DIYguitarist.com

Paul Marossy · Last edited by Paul Marossy on Fri Mar 06, 2009 5:06 pm; edited 3 times in total

After repairing and tweaking a few of these vintage pedals for other guitar players, I have decided that it is a very good sounding pedal with a wide range of sounds available. If money were not so tight right now, I would buy one of these pedals, but they usually go for $250-300 and up to $400 on ebay and I don't have funds for such frivolous things right now.

Some of the cats over at the www.diystompboxes.com forum have made clones of the ADA Flanger using PCBs made available by "moosapotamus": http://www.moosapotamus.net/IDEAS/ADAflanger/ADAflanger.html

I recently purchased the latest PCB using the MN3007 chip and have populated it as far as I can go until I recieve the rest of the parts from www.mouser.com

I look forward to completing this project, which is the first one for me in at least two years, and definitely is the most complicated thing I have ever attempted to build. These days, I only build something if I think it's really worthwhile. A few other things have caught my attention recently, but this ADA Flanger clone is something that I can really use regularly. Cool

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Paul Marossy · Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:35 pm Post subject:

Since I have not found any off-the-shelf enclosures that I can live with for my ADA Flanger clone project, I decided that I am going to make one out of 1/4" plywood pieces glued and fastened together. I still haven't figured out what I am going to do to reinforce the area for the footswitch, but I will figure something out. I might paint it flat or semi-gloss black after I am done sanding and filling. Or I think I am leaning towards some kind of fabric covering on it. That would be very cool. Razz

I am also going to mount the PCB so that the IC chips and everything are facing up when the bottom cover is removed. I hate that on a real ADA Flanger that you have to take the whole thing apart just to tweak one little thing. Mad

In the meantime, I have uploaded a PDF file of my CAD drawing template. I'm going to be making it up this weekend and I'll report back on it sometime. http://www.diyguitarist.com/PDF_Files/ADA-FlangerEnclosure.pdf

Things are going to be tight, but I think that I can make it work... keeping fingers crossed. Laughing

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Paul Marossy · Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:35 am Post subject:

I have the enclosure done as of this morning, but I can't post any pictures of it right now because my main computer is broke and this P.O.C. that I am using right now won't recognize my camera. Mad

Anyway, I built it out of 1/4" plywood, and it turned out incredibly well considering what primitive means I have at my disposal as far as woodworking goes. It's amazingly sturdy and the way I have constructed it, I'm not worried at all about it breaking or anything. Razz

I will post pictures of my progress as ASAP...
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Paul Marossy · Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:04 pm Post subject:

Here are some pictures of it in progress. From quick idea for enclosure design to reality: 24 hours. The layout fairly closely follows the layout of a real ADA Flanger, except that the topside controls are mirrored to allow for neater wiring inside the enclosure. My enclosure is 1/2" shorter, 1/4" less wide and a full 1" less deep than the real ADA Flanger, and it also weighs about 2 lbs less. Cool

This is the interior just after the wood glue was all dry and it was all ready for sanding/filling. The blocks at lower left & right are for mounting the PCB to the enclosure. The cross bracing in the middle is nailed in from the sides with two 3/4" long brad nails per side as well as glued with a liberal amount of wood glue.

This the exterior of the enclosure, looking at it from the rear. The plywood chipped in a couple places while drilling the larger holes, but the application of some wood glue to the chips fixed that right up. All of the pieces are not only glued together, but also fastened together with some 3/8" staples carefully inserted with a staple gun.

Checking the fit of the parts inside of the enclosure.

Exterior rear view showing placement of pots and jacks.

Interior view showing how the PCB will fit inside the enclosure.

Shielding applied to the interior of the enclosure.

Enclosure with the alligator skin tolex-like material applied to it and the control panel installed. The camera flash makes it look like it has more contrast than it really does in person.

Right rear corner.

Looking at the rear again.

Steel bottom cover plate made from the bottom of a salvaged, er sacrificed rabbit ear TV antenna.

Here is a view of the aluminum angle pieces that attach the bottom plate to the enclosure. Four screws on the sides of the enclosure hold it in place, two on each side.

This is an attempt to show how the PCB is angled inside the enclosure.

Cost for this project will be well under $100. This is one of those times when building a DIY version of something will save you a lot of money. Razz

When will the rest of those parts get here from www.Mouser.com?! I want to fire this thing up! Laughing

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"When the legends die, the dreams end. And when the dreams end, there is no more greatness."

Paul Marossy · Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 2:49 am Post subject:

Well, my MN3007 IC chips came in the mail today. I put one in and the circuit started up with no problems... whew! I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do any troubleshooting as it's a pretty complicated circuit.

A little tweaking of the trimpots and it's working nicely now. Just a couple of small bugs to work out, but overall I am very happy with it. It really has a pretty wide range of sounds and effects, very fun little toy! Razz

A few additional notes:

1. I am using a $1.00 thrift store wall wart to power it - a 12V 500mA wall wart. It puts out around 18V with no load on it.

2. For the 500K reverse log pot (speed control), I used a 500K log pot with lugs 1 & 3 reversed. Works well enough for me.

3. For my LED indicator, I used a 4.7K current limiting resistor.

4. As suggested by some other builders of the MN3007 ADA Flanger clone, to get a much better sounding and more useable unit, I changed R65 from an 82K to 150K, added a 22K resistor in series with C37 and changed the Threshold pot from 10K to 100K.

I also highly recommend following the calibration procedure here: http://www.diyguitarist.com/Schematics/ADA-Flanger/ADA-FlangerSchem.pdf - I thought I had it sounding pretty good doing everything by ear, but when I followed ADA's original calibration procedure, it went from sounding OK to sounding fantastic! Razz

I didn't think flanging could be so good. Shocked

EDIT: I uploaded an off-the-cuff soundclip of my flanger clone here: http://improvisingguitarists.ning.com/profiles/profile/show?id=28c2tt8oagi7d - It's #42 on the music player, at the very bottom. A bad patch cord made the stereo signal cut out on the left channel a couple of times, sorry about that. Confused

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"When the legends die, the dreams end. And when the dreams end, there is no more greatness."

drhulsey · Joined: 13 Oct 2009 Posts: 4

Paul Marossy · Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:41 am Post subject:

Moosapotamus is the only person I know of that makes batches of PCBs for ADA Flanger clones.

How long ago did you email him?
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drhulsey · Joined: 13 Oct 2009 Posts: 4

I emailed him about a week ago. He hasn't been heard from on the big A/DA Flanger thread in a while. I offered to pay for a run of ten to make it worth his effort. I know there are others that would use what I didn't.

Paul Marossy · Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2009 2:00 am Post subject:

drhulsey · Joined: 13 Oct 2009 Posts: 4

Paul,
I've never had a PCB made. Is the PCB overlay on Charlie's site (green, yellow, and orange over black) what I would send to a service to make me the PCB? I think this was his latest (revision 4 from Dec, 2008 with the MN3007 retrofit by oldschoolanalog).

Thanks!

Tim

Paul Marossy · Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:29 pm Post subject:

drhulsey · Joined: 13 Oct 2009 Posts: 4

Dave (oldschoolanalog) at diystompboxes had an extra board "just layin' around" that he will sell me. So that should take care of the first step.
Now I'll just have to source my parts and organize the project. I built the Trainwreck Express clone I gig with and have built some pedals.
This flanger is certainly a more complicated circuit, but I take instructions fairly well.
Thanks so much for your input!

Tim

Paul Marossy · Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:49 am Post subject:

Cool. It's a more complicated build than most, but if you go about it slowly and systematically while double checking yourself a lot, you should be just fine. The hardest part is calibrating it. It can take a while to tweak all the trimpots until you have it sounding just like you want it.
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"When the legends die, the dreams end. And when the dreams end, there is no more greatness."