Circuitbenders - Phonic Taxidermist Build Guide

circuitbenders.co.uk PHONIC TAXIDERMIST 47.
2b
Read the build guide to the end before ordering parts or starting work.
The Phonic Taxidermist 47.2b is a fairly simple board to build. Theres no setup or calibration necessary, so in
theory theres no reason why it shouldn't be a beginners project. None of the parts are too difficult to get hold of,
although you probably won't find the HT8955A 'voice echo' chip or its associated RAM in places like Mouser or
Farnell. A search on the net should turn up plenty of places to get hold of them.
The circuit will always produce a certain amount of background noise leaking from the chopping stage. This is
completely normal. The noise has been minimised on this PCB in comparison to the original Maplin Voice
Vandal, which was a lot worse.
Having spent far too long trying to track down noise problems on a prototype, that finally turned out to be caused
by a batch of blatant quality control failure LM358 opamps from Tayda electronics, we would advise using decent
quality components from a trusted supplier.
Power:
For some reason the original Maplin Voice Vandal didn't have any voltage regulation for the audio side of the
circuit, and as a result unless you had a very well regulated power supply it was very prone to noise and PSU
hum. The Phonic Taxidermist 47.2b has several options for powering the board.
The voltage regulator at REG1 can be either a 78L09, a 78L12, or be bypassed completely. The board is
perfectly happy running on anything between 9v and around 15v, but the higher the voltage after REG1, the
better the noise floor tends to be.
Actually using a regulator at REG1 is probably the best plan , but you can experiment with bypassing it for your
individual setup.
If you have a 12v supply you should use a 78L09 at REG1, so the main circuit will be running on 9v. If
your 12v supply is very clean and stable, you can bypass REG1 and run the board directly on 12v.
If you have a 15v supply you should use a 78L12 at REG1, so the circuit will be running on 12v. As
with 12v, if your 15v supply is very stable, you can bypass REG1 and run the board directly on 15v.
If you have a very stable 9v supply, you might get away with just bypassing REG1 and running the
circuit directly on 9v, but you might have noise issues with trying to use something like a guitar pedal
power supply.
The board has a eurorack modular 10 pin power connector at the back. Only the pins labelled +12
and GND are actually connected, so for any other type of power connection you only need to use
these two pins.
MIC/LINE:
On the rear of the board there are two pairs of headers for inputs and outputs. These are identical to
those found on the original Voice vandal. For line level signals you should use the LINE connections,
and you can probably work out the rest yourself! Its a simple job to make the input and output level
switchable with a SPDT switch wired between the socket and the board connections. The wiring for a
switchable input level is shown above
FREQUENCY BAND SWITCHES:
The four frequency band on/off switches are implemented on the board using a four way DIP switch.
Unless you want to set the effect to one frequency band and leave it, you'll probably be wanting to
bring these switches out to a panel. This can be done very simply by just wiring a switch across the
corresponding solder pads, as shown in the diagram below. It'd probably be best to keep this wiring
as short as possible
DELAY JUMP:
The jumper labelled 'DELAY JUMP' behind the feedback pot connects the delay signal back to the
main mix. On the real Voice Vandal this is a permanent connection and you can never really turn off
the delay completely. If you want this board to function as the original, just install a wire jumper here,
but you can also install a switch to allow you to turn the delay return on and off.
GROUNDING POTS:
In order to minimise the noise floor, the casings of the pots need to be grounded. Actually its probably
only really VR3 and VR4 that need this, but it can't hurt to do the others as well. All the pots are
grounded in this manner on the original Voice Vandal.
If you are using this board to build a module for a modular synth, and the front panels are grounded
via the casing, then this step probably isn't necessary. If not, you need to ground the bodies of the
pots via the ground point provided, as shown in the image below.
This is best achieved by slight abrading the pot surface, heating the pot surface slightly with your iron,
and then flowing some solder onto the pot body. Using some extra solder flux will help a lot here, but
its not 100% necessary. Once you done this with all 4 pots, you can use a piece of stripped wire to
ground them to the ground point. Solid core wire is probably easier to deal with, but stranded will work
just as well.
If you chose not to mount the pots on the front of the board in the spaces provided, its still important
that you make sure that they're grounded.
PARTS LIST:
PART NUMBER PART VALUE NOTES

D1 1N4001 Polarity protection diode
D2, D3 1N914 Diode
R33 4R7 All resistors standard 1/4 watt
carbon or metal film
R6, R20, R21, R22, R23 1K
R34 1K5
R31 5K6
R1, R2, R4, R15, R16, R17 R18, 10K
R19, R25, R26, R36
R27 15K
R32 22K
R24, R28, R38, R39 47K
R3, R5, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R12 100K
R13, R14, R29, R30, R35, R37
C11 10pF Ceramic
C12, C22 100pF Ceramic
C17 330pF Ceramic
C19 10nF Poly Film
C13, C16 47nF Poly Film
C2, C8, C14, C21 100nF Ceramic
C10, C15 100nF Poly Film
C9 1uF Electrolytic*
C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, C20, C23 10uF Electrolytic
C18 100uF Electrolytic
C1 470uF Electrolytic
Q1-Q4 BC548 or equivalent transistor
REG1 78L09-78L12 or jumper** Voltage regulator
REG2 78L05 Voltage regulator
IC1 LM358 Op Amp
IC2 LM358 Op Amp
IC3 4066 Quad Bilateral Switch
IC4 4060 14 Stage Binary Counter
IC5 HT8955A 'Voice Echo' Delay Controller
IC6 41256*** RAM
Power LED LED Its an LED!
VR1_FREQUENCY B1M Potentiometer****
VR2_DISTORT B100K Dual Potentiometer
VR3_FEEDBACK B470K or C470K***** Potentiometer - 500K is ok
VR4_DELAY_TIME B470K Potentiometer - 500K is ok
DELAY JUMP Wire Jumper
* All electrolytic caps rated at 25v or more. For some reason the + markings to indicate the polarity of the
electrolytic caps are not as clear as they should be on some boards. If in doubt, take a look at the parts layout to
make sure which way round they should be soldered.
**See power section on the first page.
***This is a standard 256K RAM chip, but it comes under many different names from different manufacturers.
These include uPD41256, MN41256, D41256 and various others. Any of them should work ok, but you may need
to pay attention to the access speed. This is indicated by a dash and then a number on the end of the part
number i.e. MN41256A-10. The lower the number, the faster the RAM access speed.
The original Voice Vandal came with -10 RAM. We've tried it with -10 and -08 speed chips, and it works fine.
There are also -12 and -15 versions commonly available, but we have not tried these and cannot verify how well
they might work.
****All potentiometers should be metal bodied types. See the 'grounding pots' section for details
*****A pot with an antilog curve (commonly labelled with a 'C') will give a more controllable feedback response
here, but the original Voice Vandal uses a linear curve pot for VR3.
The schematic can be downloaded HERE.

Circuitbenders - Phonic Taxidermist Build Guide

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Circuitbenders - Phonic Taxidermist Build Guide

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Circuitbenders - Phonic Taxidermist Build Guide

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What are the power supply options for the board?

What are the input and output options on the board?

circuitbenders.co.uk PHONIC TAXIDERMIST 47.

FREQUENCY BAND SWITCHES:

PART NUMBER PART VALUE NOTES

**See power section on the first page.

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.