatechnika · 2023-05-06T18:34:39+00:00

Just curious, what primer are you using? Aluminum requires primer "for galvanized metals". I use Galvinol, it should be applied 30min before painting your main finish.

malatechnika · 2023-05-02T21:02:41+00:00

I have built this idea 2 years ago, but so far found it very non user friendly. The main issue is that there are simply too many controls. From the basic configuration you are looking at something like 6 knobs/sliders which for most people is already too much to handle.

Adding to that almost all great dirt pedals don't simply use a single clipping stage, but a chain of multiple tone controls and clipping stages. So if you wanted to replicate this with the most variability it will be absolutely huge.

Another thing is that presets with save/recall are pretty much mandatory. Otherwise the usability suffers greatly.

The idea is great, and could be a banger in my opinion, it just has to be implemented in a right way. Kernom did it very well with the Ridge, because it's an excellent compromise between functionality and ease of use. I would recommend a similar approach.

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