I found this cirucit of a guitar pedal on the web for my friend and it contains an inductor.
Im have almost no experience with coils so can anyone help me with it, and should it even work?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1KIwZrxSy6A/S-ZY_Hb8hsI/AAAAAAAAAeM/yNOWu7yvY5A/s1600/crybaby.gif

 

I found this cirucit of a guitar pedal on the web for my friend and it contains an inductor.
Im have almost no experience with coils so can anyone help me with it, and should it even work?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1KIwZrxSy6A/S-ZY_Hb8hsI/AAAAAAAAAeM/yNOWu7yvY5A/s1600/crybaby.gif

Inductance that high might be worth buying one instead. About $25.

What saturation current & DC resistance is needed?

 

Inductance that high might be worth buying one instead. About $25.

What saturation current & DC resistance is needed?

I dont know, but i dont think it needs too much current

 

I dont know, but i dont think it needs too much current

No, but the DC resistance is important because it biases one of the 2N3904 transistors. That is one reason why most of the DIY attempts to duplicate this pedal seem to fail.

 

GopherT is right just buy the right coil cause if you don't have the right tools to build and test the coil to make sure it's within spec then your just wasting time and guessing..

 

First you have to find a suitable core material. Then you have to read the datasheet carefully and figure out how many turns you need. Then you have to test it to make sure your design calculations were correct. Then you have to try it out in your circuit. If it works -- great; but if it doesn't then you'll either have to redesign the circuit for figure out what went wrong.

 

I dont know, but i dont think it needs too much current

It will look something like this when you are done if you have an automated winding machine. If you don't have an automated winding machine, it will look like a spool of kite string after you reel the kite back in. Without perfectly placed wire, the inductance will not match the calculated values (if you have a calculator that can handle multiple layers of windings).



Something like this has too many air gaps between the "wires" and you will end up with more layers than planned which results in lower and lower inductance so you have to add more and more wraps which are increasingly distant from the core and add less and less inductance.

 

On the Dunlop website is a video about their successor to the original CryBaby. At 4:25 is an image of the inductor, obviously a custom-made part from a volume manufacturer.
http://www.jimdunlop.com/product/535q-cry-baby-multi-wah



Digi-Key has over 125,000 inductor types. If you sort for in stock and 500-700 mH, you get three:

http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/inductors-coils-chokes/fixed-inductors/196627?k=&FV=fff40003,fff80013,4c02c7,4c0466,4c0475,4c0476&mnonly=0&newproducts=0&ColumnSort=0&page=1&stock=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=500

$2.62 plus shipping

None of these are low profile radial-mount torroids, but it's a place to start.

ak

 

i dont think it needs too much current

Less than 1uA rms according to LTspice. And the inductance value isn't critical. 500mH gives much the same frequency response as 660mH.
Here's the sim file if anyone wants to play.

 

According to the guys who developed the replacement/expanded device, they changed from 500mH to 535 mH because "it just sounded better".

ak

 

According to the guys who developed the replacement/expanded device, they changed from 500mH to 535 mH because "it just sounded better".

ak

I'd like to know what exactly sounded better. The audio output or the fact that one of the guys stumbled upon a 535 mH part at a lower price - so the profit sounded better.

 

In the same way my sister cannot see the physics of the world around her the way I do, I can't hear music the way she does - and she's only semi-pro. A small open-frame torroid with that high an inductance value is a full-custom or modified-standard part, not a catalog item. Can a 5% change in inductance value affect the Q enough to affect the notch enough affect the sound enough to be perceived and evaluated by a trained pro - absolutely.

Guitar people are nutzoid about their effects boxes. They buy salvaged 301's from Russia because they think those decades-old chips sound better than new ones, and they want that sound in their fuzz box. For a friend, I took his box, removed the chip, and replaced it with a DIP socket so we could go back and forth between a 301 and 741. Turns out that I *can* hear the difference. Also turned out that I didn't care, but he did.

ak

 

I can *taste* the difference between an egg laid by one of my Black Copper Marans hens and a white egg from the grocery store, but of course I want to be able to.

 

Double blind testing needed! Just like the pharmaceutical companies do for new medications. We have to be careful though, that testing different components might reveal side-effects like the medications have...

1. Gynecomastia Finasteride (Propecia), a powerful drug used to prevent hair loss, can cause men to develop enlarged breasts and sometimes nipple discharge. Luckily, surgery can reverse these effects, but they still may become permanent.

2. Discolored Urine
A number of drugs may cause a rainbow-like variety of urine colors.

• Metronidazole (Flagyl), furazolidone, and several other antibiotics can result in black urine.
• Phenolphthalein, a laxative, can result in purple urine.
• Amitriptyline hydrochloride (Elavil), an antidepressant, and methocarbamol (Robaxin), a muscle relaxant, can cause green urine.
• Triamterene (Dyrenium), a diuretic, can cause blue urine.

3. Bowel Control Issues
Orlistat (Xenical), which is sold OTC in a lower dosage as Alli, is a weight-loss drug designed to prevent the body from absorbing fat. According to WebMD, failure to adhere to a low-fat diet during treatment can result in “fatty/oily stool, oily spotting, intestinal gas with discharge, a feeling of needing to have a bowel movement right away, increased number of bowel movements, or poor bowel control.”

4. Nasal Problems
Fluticasone furoate (Veramyst), a nasal spray used to treat allergy symptoms, can cause nasal sores and nasal fungal infection. Fortunately, the risk for this is extremely low.

5. Discolored Stool
Isotretinoin (Accutane), which is used to treat acne, can cause all sorts of weird side effects. Among them are dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice, severe diarrhea, rectal bleeding, and black, bloody, or tarry stools.

6. Sun Sensitivity
Levofloxacin (Levaquin), an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, may cause a vampire-like inability to handle sun exposure. Patients who take Levaquin can develop phototoxicity, a skin problem so severe that it results in rapid, second-degree sunburns.

Patients taking Levaquin may also be more susceptible to torn ligaments or tendons.

7. Bad Breath
Stinky breath may result from steroid use.

8. Altered Taste Buds
The antibiotic clarithromycin (Biaxin) can cause food and beverages to taste “tinny” or metallic. While this side effect isn’t as disgusting as the others, it can remove joy from consuming favorite foods.

9. Yellow Teeth
Tetracycline antibiotics can cause teeth to become permanently yellow. If a pregnant woman takes a tetracycline, her baby’s teeth may be stained yellow.

10. Excessive Sweating
Painkillers such as celecoxib (Celebrex) and hydrocodone (Vicodin) and cardiovascular drugs such as amlodipine (Norvasc), bumetanide (Bumex), digoxin (Digitek), doxazosin mesylate (Cardura), and lisinopril (Zestril) may cause excessive sweating. Some antidepressants and hormonal drugs may also have this side effect​

​

 

First you have to find a suitable core material. Then you have to read the datasheet carefully and figure out how many turns you need. Then you have to test it to make sure your design calculations were correct. Then you have to try it out in your circuit. If it works -- great; but if it doesn't then you'll either have to redesign the circuit for figure out what went wrong.

Someone told me Wah-wah pedals use a ferrite pot core for the inductor - easy to get high inductance, but prone to core saturation. That could even be part of the distortion effect.

The inductance value probably isn't critical, some designs show 500mH. Its basically a sliding notch filter - there's other components that can be altered to compensate for shifted inductance value.

 

Someone told me Wah-wah pedals use a ferrite pot core for the inductor - easy to get high inductance, but prone to core saturation. That could even be part of the distortion effect.

The inductance value probably isn't critical, some designs show 500mH. Its basically a sliding notch filter - there's other components that can be altered to compensate for shifted inductance value.

Agreed. This particular design requires some interaction with the user - tipping the foot pedal forward/back to sweep the filter (or it can be left stationary). For any specific inductor value and desired notch frequency, the user just changes the foot pedal position slightly. I can't see that a 5% changes to the inductor is going to impact anything that cannot be adjusted with the foot pedal.

 

Someone told me Wah-wah pedals use a ferrite pot core for the inductor - easy to get high inductance, but prone to core saturation. That could even be part of the distortion effect. The inductance value probably isn't critical, some designs show 500mH. Its basically a sliding notch filter - there's other components that can be altered to compensate for shifted inductance value.

Actually, it is a sliding, moderately high Q, resonant bandpass filter. Beyond the intentional frequency response alteration, distortion is avoided, and left ot other effects boxes such as fuzz and overdrive.

For any particular inductance value and pedal setting, the circuit has a resonant frequency, impedance, gain, and Q. While changing the pedal position can shift the resonant frequency to compensate for a change in inductance, both the bandwidth and gain also will change. Turning a production variance into a feature, the newer pedal has an adjustable Q. Again, I'm not saying any of these things are significant to most people, but the purists are just like guys who can tell the difference between two almost identical brands of tires, or strains of barley in home-brew, or the over 500 different shades of black in fabrics, or the voicing of a piano, or bell diameter in crash cymbals, or or or...

ak

 

Actually, it is a sliding, moderately high Q, resonant bandpass filter. Beyond the intentional frequency response alteration, distortion is avoided, and left ot other effects boxes such as fuzz and overdrive

ak

That's the by the book description, but AFAIK: its a sliding notch filter in the nfb loop of the amplifier.

 

They buy salvaged 301's from Russia

OMG! I have a dozen (virgin) LM301's from 1973. How much are they going for?

 

OMG! I have a dozen (virgin) LM301's from 1973. How much are they going for?

They're worth what someone will give you for them - and finding that person will probably cost you more than that.