When we are building our circuits and DIY guitar stompboxes, power supply polarity is extremely important. Boss guitar pedals makes sure that their power adapters supply continuous power through a center negative power supply. This means that the input jack must be wired correctly in order for the circuit to function. Using the wrong polarity power adapter can, at worst, destroy the circuit! Many older designs do not prevent users from doing this! ...
Check out this great video from YouTube user Circuit Basics. If you’re new to audio electronics, one of the best projects to build is an audio amplifier with the famous LM386 Audio Amplifier Integrated Circuit. In this video tutorial, he will go step-by-step through the breadboarding process to eventually testing his custom LM386 circuit. A companion article to this video can be found here, http://www.circuitbasics.com/build-a-great-sounding-audio-amplifier-with-bass-boost-from-the-lm386/, with loads of details that will help you tweak your circuit for optimal sound quality and performance.**NOTE:**As you can see in this video, there are a lot of issues that can occur when you use small breadboards. Jumper wires and cables can clutter up your work area and get in your way when you’re experimenting. It’s also common for long -lead resistors and capacitors to create short circuits when bending them out of the way. Your best course of action is to plan your breadboard projects in advance, have a set of solid core wires of varying lengths, and test often during the process. ...
If you’re interested in optimizing your workspace, this tutorial from one of the greatest electronics YouTube channels will surely help! Dave from EEVBlog is one of the most knowledgeable and detail-oriented people out there. You will appreciate his candor and professional insight. Enjoy!
Us DIYers love to build things from scratch! If you ever wondered the amount of work that would go into building your own electronics workbench, this video series is the one for you! What you will realize is that sometimes DIY is not always the easiest thing to do, as YouTuber Made 2 Hack makes very clear in his three part video series. You will learn the process that goes into making a DIY electronics workbench, along with the trials and tribulations of a manufacturing project. ...
Anyone who has ever watched Doctor Who will be familiar with the peculiarly distorted voice of the Dalek. According to the Wikipedia entry, the original voice sounds were created with ring modulation. While simple passive circuits for this effect exist, there are plenty of ways to expand on this idea and create your own custom voice changer circuit. For instance, check out this forum post to see what people are experimenting with. Passive circuits are fun to experiment with, but us DIYers know that we still have to deal with amplification, mixing, and output control to have a useful audio circuit. A popular circuit schematic from a Velleman Voice Changer Kit is publicly available: ...
In this video by YouTube channel Ms Mad Lemon, you can see the whole process of building a PT2399 circuit from scratch! As us audio DIYers know, it’s a great feeling to power on a hand-built and start playing around! One of the great things about this video is how the participants interact and debug their circuit. In the world of DIY, it can be frustrating to run into roadblocks or issues when we’re all alone. In this video you will notice how they talk about the digital and analog ground issues of the PT2399, the odd circuit schematic design. ...
I have recently been watching YouTube videos about the Princeton PT2399 and I came across a very educational video by user Electronics Freak. The first part of the video gives a very beginner-friendly overview of the chip’s capabilities through explanation of the datasheet. As he builds the project, he runs into a typical issue us DIYers run into: the datasheet isn’t the optimal circuit we need for our project.
If you’re a DIY circuit enthusiast like me, you love the PT2399 Delay IC! The range of sounds that can be extracted from simple circuits using this versatile chip will blow your mind. It’s a fairly stable component with a lot of great possibilities for experimentation, sound exploration, and musical inspiration! YouTube channel ThePedalZone released a fantastic review of the PT233 Delay IC that goes into a little bit of history as well as a review of five delay pedals. Check it out and make sure to like + subscribe! ...
If you’re missing any of these from your workbench, you’ll be creating more work…for yourself. Take a look at our handy dandy list and see what you’re missing that could make your projects easier, more efficient, and ultimately, just plain old FUN!!! 3rd Hand- A third hand is absolutely necessary for any serious electronics work. Unless you have the most patient and steady partner (not likely) to assist you, you’re going to want a third hand. Basically, they consist of two adjustable alligator clips mounted to a heavy piece of metal that free up your hands to solder and assemble. ...
You’ve probably seen some weird plug-ins in the back of your keyboard that you’ve avoided like the black plague. They don’t take a normal quarter inch TRS male plug that you may be already familiar with. They look like this: [caption id=“attachment_1237” align=“aligncenter” width=“273”] TRS plug. Tip Ring Sleeve![/caption] No, the weird one with all the holes looks more like this: [caption id=“attachment_1238” align=“aligncenter” width=“225”] What is this? It’s a MIDI plug![/caption] ...