this is an older build now, but i wanted to post it while i’ve been on the subject to record the process. believe it or not, i still have some work to do on this one. i used a TL082 as a buffer for the mixing circuit. getting the gain set to my taste has been the toughest part. this one (unlike the last) is a bit low. it will all come in due time though. i’ve produced two solid builds this week (though really just debugging this one and one from scratch), and i’ll consider that a productive week.

]]> http://abrammorphew.com/notes/2012/05/19/pt2399-build/feed/ 0 http://abrammorphew.com/notes/2012/05/18/mosfet-overdrive/ http://abrammorphew.com/notes/2012/05/18/mosfet-overdrive/#comments Sat, 19 May 2012 02:21:36 +0000 abram http://abrammorphew.com/notes/?p=911

a forced contract job for Ryan of Falcon Scott. he’s been having some issues finding an overdrive suitable to his hollow-body guitar. i just got a lot of BS170s and thought this might do the trick. the distortion is pretty squared off on the oscilloscope and crunchy. the left pot is post volume while the right biases the BS170. overall, it sounds pretty good and that’s saying a lot coming from someone who isn’t much into “distortion” (personal bias does make a difference. hah).

a big thanks to Jack Orman at Musique.com for laying out the basis. i modified his schematic a bit to get the “best” results for my ear, but i couldn’t have done it without his work.

ever wanted to see how that 2N2222 might hold up as a linear RF amplifier? here’s a handy feature of ngSpice that i found recently. i’m rather new to ngSpice and at first was somewhat frustrated by its differences from other SPICE variants. however, i’ve earned a deep appreciation for it and its integration with the gEDA suite.

V1 n1 0 sffm(2 24 10k 5 1k)
.tran 0.01ms 2ms
.plot n1

the above code generates the waveform seen above. the corresponding values in the sffm() function run something like this.

an older video, but one i’ve been wanting to post for some time. this is Alex Wilson of Son Cats playing on one of the several cigar-box amps i’ve constructed. this one, in particular, had one of the best sounds during the more work-with-what-is-available days. i thought the video was a great demo of an application best suited for a small 1/2 watt amp. thanks, Alex.

1. Need a switch to be fully-on fully-off and carry lots of current -MOSFET
2. Need a switch that needs to have lowish capacitance – BIPOLAR
3. Need a cheap, dirty 2 or 3 component current source – BIPOLAR
4. Need a low voltage/noise amplifier – BIPOLAR
5. Need an amplifier with VERY low input/bias current – MOSFET
6. Need a low noise AND low input current amplifier – JFET
7. Need a one component current source – JFET
8. Need switch or amp that must cost almost nothing – BIPOLAR
9. Need multiple transistor package that has matching – BIPOLOAR
10. Need switch that may be over-voltaged – MOSFET
11. need switch/amp that sits in nasty RF environment – MOSFET (BIPOLARS rectify & cause offsets)

MOSFETs can generally switch faster (they certainly require less complex and less power to drive their gates). But if I’m not mistaken, BJTs designed for the task can switch very very fast since they have no gate capacitance to charge and can also operate in quasi-saturation mode for even faster switching at the expense of conduction efficiency. MOSFETs have less losses when used as a switch at “lower” voltages (lower as in industry’s definition which is <~200V).

thanks guys…

a little improvisation i did after improving the LFO phase modulation and arpeggiator functions of the Mellotronium: an ATMega328P-based mirco-synthesizer. there are plenty of improvements to be made, but it’s surprising how much you can make of these microcontrollers do. combined with a Roland RC-50, it’s music composition on the fly.

you’ll have to excuse the loud hissing noise. apparently the power supply of my netbook isn’t exactly quiet. it sounds a lot better using the battery pack or the wall wart.

the micro-synthesizer is getting fitted to draw it’s power from the sun via a 6V 200mA solar cell. it’s pretty impressive what the sun along with a cheap collection of photovoltaic cells can do.

the need for small and portable amplifiers has arisen mainly by a desire to come up with some sort of all-purpose busking amplifier. here is the first screen shot of the output from the preamp section. the entire amplifier is powering an Eminence Beta-12LTA off of a mere 6V. don’t ask me how. it took a while to find the right combination of resistors for the TL082 to run stable at such a low voltage. it’s also surprisingly loud being that it’s about 26V away from the recommended supply (±16V). i’ll probably be posting a schematic soon.

Download the tool chain…

getting the right version is the key. some newer versions don’t play nice with ATMEL’s chips for whatever reason.

1) BinUtils 2.20.1a: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.20.1a.tar.bz2
2) GCC 4.3.6: http://gcc.petsads.us/releases/gcc-4.3.6/gcc-g++-4.3.6.tar.bz2
3) AVR LibC 1.7.1: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/avr-libc/avr-libc-1.7.1.tar.bz2

these are the versions that both myself and Jose Moldonado in Spain have been able to run without problems.

Additional downloads…

you’ll need AVRDuDe. i installed it from source just to be safe, though i think the portage install is just as good.

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/avrdude/avrdude-5.11.tar.gz

PREFIX and PATH

this is how my system is setup.

#PREFIX=/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/avr
#export PREFIX
#PATH=$PATH:$PREFIX/bin
#export PATH

make sure to do this FIRST. not modifying the PREFIX variable could potentially hose the whole system.

Compiling…

then you can start compiling binutils:

# cd binutils-2.20.1a
# mkdir obj-avr
# cd obj-avr
# ../configure --prefix=/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/avr --target=avr --disable-nls
# make
# make install

then onto gcc…

# cd gcc-4.3.6
# mkdir obj-avr
# cd obj-avr
# ../configure --prefix=/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/avr --target=avr --enable-languages=c,c++ --disable-nls --disable-libssp --with-dwarf2
# make
# make install

then avr-libc…

# cd avr-libc-1.7.1
# ./configure --prefix=/usr/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/avr --build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --host=avr
# make
# make install

Symlinking your libs and includes…

now on my system, there was a /usr/avr folder that the Arduino IDE definitely looks in for the includes and additional libraries. i had to symlink two folders in order for the IDE to work.

# ln -s /usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/avr/avr/include /usr/avr/include
# ln -s /usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/avr/avr/lib /usr/avr/lib

…and that was that. the latest Arduino IDE ran without a hitch.

for more detailed information, go here: http://www.nongnu.org/avr-libc/user-manual/install_tools.html

an experimental EQ circuit based of the TL082 datasheet. i modified it to use a 9V battery, but could probably still use some work in terms of efficiency… as most things. nothing is ever finished really. the mid portion has a pretty high quiescence. fine tuning, of course, can be done with the resistor values and more dramatic differences by adjusting the cap values. if you happen to build it, shoot me an email and let me know what you changed or decided to change.

also keep in mind that the TL082 is a little noisy, so 6dB of highs will add in some noise. i kind of like it myself, but the TL072 is a better choice from what i understand.