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Stingray aftermarket 2 band pre

#242
UncleFluffy said:
There's been a number of people asking, either in the thread or via PM.

The last batch I baked at home weren't as high quality as I'd like so I'm going to have a batch made up at a proper board house as soon as I get a chance. All being well I'll have some available end of the month.

I'll let everyone know when they're here and we can sort out details then.
Click to expand...

:hyper:
Fantastic!
I subscribed to this thread so that I don't miss it.
I really appreciate this.
Whenever you're ready etc etc, just suggest some way we can compensate you for your efforts :)
 
#244
oops, forgot to mention the output levels. On both preamps with the volumes wide open I'm reading 23.4 - 23.8K DC resistance. The voltage is reading 0.15mV (9 volt power) and 0.3mV (18 volt power). Also, I substituted the 2.2M resistors with 220K's and have been running the LM4250CN chip at 18 volts for a few weeks. Sounds clean, no distortion or adverse reactions in the sound. After going back and forth between 9 and 18 volts I noticed there was a slighty brighter treble response and punchier attack with slapping at 18 volts. Although with 9 volts it still sounds great.
 
#245
PCBs arrived: :hyper:

DSCN1659.png
DSCN1661.png


(There's two projects on this board to reduce setup cost, the preamp is the lower half. I'll cut them neatly.).

Buried in work and moving house right now, but I'll PM the folks who've said they're interested in the next day or two. Everyone who got one of my homebrew ones can expect one of these in their mailbox sometime soon as a thankyou for being so polite about the build quality. (I've got a better printer setup now, but still can't match commercial quality).
 
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#249
Where are you guys finding 0.8mm drill bits at a reasonable price?

I finally sat down and did a BOM for the parts at Mouser. All except the opamp which I got from Tayda. I will post all of the part numbers with prices so you won't have to dig through the site to try and figure which parts to order.
 
#251
UncleFluffy said:
0.8mm = 1/32"

I got 10 for $4.50 from drillspot.com during a special. They're not running it any more, but I guarantee someone else will be, somewhere.

I also recently grabbed a mixed pack of carbide drills from here: http://shop.ebay.com/jtg1969/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340
Click to expand...

homebrews still sound great! I ran a silver wires to the output jacks and WOW! :hyper: I was able to drill the second preamp with a hand drill using this Harbor Freight bit set and none of them broke. Invalid Link Removed for a "cheap" bit they are pretty good. with the 20% off coupon they are only $3.19 :cool:
 
#252
Cheap drills are fine. That HF deal looks good.

If you're running a drill press you can use carbide, but if not just grab as many cheap HSS bits as you can. Fibreglass eats steel bits really fast so think quantity not quality.
 
#253
Thank you for the links, guys. I live fairly close to a harbor freight. I do have a drill press so I'll hunt down the carbide bits.

It's funny but when I did a google search for 0.88mm bits the stuff that turned up was saying $5 a pop and they had minimum orders of $50 plus shipping.
 
#255
UncleFluffy, I admire the amount of work you're putting into this. This is one of the more prominent preamps around and it's good to see someone put a lot of effort into recreating them as high-quality, QC-ed products. Unfortunately, in my case, the shipping costs from you to me would likely outdo the retail price, so I'm not sure if I'll be joining the ranks of the purchasing ones - though I'd do it out of pure support for the effort. :D

I am working on the cloning the same preamp here myself (the bajaman layout with the fixed DC decoupling caps), with a minor modification - I've teamed up with a friend who's skilled with SMD components, and we'll attempt to redo the 3-knob model into three micro-PCBs. The end result should look very much like and EMG BTC, with each pot surrounded only by its supporting circuitry.
 
#256
Stealth said:
UncleFluffy, I admire the amount of work you're putting into this. This is one of the more prominent preamps around and it's good to see someone put a lot of effort into recreating them as high-quality, QC-ed products.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the kind words. I can't claim a great deal of credit here - it's not my circuit design - all I have done is clean up the layout in a CAD package.

Stealth said:
Unfortunately, in my case, the shipping costs from you to me would likely outdo the retail price, so I'm not sure if I'll be joining the ranks of the purchasing ones - though I'd do it out of pure support for the effort. :D
Click to expand...

Shipping isn't that much - the boards are only an ounce so will fit in an airmail letter. If you want one, drop me a PM.

Stealth said:
I am working on the cloning the same preamp here myself (the bajaman layout with the fixed DC decoupling caps), with a minor modification - I've teamed up with a friend who's skilled with SMD components, and we'll attempt to redo the 3-knob model into three micro-PCBs. The end result should look very much like and EMG BTC, with each pot surrounded only by its supporting circuitry.
Click to expand...

That sounds interesting. Keep us posted, and please remember the pics!
 
#257
WarriorJoe7 said:
someone please post what good soldering looks like
Click to expand...

Not my best work (about a year and a half old), but its an in-progess build picture of a prototype wireless-to-serial test/programming board. it successfully programmed/tested 750 wireless modules. Does this qualify? All done by hand in about 12-15 minutes at that point..

4624559605_cafd8d4581.png


4624559865_1e6378294f.png



Soldering is fun and easy when you have the Invalid Link Removed and the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

BTW I can't wait till I can assemble mine, I've been curious what the 2-band would sound like vs the 3-band. But I'll be making it an external unless my EBMM doesn't sell and I keep it :)
 
#258
Update:

Just got back from getting the keys to our new place. Yay! Am going through all my PMs and emails making a list of what, who, and where. If nothing catches fire at the office tomorrow I'll be mailing everything out Saturday morning.
 
#259
I'm thinking about putting this in my G&L L2500 bass. Would it be possible to keep the 3 switches I currently have, (pickup selector switch, series/parallel switch, and active/passive switch) and use them with this preamp?

EDIT: Looking at the G&L more, I see how I could add the pickup selector and series/parallel switches, but I'm not sure how to add the preamp on/off switch. For it to be a useful bypass I'd need a passive volume control (250k or 500k) but the diagram on this thread shows an active volume (25k). My guess is that I'd wire the volume pot like a normal passive bass and bypass the volume pot on the stingray diagram so that the preamp is full volume. If you look at the diagram, I think it would mean taking the wire that would normally go to "top of volume control" and having it instead go to "output jack socket". Does this sound like it would work?
 
#260
domdec314 said:
I'm thinking about putting this in my G&L L2500 bass. Would it be possible to keep the 3 switches I currently have, (pickup selector switch, active/passive switch, and preamp on/off switch) and use them with this preamp?

EDIT: Looking at the G&L more, I see how I could add the pickup selector and series/parallel switches, but I'm not sure how to add the preamp on/off switch. For it to be a useful bypass I'd need a passive volume control (250k or 500k) but the diagram on this thread shows an active volume (25k). My guess is that I'd wire the volume pot like a normal passive bass and bypass the volume pot on the stingray diagram so that the preamp is full volume. If you look at the diagram, I think it would mean taking the wire that would normally go to "top of volume control" and having it instead go to "output jack socket". Does this sound like it would work?
Click to expand...
Your bass has a switch the changes between active and passive and another one that turns the preamp on and off? That seems a bit of a waste?

Just have the pickup selector switch before the preamp. You'd be fine with that one.

You could install a true bypass switch which could cut the preamp out of the signal path and you could install a switch that turned it on and off.

You could also use a 3PDT to both bypass the preamp and turn it off when it's bypassed.
(or, heck, you could use an LED in the other hole if you followed this diagram :p )

switchwiringpnp.gif


This is for a pedal, so I'll explain what would need to be different.

The "Input Jack Tip" would be the hot output from your pickup selector switch.
The circuit input and output would be the input and output from the preamp.
The "Output jack tip" would remain going to the tip of the socket on the bass.

The part above, you could do with a DPDT switch.

If you were using a 3PDT switch, you could use it to create an open circuit when the preamp isn't being used, turning the preamp off. The "-9VDC" would be from the wire from the -ve terminal of the battery. And the part connected to the LED would instead connect to the ground on the preamp. (I think that'll work, I'm not exactly all here at the moment).

If you wanted two seperate switches you could always do this with a DPDT switch for switching the preamp in and out of the circuit, and a simple on/off switch for the power. But a seperate switch to turn the power on and off really does seem redundant!
 

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