Tremodrive Oscillator question

[TurboGuitarMelton]

I was preparing to build the Rick-tone Tremodrive unit. Would the tremolo work fine if I swapped the oscillator for the oscillator found in the Princeton reverb? I like the speed sweep in the Fender oscillator. From some demos I found of the Tremodrive it sounds like the oscillator speeds are too fast.


I just used the 10kl pot and the 10uf cap on the cathode of the oscillator from the original oscillator. Would 3.3k and 25uf be necessary to get that oscillator to work? Maybe a 5k pot and a 25uf cap?

[TurboGuitarMelton]

I ended up building the unit as I posted and am getting some strange behaviors.


1 - When I turn up the "drive/volume" knob to 10 or so I get tremolo even if the tremolo intensity is turned down all the way. With the volume around 2-4 there is no tremolo.
2 - The depth control is scratchy and when its all the way down the plate voltage on the "drive" triode drops all the way to 80v when I turn the intensity it goes all the way to 230v or so.


The tremolo does work but it is very noisy (thumps) I felt like I kept all the signal wires far away from the trem circuit and I also used shielded wire. I think it must be a circuit problem (I've checked over and over for wiring errors).


Should I just change the oscillator to the stock Tremodrive version?


Here is the schematic of what I built ( I changed one wire from the schem I posted last week - the 1m resistor goes to ground instead of the cathode of the trem)

[TurboGuitarMelton]

I changed the caps and resistors in the trem circuit to the original values. The Range is slightly different but I still am having the issue with tremolo being present even with the depth knob down and the pot is quite scratchy. I've double checked my wiring and its free from errors.


Looking at the schematic it seems logical that moving the depth knob would adjust the 12ax7 triode's bias and thus cause the plate voltage to change. However, I have not seen this issue with demos I have watched online for the circuit.


I will take pics and post soon. Please Help! 

[sluckey]

The only way to totally kill the trem signal is with an off switch or footswitch. I see no switches in your circuit.

[TurboGuitarMelton]

Oops! Its does actually have a switch. I forgot to copy it over from the other schematic. The pics dont show it because I have added it since then.


Maybe I am not being clear enough on the issue. With trem engaged and depth all the way down at zero I am getting a strong tremolo (volume modulation starts again despite depth being at zero) when the volume knob is up past 12 oclock.


It seems to me that this is not how the circuit is supposed to work based on videos online.


Here are some photos of my build. I realize its a little hard to see things.

[PRR]

1 - When I turn up the "drive/volume" knob to 10 or so I get tremolo even if the tremolo intensity is turned down all the way. With the volume around 2-4 there is no tremolo.

The Drive pot should have no effect on tremolo depth.

Suggests an un-found wiring error.

The crossover around the plate resistors is open to mis-reading. The most likely mis-read would be a short on the signal, but there may be cleverer mistakes possible.