# Tearjerker



## Big Monk (Aug 14, 2021)

Finally got to wire up my Tearjerker today. I’ve been sitting on the Chase Tone pot, Sabbaddius Halo and Trop Fish for a while. Had a few issues when I fired it up. I reflowed the joints and saw a solder bridge on the pot pads. Haven’t had a chance for full volume testing but it works:









The only issue I’m having is with the LED again. Continuity checks worked out. When I pop out the molex connector and do an “in-harness” check with my component tester, the LED lights so I know it’s oriented correctly.

I had the same issue with my Muffin build as well.


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## Big Monk (Aug 14, 2021)

Turns out I just needed a smaller RLED. I subbed in a 1k and it lit right up! This is certainly what happened with my Muffin and Aion Ares as well.


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## matt3310 (Aug 14, 2021)

By far my favorite wah pedal I have! I used a EVH inductor in mine, and a chase tone pot. Killer combo!


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## Big Monk (Aug 14, 2021)

I did a little tweaking just now. Needed to adjust Vol for unity gain. I dropped the Low a bit as well. Mids and Q I left per @PedalPCB and the Standard Crybaby settings. I’m on Position 6 of the DIP switch.

I’m loving it. Very vocal and dynamic. I’m glad I went for the lower gain transistors.


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## caiofilipini (Aug 14, 2021)

Yeah, lower gain transistors make a big difference if you're looking for a more vintage way sound. Great build!


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## Chuck D. Bones (Aug 15, 2021)

Big Monk said:


> I did a little tweaking just now. Needed to adjust Vol for unity gain. I dropped the Low a bit as well. Mids and Q I left per @PedalPCB and the Standard Crybaby settings. I’m on Position 6 of the DIP switch.
> 
> I’m loving it. Very vocal and dynamic. I’m glad I went for the lower gain transistors.


Which transistors did you use?


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## Big Monk (Aug 15, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Which transistors did you use?



I used 2 NOS units from my stash:

Q1 - SGS House-Number RYN121101/2 - 162 hFE
Q2 - Amperex A104 - 312 hFE

Both were from Small Bear and came in lots of 30 or so I bought.


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## Big Monk (Aug 16, 2021)

Anyone have any issues with low or high frequency "oscillation" (for lack of a better term) with their Tearjerkers? 

I'm getting a very pronounced, low-frequency humming in the heel down position. Kind of like if you've ever stood next to an operational, large mains transformer. Tow down there is some hiss as well but nothing crazy. 

Not expecting a vintage style wah to be noise-free, obviously, so don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining,. just looking to see if this is common.


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## Big Monk (Aug 16, 2021)

I'm wondering about my LED placement and if that could be contributing. It's sitting right next to the molex connector for the Wah pot.


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## fig (Aug 17, 2021)

Very nice build and report. Try looping the power wire pair towards the output jack rather than the input side. A shot in the dark, I know.


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## Big Monk (Dec 5, 2021)

My Tearjerker went into surgery today.

Not doing anything crazy. I wanted to redo the off board wiring and remove the molex connectors. Ended lifting a pad on the PCB that goes to the switch but I’ll get it squared away. Luckily it is a switch connection so I’ll scrape a little of the mask away and solder directly to the trace. Not a big deal at all and won’t even be unsightly. I’ll redo all the wiring while I’m at it. 

I’m making Q and Mids external because they are the most effective of the 4 internal controls at sculpting the tone. Lows and Volume are set and forget. 

I also am changing the On/Off for the “Echoes” mod to a short handle toggle and putting the “Echoes” volume control internal, attached directly to the On/Off. 

I’m going to make a temporary front badge to cover my old holes until I get a proper badge made. 

Lastly, I’m going to put a simple JFET buffer on the output. I’ll just PtP it and shrink wrap the assembly and zip tie it down.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 5, 2021)

Cool!  Nice work!

except for the lifted pad


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## Harry Klippton (Dec 5, 2021)

That's a pretty tasteful selection of external controls. Like you said, nothing too crazy

Also, you know you're doing fine work when you can go back and change components as many times as you manage to @Big Monk


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## Big Monk (Dec 5, 2021)

Harry Klippton said:


> That's a pretty tasteful selection of external controls. Like you said, nothing too crazy
> 
> Also, you know you're doing fine work when you can go back and change components as many times as you manage to @Big Monk
> View attachment 19603



“Ahahaha, ahahaha, ahahaha…”

I just wanted a small set of controls that was clustered around one another and out of the way. 

I did lift a pad getting the molex connectors out but it’s not life threatening.


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## Mentaltossflycoon (Dec 5, 2021)

Harry Klippton said:


> That's a pretty tasteful selection of external controls. Like you said, nothing too crazy
> 
> Also, you know you're doing fine work when you can go back and change components as many times as you manage to @Big Monk
> View attachment 19603


Have you seen that film? It sure seemed to end that story. Nothing but crickets from Falcor for 35 years.


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

I got a chance to do some more work on this last night. All flying leads to boards are in. I had to remove the molex connectors and decided to mount the wires underneath so it would be a bit cleaner. I ziptied the flying leads for the Q and Mid controls so they would sit tight under that side of the board.

Part of the reason I chose the placement for the external controls, besides the fact that my Wah is first in line and that helps me to maximizer board space, was that i could use them to hide the switch wires underneath as well.

Overall, I'm happy so far with the rewire. I've tried to have take seriously the stuff we talk about and joke about in "it's All in Good Fun" and the Ares and this are my attempts to really get the cleanest offboard wiring of my building career so far.





My only true disappointment thus far, and I've mentioned this before, is that I lifted a pad on the output connections to the switch so I had to scrape a small spot away to make sure i got continuity to the output jack. A bit of a bummer but I worked through it and it does not look as bad as I feared it would.:


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

thewintersoldier said:


> much better, but I was never joking about off board wiring and soldering being clean. I meant every word, it's everything to me.



I read that loud and clear Boss!

I’m putting together a simple JFET output buffer today and will be making terminations on the new stomp switch, Q, Mids, and Wah pot and wiring up the “Echoes” switch.


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

Got after it a bit on my lunch break. Q, Mids and Wah pot wiring complete:


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 6, 2021)

Make sure the way you hook up the buffer is compatible with the Echoes switch.


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Make sure the way you hook up the buffer is compatible with the Echoes switch.



I imagine the buffer needs to be immediately downstream of the “Echoes” switch so the circuit “looks back” at the Wah circuit instead of the buffer, but wired in such a way that the buffer is switched out in bypass. 

Does that sound about right?

Wah - “Echoes” - Buffer - Switch


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 6, 2021)

Yes.  A drawing would be better, but I think you have it right.  The buffer has to be after the Echoes switch.


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Yes.  A drawing would be better, but I think you have it right.  The buffer has to be after the Echoes switch.



Thank you for bringing it up. I believe I was going to go right into the buffer off of the output wire.


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

I had time tonight to throw together a simple 2N5457 buffer circuit:





I tested it out and it passed signal so it’s a success!

I used the circuit from the AMZ Wah Buffer blog post:





I used 2.2M from Gate to ground and Gate to Power, 10k from Source to ground, 0.1 uf on the input and 10 uf on the output.


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## Chuck D. Bones (Dec 6, 2021)

Ahhh, the "lumpy cable."  Would it surprise you to know that there are satellites flying with lumpy cables?

You need an anti-pop resistor after the 10uF cap because it goes to a switch in your circuit.  You also need an anti-pop resistor before the 100nF cap since it also goes to a switch.
Biasing the gate to 1/2 Vcc is not the magic number, but it's close enough.  FYI, the same buffer could be realized with a MOSFET.


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## Big Monk (Dec 6, 2021)

Chuck D. Bones said:


> Ahhh, the "lumpy cable."  Would it surprise you to know that there are satellites flying with lumpy cables?
> 
> You need an anti-pop resistor after the 10uF cap because it goes to a switch in your circuit.  You also need an anti-pop resistor before the 100nF cap since it also goes to a switch.
> Biasing the gate to 1/2 Vcc is not the magic number, but it's close enough.  FYI, the same buffer could be realized with a MOSFET.



Since I still have long leads, I can patch in those pull down resistors easily. I also need to extend the power lead to reach down to the DC jack.


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## Harry Klippton (Dec 7, 2021)

Don't let Derek roll the blunt I guess 😂


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## Big Monk (Dec 7, 2021)

Here is Lumpy Rev. 0002:





I added the pulldown resistors on input and output and extended the power lead so i can run it discreetly down the side to the DC Jack.

A few minor concerns after hooking it up onto the Protoboard:

1.) It's slightly less than unity gain but the Volume trimpot will help there

2.) There's a fair amount of hum and noise when engaged on the Protoboard. I know that noise is to be expected when something is outside and enclosure so I am going to wire it up into the pedal and see how it goes. If by chance the noise carries over, I'll make another attempt for Lumpy Rev. 0003 and patch it in.

3.) Between bypass and enagged on the Protoboard, I'm losing some high end. I imagine the 10 uf I used on the output may be contributing. Again, I'll see how it works out and since it's modular, I can always build another and tweak it based on what i hear in the circuit.


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## Big Monk (Dec 7, 2021)

After a little more quick testing, I decided to just put in a small order for 2 of the PedalPCB utility JFET buffer boards. It's the same circuit I am using and will be cleaner looking.


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## Big Monk (Dec 8, 2021)

So, some good news and weird news.

Good news, I’ve got the “Echoes” and Bypass Switch wired up. I put a switch mounted 50k trim for Volume adjustments on the “Echoes” mod and the black wire on the switch is just temporarily hooked up until the JFET Buffer board gets here:







Weird news is I have everything hooked up temporarily for testing before the buffer goes in and I’m not getting signal through in On or in Bypass. 

So I tried the obvious:

1.) Ran continuity checks on the bypass signal path and it was OK. 

2.) I can tell signal is passing through when ON because I can hear the frequency sweep of the Wah as a whooshing sound. 

3.) So I thought it might be a bad stomp switch. I removed the I/O jack connections and tied them together. Nothing. 

I can’t quite figure it out. When ON, signal is going through the Wah because I can hear the sweep. It can’t be the switch because it’s switching the LED and tying I/O together with the wires yields no bypass tone.


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## Harry Klippton (Dec 8, 2021)

Uh oh am I gonna have to rescind my previous statement? 😂😬


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## Big Monk (Dec 8, 2021)

Harry Klippton said:


> Uh oh am I gonna have to rescind my previous statement? 😂😬



I can't quite figure it out. 

No bypass led me to believe it might be a bad stomp switch but directly connecting the jacks together, and not getting bypass tone, squashed that. 

Then I thought maybe I disturbed the board somehow but audio probed and found nothing. Also, you can hear the sweep acting on the whooshing white noise when the circuit is engaged.

What it might be is the connection on the pulled pad. I wonder if I scraped away too much of the mask and am grounding out the input.

@PedalPCB Is everything sans solder pads and traces a ground plane on these boards?


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## Big Monk (Dec 8, 2021)

Got it!

I was correct about the input wire. When I scraped the mask back I must have exposed the ground plane and soldered the wire to it. I’ll just need a discrete 24 gauge black solid core jumper over to the jack and it should be good. 

Everything is pretty much done and I can zip tie some wires and put in the buffer when it gets here.


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## Big Monk (Dec 8, 2021)

thewintersoldier said:


> You could have Vero'd it and be done.


Sure. I didn’t have the generic board material so the PedalPCB was cheaper and, in my hands at least, will look cleaner. 



thewintersoldier said:


> Good save on the input. Next time instead of scraping you could just jumper from the next component connected to that pad.



Which is what I have to do now anyway! I’ll get it squared away. Some discreet black Sharpie over the exposed trace and a very thin black jumper riding around the jack.


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## Big Monk (Dec 8, 2021)

Well, that did the trick! I was simply grounding out the input. Wah works fine and “Echoes” mod is operational. 

Not much left on this. When the buffer PCB gets here I’ll make the terminations and get that sucker in there! 

Once that’s finished I’ll just bunch together and zip tie the switch wires and it’ll be good to go. 

The last bit will be one aesthetic and one functional consideration: an E.W.S. bottom plate and a name badge for the front.


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## Big Monk (Dec 13, 2021)

Alright folks, for those of you who have tuned into this run on sentence of a build thread, she’s all set. 

JFET Buffers came in today and I installed and tested it. Worked like gang busters and has a real small footprint which is nice. 

I think the wiring came out nice and it is pretty close to how I pictured it in my head:


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## Big Monk (Dec 14, 2021)

Last thing I’m trying before I call things done is a little series resistance at the output of the buffer to see if that refined things a bit further:


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## Big Monk (Dec 17, 2021)

I used some Wah in my Replacement Fuzz clip today. The last tweak I made was. 7.5k series resistor on the output of the buffer. Seems to work quite well:


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