mrjstudios

I wish you the best Pete, and I hope you can continue to contribute to the thread in the future! And enjoy your new location!

Well, I've still been looking in and reading up on the thread every now and then.... I haven't deserted Col: I think the work you are doing is very solid. In a completely coincidental and unrelated way, I seem to have experimented and confirmed some of your results earlier on. I was working towards a much simpler and different purpose at the time, but the things you are discovering about wire thicknesses and also the overall impedence of the coil make lots of since to me now by dumb luck! My first successful driver was a .25mm/30AWG driver wound to about 5-6 ohms, driven by a 386, and the only driver I ever had that topped it was one I made much later based off of PSW's driver concept. Had I been able to make that first driver to the same quality as I made the much later PSW design driver, who knows how well it could have worked, although it shouldn't work that well logically. I also had a more radical 4 ohm driver (dual coil) at one point that seemed to kinda work well in some facets, but I think the fact that I was still using a 386 to drive it was the problem. At the time, I dismissed its problems as poor driver design, but with your great new discoveries now I'm wondering if that was really it.... at that time I understood significantly less about circuits, and so I probably overlooked some of the power stage's problems with driving about 3.85 ohms. Anyway, great work.

Col: Ha, I doubt I know more than you do! But I do think I am starting to understand the design of your circuit a lot better. I'll have more of a look at those links soon, and I may well try to build one. I think I'll test it with a 'thin driver' design though for now. I did make some dual coil humbucker-like drivers back when everyone was doing that, and I did get 1 working, but I am a bit more confident in my single coils at the moment. Eventually, I'd like to have a sustainer in a regular humbucker-sized pickup format...

Hey Col and PSW, I'm all for a newer 'standard' DIY circuit, that will put the Fetzer/Ruby like designs to rest! The only reason I have kept it alive, is because I know I have had good BASIC results with it, as well as many others, and for those of us who can't just whip up a circuit design from scratch in a day or two, there still isn't much out there to go on. I'm not blaming anyone here -- it's just a fact. (Most of the stuff here circuit wise is either not working, or super advanced for the average DIY'er.) That is why I was hoping to revamp the F/R and finally have an easily accessable circuit that people know they can build, and upon correct completion, get basic results from. If you can lend your circuit genius to making a better 'standard' then I'd be happy to help, test, develop, design, etc. Also, my area of specialty is really with tube amps, and since the Fetzer valve is designed to operate relatively like an old fender input stage, I perhaps understand it better than op-amp stuff . But I'm learning more and more every day about op-amp and other IC chip designs, and this forum helps a lot. Col, could you re-post your advanced circuit that you had so much sucess with? I'd be happy to build it and 'verify' your results -- and hopefully learn more about the design behind it in the process, and thus learn more about the theory that goes into this type of solid state sustainer circuit design.

It is a PVA driver, wound to your .2mm wire, 3mm cross section specs. It is wound around an old single coil pickup which has had it's bobbin blocked up leaving the 3mm at the top. I'm gonna test everything, but I'm about 95% sure it is the driver. There is a definite point at which I can crank the circuit up to before it goes from driver winding oscillation to circuit screaming. Actually, the trim pot on the LM386 works pretty well. I was able to run at almost full gain there, and full gain coming from my preamp before the circuit went nuts, so it is MUCH more stable than a F/R. I think what happened is that this particular driver isn't super tight. I vaguely remember when I made it that my clamps holding the sides in while it dried weren't super good... but I figured it would be fine with all of the PVA glue potting it. And it did work for a while, but I think after it took a fall, and the leads got twisted and pulled a bit, the very inner windings must have let loose. So there must have been a slight air gap in the potting... I hate it when that happens. It isn't grounded to the core either... the plasic pickup bobbin is still intact and protecting from that. The windings may be shorted though... Oh well, back to square one. I know I can reuse the driver itself -- I'll just need to rewind it. And I'll test the circuit with a little speaker to hear how clear I can get the ever dismissed Fetzer type valve

Hope you are doing ok Pete!... Well I finished installing my new circuit in my sustainer test guitar. Circuit: works great. (as far as I can tell -- I'll hook it up to a speaker to see just how clean it is). I had none of the biasing problems people have had in the past with the F/R type circuits. In fact, it took me about 3 seconds to have the thing right at 4.56 volts (perfect), where in the past I had to fight with it to get it anywhere near the 'clean' operating range, and even had to carefully select batteries. Also, everything was much easier to wire up and get to with the new layout. SO... the new design and my layout is definitely a step up from the stock F/R. Driver: at some point the driver got banged around a little bit, and it seems to have let loose and now the internal windings are vibrating I did have working sustain with this driver in the past, without any huge problems (the problems were in the circuit), but now something has gone awry internally, and it is oscillating so bad you can hear pitches coming from the driver itself (not good at all). So with this major setback, I'll either have to resurect my trusty first driver, which I was lucky enought to have work well the first time, or I'll have to rewind my current strat pickup turned driver. (Note: the first driver is the blade design which can be seen on my youtube video from so long ago)

Very cool clip Pete! Always good to hear these things in action. On a similar front, I have just finished building a new sustainer circuit from scratch (the schematic I posted a little while ago). I used the new layout that I designed too, which can also be found a few pages back. It's just a matter of getting 1 more capacitor and installing it into my already sustainer equiped guitar to finish it. My drivers are largely, if not totally based on Pete's designs, and have been heavily influenced by his guidence along the way as I have built them. So if the new circuit design proves functional, (which I think someone has already verified), then I will be able to contribute another test subject proving the thin driver design's concept. Once the thing works, I will also be able to record as many demo's as desired and some video as well. No, you won't learn anything new from them if you have read the thread, and you won't finally 'see the magical components' (because they don't exist)... BUT sometimes it helps people to hear and see things, rather than just read about them. Also, I'd like to get plenty of samples up just for the sheer purpose of having an audio and visual record of what great things have been accomplished here. I know not everyone has a recording studio or even a decent video camera, so I hope I can be of service in that aspect. Hopefully others will be sucessful with their builds as well, and also post videos and audio, making a kind of reference database of what can be done using for example "PSW's the thin driver design, and a 386 based circuit", etc. etc.

Uh oh! Did I hear the word "MDF"? I'm glad you have finally given in and found the real tone wood Pete haha. (Note to everyone: do not try to build an MDF guitar )

If you look at the 2nd drawing I posted, I moved C2 (and I think it is called C5 in the second one) right next to the IC chip. Like I said before, there were things about the original F/R layout I didn't like.... The from scratch circuit I am working on will be the 2nd (new version) drawing that I posted.

Which capacitor are you refering to? Is it in the part of the circuit that is like the one 1 posted, or is it in your new preamp? I've just gotten the rest of the parts today that I need to build a from-scratch version of my circuit layout (found a few pages back). I know the older F/R-like layout works, but there are things I don't like about it so I'll compare the two, and see if my new layout fixes the problems. I'm also re-wiring the guitar again from the ground up, so hopefully this latest attempt will produce a (consistently) working sustainer. If it does, I'll definitely post some demo sound clips and videos too. I'm going to work on the new unit over the weekend, so we'll see how far I get...

I have also had this noise problem with my sustainer circuits. Do you only get it when you turn the thing up to a certain point? Mine always would start in buzzing rather quickly, and as you went up in power, the buzz frequency would change a bit and sort of 'sweep' across a range of notes, and then settle on 1 nasty hum, regardless of adding any more power. I would describe the final hum as sounding like a 60 cycle hum, or the car engine/amp analogy. It IS NOT the 386 itself, since I have had plenty of perfectly working 386 circuits... but, it seems to be a recurring problem at least with F/R based circuits. I actually spent a lot of time recently on my previous 2 circuit attempts (I should add, these circuits were NOT the new schematics I have posted -- they were differently and less modded F/R's) trying to rid them of this buzz... hmmm... some troubleshooting: Keep in mind my test guitar has only a bridge humbucker, and a single 500K volume control, so I doubt this buzz is caused by other pickups or guitar switching/electronics. (Note: As Pete and others have discovered and have said numerous times, other pickups in your guitar can and will cause problems if not dealt with correctly... but in this case, I am ignoring that set of problems for troubleshooting purposes, since I have eliminated them from my setup.) The buzz I experienced was totally uneffected by outside forces such as EM radiation, computers, tvs, lights, etc. No matter where the guitar was, it buzzed the same. So if it is a grounding/power supply issue with the F/R type circuit, it must be internal with the interfaced guitar and sustainer circuits, and not an external shielding issue. The buzz like I had, and you seemed to describe, is definitely NOT a result of driver/pickup feedback and interference. That is more of a squeel and is effected by driver position, etc -- this buzz is not (trust me, I tried moving it all over the place...) Soo.... that kinda leaves 2 things. Slightly bad driver (and I say slightly bad because even a driver that internally vibrates and has flaws CAN work to an extent, although never well), bad circuit. The circuit could be anything from design, to bad layout arrangement, to bad solder joints, etc. Maybe check where your input voltage is running carefully... good luck man!

Donovan: Great job in drawing up a new circuit. I had considered a TLA082 based preamp in one of my designs, but with it running into the good old 386 circuit you can see in the latest layout I posted. I ultimately didn't ever finish the design, because the more I read about the TLA082, the more it sounded like it would distort just about as much as a J201 or similar JFET. But there was a few things that did seem to be promising about the TLA082. Some of the driving problems you have sound like overpowering the driver (take it from me, I have tried that and as much as you want more power to = more sustain, it doesnt.) Any reason why you can't use your preamp running into a 386? I beleive that with a good driver, the 386 power stage has more than enough power and it is a familiar and easily manipulated power amp. Also, they are very easy to get about anywhere around the world. I think maybe some of the odd problems you are experiencing could be caused by the fact that your new power chip has extra features in it... but I can't be sure. It might be worth trying to run your new preamp into a 386 power section and see if that solves some of the problems.

If you'd like, I could draw up a traditional schematic for my layout shown above. The reason no schematic was ever drawn up here is because most people either can't read them, or would rather just see it all layed out already. It is one thing to design a schematic, and another to organize it and lay it out in 3D on a board! So, I think for simplicity, and because the DIY Layout software is so darn handy, most circuit designs are immediately put into layout form by their authors. But I think it is a good idea to have at least 1 schematic floating around. Maybe it would encourage people to make a more compact or better functioning layout. Gimme a day or so and I'll draw up a schematic WITH driver and harmonics/fundamental switch included.

Welcome. This type of thing could be designed, but think of all the interference you will accumulate along the way to and from a pedal. As PSW has said, that would be extremely hard to overcome. Perhaps impossible using the current technology. Maybe try to accomplish this instead/first: design a 'blend knob' into the circuit so you could fade between the harmonic and fundamental modes, and have this knob right on the guitar. This, I think would be possible, and if I remember right, has been done before. I can't remember who incorporated this into their design though, and if it was ever fully proven working. Also, have you built a working sustainer in general yet? If not, I'd recommend getting one up and fully working, and then try to add in whatever else you are interested in.

Pete's right man. You HAVE to use the 32AWG .2mm wire. Early on, I like many others, thought 30AWG would be close enough (and to my defense, that was back before .2mm wire was definitively the standard ). It isn't 'close enough'. I did get 1 out of 4 30AWG wound drivers to work, but it sucked. So I finally listened to what Pete was saying about his extensive research and development, and sure enough, the 1st 32AWG / .2mm driver I made worked like a charm. I even used every other part of my existing setup -- the circut, the guitar, even the same driver as my 'best' 30AWG sustainer -- but I rewound it with 32AWG/.2mm, which also let me wind it to Pete's 3 x 3mm driver coil cross-section, and it was exponentially better. And this goes out to everyone: Clearly, Pete started this thread, and has the most experience with DIY sustainers. Also, he has done way more experimenting/developing/researching than I think anyone here realizes. How many hundreds of coils have you gone thru Pete? Maybe thousands!? So, I would highly recommend that the things he has posted as guidelines or rules should be followed. Then if you have problems, or you need help along the way, ask. That is what this thread is for, and I'm sure many here will be happy to help you. Ideas and innovations are always welcome too, but if for example, you decide to build a F/R based sustainer, and a driver based on Pete's design, then please do not take shortcuts and expect it all to work. Most of the 'innovating' done by people here (myself included) is merely trying to get by with spare parts on hand, or taking shortcuts because "that part doesn't matter that much," etc. etc. You wouldn't set out to build a car (a highly researched and developed existing design) and then try to 'get by' with square wheels! So anyway everybody, listen to and appreciate the wealth of info that is Pete, and do your homework!

I'll take a look at it for you a little later on. Any reason why you didn't buy all of the parts from mouser except the 32AWG wire? I'm pretty sure you can get everything from mouser, and at better prices. Also, I would not buy anything from radio shack... I got some parts from there for my custom tube amp, and when there were things wrong with the simplest of parts on the amp, it was the ones from radio shack that always seemed to be the problem....

Are wattage ratings for the resistors important? Voltage ratings for the capacitors? Is there a more specific BOM somewhere? If it is considered bad form to post a BOM with vendor & P/N specifics... might I get one PM'd to me? Thanks for your time. This thing is running at such a low voltage and power consumption that about any component you can find will work in it. Most things in my circuits are rated for 35-50 volts, and resistors are rated at either 1/4 or 1/2 of a watt. The complete bill of materials for the circuit, minus regular hook up wire and the board itself is listed on the layout. It really doesn't matter who made the parts, or their voltage/wattage rating -- except caps need to be able to handle more than 9 volts, and resistors need to be able to handle at least 1/4 of a watt. That's really it. I would order your parts from Mouser.com. They have a massive selection, but don't let that scare you away. For instance, if you search for "100uF capacitor", you may get 1000+ hits. Simply take a look at a few of the hits, make sure that it is rated for over 9 volts, see if it is radial mount or axial, etc, to find what you are looking for, and pick the one you want. The manufacturer really doesn't matter. There are probably 20+ different versions of essentially the same part, which is why some people aren't sure what to order. But any of them will work in the project. I think you could get EVERYTHING to build just the circuit shown above for about $15. The driver winding wire and supplies cost can vary. I had to buy a $15 roll of magnet wire as a minimum sized-order and I can probably get 20 drivers out of it. As for the driver, the materials can vary, but one thing I do know is: .2mm wire = 32AWG (standard or mil-spec)

No problem Well, now you guys got me all interested in sustainers again (I never really lost interest -- just didn't have time ). It's too cold to build guitars right now so it looks like I'll be doing some prototyping. I'm building a from-scratch version of the new circuit. Turns out my 2nd drawing of it works out very nicely with a little tweaking and when you lay down caps on the board... And with only a minimal amount of buss wiring too! I'm ordering the rest of the parts I need from Mouser, so hopefully I'll have it up and running soon. Once I have a working model, I'll post the updated layout and some pics too. If it works really well and my latest driver proves to be a good one, I'll record some video/audio of it in action.

The switch DOES work that way in the first pic. Take a look at it -- it reverses the leads when the switch is thrown, just like alternate wirings. The external pots may be a bit much, but I want absolute control of the sustainer without having to remove any back covers -- at least until I can test it more. Of course, anyone who wanted the pots on board could put them there -- it will not effect the overall functionality of the sustainer unit to put them either way, so put them where ever you want to. I'll send you the files Pete.

This is the 'standard' layout of the F/R that has been seen all over the internet, plus the added mods. Yes, the mods are pretty simple, but extremely necessary for the circuit to work well. I have found that this layout is not a great one. Althought it looks neat, it quickly gets clumsy when you actually try to build it. Also, the parts are layed out in a rather strange way that utilizes 2 separate ground 'busses', which is misleading to the builder -- because in the end all of them have to be connected to battery (-) and the guitar ground. This is my new layout which does not look neat, and is spread out a little more. To me, it is much easier to look at and understand. I was hoping to have time to refine the circuit, and make the layout smaller, but I haven't been able to do that. So here it is to troubleshoot and mess with. I know the design works, but I have not been able to build a new one from scratch and see it's full potential (or possibly it's failings). Anybody willing to build and test this design would be greatly appreciated, and hopefully we can settle on a standard, and very solid DIY circuit as the basic unit. The value of R4 in the second drawing is something I experimented with a lot to try to get more clean power out of the JFET. I also played with the value of R3 a lot, but 1M seems to be the optimum value there (as it is in most vintage and current tube amps). If you have super high output pickups, you may want to increase the value of R4 all the way up to 100K. This attenuates the signal down a bit and can clean up the JFET stage. Lower output pickups may need some help, and you can reduce the value of R4 down to around 33K. I really wouldn't recommend this though, since it can really increase distortion in the JFET, which is not what you want powering the sustainer. The standard R4 is 68K. I should also note that there should be a protection diode built into the power supply, but I can't find the image file where I have that drawn in. It is a great idea that PSW had. Any small diode would work to protect against batteries being inserted backwards.

Hi guys. I too have been busy with Christmas festivities and such in this holiday season. I do have the new 'default' circuit for these sustainer projects drawn up, but I have not personally tested it. I know it at least works, because I modded an old F/R I had laying around an hacked this new circuit together using bits of the old one and guts out of other stuff I had on hand. I have only with held the layout thus far because I wanted to test it first, but I have not had the time to build a new one from scratch and install it and test it. For the sake of progress, if there are people on here willing to build and test it and risk perhaps finding some bugs, then I'll put it up. Hey, this forum is a collaborative effort isn't it? PSW: I know you wanted to take a look at the layout and squeeze it down once the design was verified. Shall I just post it as-is now so someone else can test it?

Wow PSW!! Those pictures are amazing! Glad there is some more activity here too! I have been really busy with other things, so although I have a solid design concept for the new 'standardized DIY circuit', I have not built one from scratch yet. I added the mods to an existing F/R that I had from a long time ago, and the mods do work, and did vastly improve the circuit. However, the pre-existing circuit that I modded had its share of pre-existing problems that were still present after the mods were installed (bad soldering connections, etc.). But it did work nonetheless, and even through its problems, the mods show promise! Hopefully over Christmas break, I will be able to build one from scratch, test it, and then post the schematic here for use.

Hello Michel! Try going here BIG sustainer Thread, this thread is not up to date. I am currently working on a "Creative Commons" schematic that I will release on the forum. It is a simple and standardized little circuit that is not at all hard to build if you have some soldering skills and knowledge of electronics. PSW is helping me out with it, and I think it will be a really solid design that will help get people like you up and running. Although PSW's really advanced circuit will remain secret and be for sale from him soon, my circuit will be freely availible here as perfectly functioning sustainer amp. It just will not have the really advanced features in it that PSW has spent years and lots of $$$ developing. So be patient -- hopefully I will have time to test my circuit design and then post it here soon!

That is great PSW! I also have some news; For those of you who want to build your own circuit until you can get PSW's (his is much better that DIY circuits), I have almost finished my prototype "Standardized DIY Sustainer Circuit". I, like PSW, have been wanting to get a design out there so people wouldn't keep getting hung up on circuit design when they embark on building a DIY sustainer. So with the expert help of PSW, I have tried to put together a simple circuit which will actually work right and get people started. It is a circuit similar to a Fetzer/Ruby, but it has been modded according to the original spec sheets for the chips and also by the suggestions PSW and others have contributed here over the years. I only have to re-wire the test circuit back into my guitar's electronics, and then I can test it. If all goes well, I will put the schematic up here and let some other people try it out. It probably won't be the 'end all' circuit for you if you are really going for the commercial grade sound, or if you want to have precise control over how it responds while you play the guitar. But it will work, and it will hopefully be a great way to start out and gain experience in sustainers. (Note: Don't get this one confused with PSW's new circuit though -- his IS professional/commercial grade design, and I highly recommend it just on it's concept alone... and that's saying something since I have never personally played a guitar with it yet!)

You do need a preamp. The little gem or ruby or any 386 based amp by itself does not work well -- I have tried that long ago hoping to skip having to build a preamp, and it did not work. The squeeling could be a number of things: You don't have a preamp, Your driver could be too close to your pickup, You circuit might have errors in it, You might not have your circuit grounded to the guitar's electrical system correctly, Your driver may be oscillating because the internal windings are loose etc. etc. I am currently working on a circuit that will be much more suitable for DIY sustainers than the Fetzer Ruby, but that is similar to it and easy to build. It employs all the mods that PSW has suggested for the F/R, and a few more. Until I test and post it on the forum though, the Fetzer Ruby is your best bet. If you don't mind waiting a few weeks though, then you can use mine once it is done.