Prototyping the Lighting Boy II

Today I finished building a prototype of the LB2 that I'm happy with the sound of.  Things progressed through the prototyping phase in a way that I could not have predicted.  The noise is super low, the gain is high, the headroom is high, the tone is beastly.  Its tight, clear and mean.  To get to this point I had to do some things I didn't want to do.  Things that make the pedal more expensive.  I'm going to have to install a power filter choke inside the pedal, which takes up a good bit of space and costs a bit.  Its necessary for super low noise.  The added choke is complemented by an added filter cap that's fairly large for such a small pedal.  These new parts in the power supply section lower the B+ voltage a little bit - down to about 100VDC.  That didn't seem to have a noticeable effect on the sound of the pedal other than it has much less noise.  I plotted out the placement of parts in the pedal and everything fits if I omit the internal turbo switch I wanted to add.  The switch would have been an inexpensive and cool feature to add, but there really isn't enough room for it.  Worth considering are the high voltages inside the pedal.  Its probably best to avoid sticking your finger inside to flip a switch.  I don't want anyone getting shocked.

Now that I have the pedal sounding the way I want, the next step is designing the PCB for the internal power supply section and getting it manuftured.  The audio portion of the electronics are still going to be wired point to point.