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I used an electrical ‘dry box’ from Home Depot because it’s heavy duty, it’s easy to drill, and it has a lot of room. I used a hub from an old Discman but the attached motor didn’t have enough clearance so I used a beefier one with a longer shaft… I used a DPST switch since the discs can be flipped instead of reversing the direction. I used a rheostat for now but I want to add a PWM speed control and a circuit to fade the LED on and off.
Watch his video below to both see and hear his custom effects box in action. I think his re-use of those clear polycarbonate dummy discs is great on so many levels. He makes use of an otherwise “blank” (and would-be discarded) object, they’re ideal for transferring light through, and of course they snap directly onto the disc drive!
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/48420557 width=598 height=449]
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9 thoughts on “Chuck’s Custom Tremolo Box Uses Upcycled Dummy Discs”
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Great build! Would love to see the next version with a true-bypass stomp switch. Small Bear Electronics is a good resource for these – https://www.smallbearelec.com/home.html
Wow! It was awesome to click on MAKE and see my project featured.Thanks for posting the original opitical tremelo. It was projects like this that reawakened my interest in electronics. I am currently building a six oscillator drone box with the 40106 hex schmidt chip. By adjusting the oscillators to be slightly out of tune with one another you get these droning pulsing rythmic sounds. Passing this signal through my Korg Monotron produces some awesome sounds. The project uses recycled pots from a broken audio mixing board and is packaged in an old cigar box.
Thanks for doing what you do and please bring us more audio and noise projects.
Thanks for stopping by Chuck. I’d like to see the drone box when done, or in process of building – I always like to see recycled, reclaimed, up-made, re-made parts into new projects!
hello, i really like your awesome project, can i make like that ?
do you have some elaborated information about your project ..
if you’ll let me, i wanted to use it for presentation, credits is yours,.
thanks..
[…] modded his version of the project inside an electrical dry box, but he also got his project blogged here for all to […]
[…] modded his version of the project inside an electrical dry box, but he also got his project blogged here for all to […]
[…] Customize your box enclosure, or take it to the next level like maker Chuck did a year ago with his upcycled dummy discs tremolo […]
[…] also be joined by maker Chuck and his upcycled dummy disc mod of the Optical Tremolo […]
[…] this pretty remarkable mod, which uses blank dummy discs and a dis-used CD player motor similar to Chuck’s version. Also, it sounds […]