If you think it looks ugly on the outside, you should see the inside!
This is just a first run. I have to buy a new box (I messed up drilling some of the holes - sigh - and I made one of the circuit boards too small, with the result that it doesn't sit on all of the stand-offs. Also, I want to put a heat sink under the regulator (since it is pulling 9V down to 3.3V - it is getting just a little hot - Not too bad, but still), and I've got to try to do something about the clicking when the optoisolator turns on and off quickly for the square and sawtooth waves. I'm not sure if I can pull that one off, but I will try. I might have to try a different circuit, but I hope not - there is no more room in there! And yes, you are seeing right, there are two circuit boards. One for the Logic stuff (program switching) and face plate LEDs and Tact switches, the other for the PS and the actual LFO and Trem circuit.
I've spent most of my free time working on this for the last couple weeks - some of which really shouldn't have been free! I'm going to order a new enclosure this week (I spied a really sexy pink sparkle one at Pedal Parts.com, or some such place!), and I'm think I'm going to replace the depth pot with an audio taper - its action is just too sudden at the moment - and put in a push-pull for the wave/rate pot so I can use it for the tap/wave switch that is currently hanging off the top so unattractively. AND I'm going to get the holes for the ratio LED's in the right place, and make all the holes the right size this time!
If you are wondering, the MV-53 is a tap tempo LFO on a Microcontroller, made by Molten Voltage. It does some cool stuff, though I haven't had a chance to try it out too much yet. I probably won't get to spend any real time with this until next weekend, sadly.
Somewhat shockingly, to me, this thing actually worked almost right the first time I plugged it in. I think I must actually be learning something, because that has never happened for me before with anything more complicated than a battery driving an LED. Even there, I usually get the LED backwards at first! So, I feel pretty impressed with myself to have it make sound and all that the first time I powered it up! Between the two boards, this thing has 16 very short wires, and somehow I managed to get them all in the right place! I was shocked! Once I get the new box, the only problem I will have is the lack of room for a battery, but since I will always be using it with a PS anyway (and besides, this is just a dry run on the LFO circuit I want to use for my amp when I rebuild it early next year!), I'm OK with the no battery thing.
Oh, hey, does anyone know a good way to get a D Latch to power up in a blank state? Or, barring that, at least to be able to decide which state I want it to start up in? I was thinking I could just raise the value of one of the caps on the switches (SW5-SW12) to slow down it's rise to positive, but I'd rather a way to start in "reset" mode.
Gabriel
