Klone

[laurie]

Over in this thread I mentioned I'd bought a cheap-and-cheerful klone kit.
search.php?keywords=Looked+seriously+at ... taklon+kit.

The kit is now built and it works as expected. I've never tried a real Klon, but I've played a few klones and of course there are heaps of youtube clips of Klons and klones. My klone is "the business".

A few issues:

• The 1N34A diodes supplied were awful. One had a forward voltage drop of about 0.6V (silicon territory) and the other had a forward voltage drop of 0.4V. So both too high, and mismatched so there would be asymmetrical clipping. Luckily... the old DingoTone BSD used NOS 1N34A diodes so I had a bag of them that I could use. I found two with 0.3V forward voltage drops and used them instead of the crap ones in the kit.

• The pots have knurled shafts but the knobs are set-screw. Not a big deal, but, come on, this is easy to get right. I'll order the right knobs next time I'm placing a component order

• As noted in many places this kit has woeful instructions, particularly for the jack and switch wiring. I had to trace the circuit to ensure the right wires were connected the right place.

• The screw holes for the base-plate weren't properly tapped. I had to re-tap them with a 4mmx0.7 tap.

• The metal enclosure just feels cheap. Much lighter than a 1590BB box that it is copied from.

Other than that, it seems good. The PCB is good, the components (other than the 1N34A diodes) are good. Worked first time and sounds really good. A klone for USD$41
.

Klone.jpg (255.8 KiB) Viewed 1597 times

.

Klone guts.jpg (330.6 KiB) Viewed 1597 times

[Dirk]

That's cool. Also neatly built laurie, as one would expect from a pedalbuilder

[The_Doc]

That certainly does look the biz. Great work, as always, Laurie. Good to hear it sounds good as well. I’ve yet to find a Klone that I’m happy with.

[bigtone23]

Glad to hear it worked out after your fine tuning and fixes.
Very nicely built, as expected!
After owning a Klone, it makes sense why they are so popular.

[cctsim]

I don't know if they have corrected the pcb but the one I build had some errors.

Some of the bias connections for the PS capacitors were "floating". It is probably worth checking.

[cctsim]

I build mine a while back and my pcb was looking a bit different. May they have corrected the problem in the updates.

build.jpg (279.09 KiB) Viewed 261 times

[laurie]

Yep. Corrected on my version.

[Zerksies]

Did you get decent instructions? The one i built had horrible ones.