Brian May BC149 Orange Label Treble Booster Stripboard Layout & Schematic

 I couldn't find much info on the electronics in this one so I had to trace it from various internal pictures around the internet. in some of them, there is a 100 ohm resistor between the battery and the PCB so if you have noise issues - add that. here's a good site for info on Brians Boosters history of brian mays treble boosters

20 Second Handwashing Timer (for Covid-19) stripboard layout

quite a simple project, during the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, one of the pieces of advice we've been given is to wash our hands for 20 seconds. so here's a timer circuit to help you do that.

"sw" is a push-to-make momentary switch, once you press the button, the LED illuminates for about 25 seconds (I added a few seconds to the timer to allow time to put soap on your hands). then just wash your hands till the LED goes off.
pretty good way to make sure your kids are washing their hands for long enough.

Stay safe.

    before it was deployed to the bathroom

Amptweaker Defizzerator Stripboard Layout

I went to the shop yesterday hoping to buy 2 Amptweaker Defizzerators for a recording session but of course; they only had 1, so I bought 1 and reverse engineered it. it's a passive circuit so you get a bit of loss and I may work on a buffered version at a later date but for now;
enjoy.

May Queen Overdrive (originally by Runoffgroove.com) Stripboard layout

I used to make this pedal a lot and sell them on eBay so I thought I'd revisit it as it seems that I sold the one I made for myself too.
Anyway this is a pretty cool effect, it has a lot more drive than a standard treble booster and it layers up really nicely.

Red Wizard Fuzz Stripboard Layout

this is the 3rd guitar effect in the "wizard" collection.
As anyone who has followed this site for long enough will know, I always make my pedals very minimal when it comes to controls but if anyone does add to this circuit I'd love to see what you've done.

anyway, enjoy.

Maxon Treble Booster Stripboard Layout

I came across this interesting little thing so I thought I would make a clone of it.
it's a maxon treble booster.

they also did one called the power booster and as far as I can see the only differences between that and this is that the power booster has 2 470n capacitors in place of the 2.2n capacitors.

Electret Microphone Preamp Stripboard Layout

someone asked me to do this, so I did. it's a useful little circuit to power those little electret microphones.

Very Accurate 10volt and 5volt Reference For Testing Multimeters etc. Stripboard Layout

I thought this would be a good project to keep around to see if my digital multimeter has drifted out of calibration.

I power it from a normal bench power supply but it would probably be better if you used 2 9v batteries in series.

The LED on it displays when over 100mA is being drawn from it - basically if the LED is lit disconnect it or things will be getting very hot!

I tested it in free air with open windows over 2 hours and it was very stable so I can rely on it.

Linear Tech do a few different drop references for this IC
the 2 I've tried are the 10 volt reference and the 5 volt reference
the part numbers are
10 volt reference; LT1021BCN8-10
5 volt reference; LT1021CCN8-5

it stayed at 10.0006 for over 2 hours - the least significant digit moved around but that's 10's of uVolts!

Frequency Meter Stripboard Layout

I built this as a rough frequency meter to make sure a bunch of oscillators were oscillating in the right ballpark frequency.
it uses the lovely 555 timer IC.

it responds best to squarewave signals (maybe triangle too, I forgot to test it with triangle waves)

Quick And Dirty Laser Driver Stripboard Layout

This was just a quick little circuit I built to test all the salvaged CD/DVD lasers I have.
essentially it is a adjustable constant current power supply.

the Vin is 7.2 volts.

Simple Audio Mixer Stripboard Layout

this is a quick project I made for another project I'm working on but I'm sure people will have uses for this so here you go.

it's also worth noting (as I have before) the purpose of C1 is to limit the bandwidth of the Op-Amp - in this case I've used a value to stop any hiss however you can experiment with the values and make a low pass filter - the higher you go the more it cuts off.

2 Watt Transistor Guitar Amplifier Stripboard Veroboard Layout

When I was young (about 9 or 10) - this is one of the first "big" projects I successfully completed and still actually use to this day so I thought I would build a new one for everyone to enjoy.

ADSR Envelope Shaper Stripboard Veroboard Layout

I've been a bit busy recently so I thought I'd scan this interesting looking project in from a magazine from the 70's

Blue Wizard Overdrive / Distortion Stripboard Veroboard Layout

This is the Blue Wizard - part of my "wizard" design series (Green Wizard HERE) - this is a very harmonic rich overdrive/distortion that uses 2 BC182L transistors (cause I have a load of them) - this is the same transistor used in the Brian May treble booster HERE

it has a bias pot onboard and I find it's best to adjust it till it sounds good to you.

anyway - below is a quick sound sample - the 1st bit is the gain all the way up and the 2nd bit is the gain half way up.

Boss OD-1 Original RC3403 Quad Op-amp Stripboard Veroboard layout

This is something I've wanted to re-visit for a while, I was never happy with my original layout - you couldn't use the proper op-amp in it and it was a bit crappy looking too.

I have added 2 parts to this build, neither affect the sound - they protect the circuit from the wrong polarity supplies which is necessary if you use the original RC3403 op-amp because it costs a fortune.

you can of course use a jellybean quad op-amp like a TL074 or LM324

Electronic 3 Band Equaliser Stripboard Veroboard Layout

There are lots of circuits on the net for 3 band EQs but I wanted something a bit more powerful than the usual 20+dB/20-dB things on offer so I went on eBay and bought some grey market MC3340P attenuators from china and made this thing.

I made mine for a send/return loop in a very simple valve amp I have but it's perfectly capable for hi fi audio.

it's worth noting that this works very well if you turn the knobs slowly because they aren't actually in the audio chain - they are part of the voltage control architecture of the chip

It's also worth noting that it will work on 9 volts if you want to make it into a guitar pedal.

Obsidian Overdrive Stripboard Veroboard Layout

This is quite a brutal high gain overdrive by Joe Davisson based on another pedal called the massacre.
it's a very mod friendly circuit - some good places to start are changing some of the capacitors (C1, C6 and C8) for example.
I actually knocked the layout up in 15 minutes but because I have been in so much pain due to a dislocated knee - it took me 2 sittings to actually build it (the valium kicked in 30 minutes into the first half)
anyway it sounds immense
if you have any issues with switching refer to FX Switching

REMEMBER THIS IS A POSITIVE GROUND CIRCUIT - it needs it's own isolated supply eg a battery
otherwise you're going to have a bad time

Vox 1901 Distortion Stripboard Layout

Well - it's been a while, I'm in the late stages of moving house and I also dislocated my knee quite badly - I had to shift it back into place myself cause where I fell trapped me.
Anyway all that has prevented me from doing any new projects until now. things are still hectic and I can't walk so it may make things a little sporadic.

I thought I would do another guitar distortion cause I am recording an album at the moment and I wanted to try out the Vox 1901 Distortion so I did and here it is.

My bands albums;
Double Negative - The Day The Dark Won
Double Negative - When We're Gone
Digital Versions

Simple Dual LED Battery Monitor stripboard layout

I got some 3 pin dual LEDs and I thought a good use for them is as little 9v battery status monitors for my guitar pedals. so I came up with this quick circuit that fades from green to red as the battery voltage drops (as shown in the video)

it's a good little mod circuit for any project you want to build that uses a 9 volt battery (or existing stuff you own)

Ruby Amplifier Stripboard Layout

I got the schematic of this from http://www.runoffgroove.com/ruby.html - I just wanted to make a really quick test amplifier and the Ruby amp is good for this. it's quite loud relative to its size.

if you want some power amplifiers with more power than this one check out the "Power Amplifier" stripboard layouts on my site. http://www.paulinthelab.com/search/label/Power%20Amplifiers

My bands albums;
Double Negative - The Day The Dark Won
Double Negative - When We're Gone
Digital Versions