18 January 2010

Oakley Equinoxe Voltage Controlled Phaser

Tonight I finished my first Oakley module. It is a Voltage Controlled Phaser module called Equinoxe. And it is called after the Equinoxe album by Jean Michel Jarre, because it recreates exactly the phasing of the originally used EHX Small Stone I guess. It is a fairly simple unit to build and luckily I had some components in stock for it like the LM13700's that I got long time ago already. As you can see this module is not on a potbracket like my other modules. Oakley uses PCB mounted potmeters that come with special brackets to make them stronger. And you can use them to hold the PCB in place.

For this module I got the PCB, potmeter kit and pot bracket kit from Oakley and I got the front panel and knobs from Bridechamber. The rest of the components I could source through my regular electronic component suppliers. You can get the documentation for this module on the Oakley website by the way. After applying power to the module (usual smoke test) I started testing it. I think I did what everyone does with a phaser the first time. I put some noise in it and put everything to full and the modulation speed very low. Then you get a very neat wind sweep sound. And it did that perfectly so I guess I can say it works. I still need to see if some trimming is necessary. I didn't look at that yet to be honest. I was happy enough it worked.

And here is the finished module between some unfinished ones. As you can see it has a build in LFO. You can also apply an external CV signal for modulation, but for normal operation the internal LFO works fine. You can also use the output of the LFO to modulate an external module to have them run in sync. The other controls are Frequency, Emphasis and Modulation Depth. Next thing I should try I guess is run the Eminent 310 through it and see how it compares to the EHX Small Stone. But on the other-hand I have an original EHX Small Stone (even a Russian one) so why should i? :) Ah well just for the fun of it I guess. I have some more Oakley PCB's ready so I hope I can show them to you soon. I'm done for today :) Going to watch a movie now. Good night :)

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