Make Your Own Tremolo Effects Pedal
DESCRIPTION
In this instructable I will show you how to make your own tremolo effects pedal. Really what the pedal is doing is switching the guitar's signal on and off sequentially, ( a DC-square wave generated from a 555 CMOS osclilator pulsates the power to a lm386 audio amplifier amplifying the signal from your guitar.) making that cool effect that we have heard in so many songs to date. For this project you should have a basic idea of soldering and circuits.
As far as tools go you will need:
1.) Soldering Iron
2.) Solder- Make sure that you have rosin core solder, acid core does not work on electronics.
3.) Multimeter (Optional, but very handy)
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Twenty dollars spent at your local Radioshack will get you all of the parts you need for the pedal:
1.) Resistors: 470ohms x 3 (Yellow-Violet-Brown)
4.7K x 1 (Yellow-Violet-Red)
2.) Potentiometers: 100K x 1 (the small type that solders onto the board)
1M x1 (the big type that you attach the knob to)
3.) Integrated Circuits: LM386 Audio Amplifier
555 Timer
4.) Transistors: PNP Transistor x 1
5.) Capacitors: 10uf Polarized x 2
.1uf Ceramic x 1
220uf Polarized x 1
6.) LEDs: Green LED x1
Red LED x2
7.) Connectors: Female Guitar Jack x 2
9v Battery Clip x 1
8.) PCB: Any standard perfboard should do, I used one about the size of a credit card that I bought at Radioshack.
This schematic provides the bones of the circuit, but feel free to modify it to your hearts content! R1 controls the volume of the input signal, and R2 controls the rate of the pulses. R3 controls the duration of the pulses. C2 increases the internal gain of the LM386 from 20 to 200. Q1 inverts the -9v signal from the 555 to a +9v signal that oscillates the guitar signal. I didn't add a power switch, but it would be a good addition. If you have any questions about the design, feel free to comment!
2 More Images
Before you actually solder, you should test the circuit on a breadboard. What I did was break the circuit down into chunks and test each one (the timer, the transistor, and the audio amplifier). I'm sorry I don't have any photos from the build process, but I wasn't expecting to make an instructable on the project until after I built it.
I hope this project was of use to you, again if you have any questions, feel free to comment.