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Hi there, welcome to my blog - La Revolution Deux. It's an odd name - but I like it! Here you will find all the info on my various DIY Guitar effects builds, amplifiers and guitars. Everything from a humble Ibanez tubescreamer to the holiest KLON Overdrive.

You may also find a few effects builds that I am looking to move on - usually in exchange for other effects/gear/cash. You can always check my ebay account to see what I've got up for grabs.

Have fun, enjoy the blog - Fred Briggs :-)

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Feel free to get in contact with me about anything you see on this blog or with any general questions about guitars, amplifiers and effects, I'll be happy to answer! Just click the button above to email me directly or alternately my email address is fredbriggs2007 [at] googlemail [dot] com

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Wednesday 30 January 2008

Lovestuff Ecstacy Overdrive

The Lovepedal Eternity is one of the most hyped overdrive pedals around at the moment - it offers a great "clean boost" and some classic lead tones. With the current dealer price around $300 and ridiculous ebay prices too, this was another target for the [K]loners.

Like many boutique pedals the Lovepedal Eternity uses a layer of black epoxy "goop" to stop potential kloners seeing the circuit board. Luckily it's not too difficult to remove. I've seen a number of "de-gooped" Eternity's and it turns out to be nothing more than a modified version of Jack Orman's "Son of a Screamer" overdrive (Although it does still sound very nice!) circuit which is basically a minimal version of the age old Tubescreamer overdrive.

Ok, on with the build:

Here you can see the enclosure which has been marked and drilled out ready to take the hardware. What are those 4 small holes on the side for? Well, wait and you will soon find out!


Here I'm just checking everything fits into place - note the 4! LED's down the side of the unit. It is the same on the other side, a nice change to the regular single LED status indicators.

Instead of painting the Eternity I decided to have a go at etching the enclosure with Ferric Chloride Acid. Here you can see the cleaned enclosure and transfer, which is just laser printer toner on glossy magazine paper, ready to be ironed together.

Here is the etched enclosure - Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the etching process, silly me. Anyway - it looks great. I decided to call my pedal the "Lovestuff - Ecstasy Overdrive" ;-)

Hardware mounted and internal wiring underway. Usually the guts of Lovepedal's aren't the neatest, I wanted mine to be much neater internally than the actually Eternity pedal I had seen :-0

Instead of creating a PCB for this build I decided to create the Eternity on perfboard. It is, therefore, wired point to point - this means there is more "Mojo" included in the circuit (I also used solder made from ground Unicorn horn and the wire is carefully wound from the hair of Mermaids. Top quality stuff for all that added mojo and tone!)

Here the Eternity is nice and snug. Ready for the final internal wiring to take place.

A finished Lovepedal Eternity, err, I mean Lovestuff Ecstasy Overdrive!

The finishing touch, a custom signed base plate! Pedal Pirate forever!

Here's a finished picture - all plugged in and working! Looks good doesn't it :)

Here's another - still looking good. The controls are: Top left = "Drive", Top Right = "Level" and the lower middle is "Glass" (as it is labeled on the original Eternity, it is actually just a standard tone control).

Now you see why I wanted to use all those LED's! How great does that look? Notice that I changed some of the red LED's to yellow ones for even more mojo!

So there it is - a DIY clone of the popular Lovepedal Eternity overdrive pedal. What does it sound like? Well, it sounds just like all the sound samples of the Eternity, a great overdrive tone.A great thanks to all those who made this project possible - you all know who you are...For more information on this project feel free to email me, you can find my address at the top of the page.

By popular demand - The Lovepedal Eternity "Burst" edition Schematic & Layout (thanks to LovePedalDetective for the layout):


Also a De-Gooped Lovepedal Eternity (From LovePedalDetectives album :-) :

Here you can clearly see it's just a Son Of a Screamer circuit :-( If you want info on the other variations of the Lovepedal E get over to freestompboxes.org and search for the Eternity thread - there is loads of good stuff there.

23 comments:

  1. That build looks amazing?! How did you wire those LED's to do that? It's one of the best FX I've seen in a long time :-)

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  2. 1) I noticed that parts on the board layout are different than the schem. How does the one you built sound different than the original schem?

    2) Also, (bit of a newb) I'm not sure exactly how I should connect the board to an led, dc jack, the ts jacks, or the switch. Any tips?

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  3. Hello there, there are many different Eternity versions. I have built the "Burst" edition here. You can find schemes for many versions at freestompboxes.org. For wiring diagrams check out generalguitargadgets.com, there is loads of great info there :-)

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  4. The LED's are wired in parallel/series. It was a sort of happy accident :-)

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  5. just for some clarification (regarding the vero layout) - red wire = 9v+, green wire = ground and the circuit's out put comes out of lug2 of the vol pot..?

    thanks, this thing is really cool

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  6. You got it in one!

    Enjoy the build.

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  7. finished it :)
    sounds bloody good, great build too.
    beats my old ts808 right out the pedal board :P
    thanks a lot

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  8. I have bad news for my screamer...youre off the board..this thing is sweet ,creamy and sooooo balanced sonically and the sustain is so much fun ,I hear my chords and specially a start bridge pickup is suddenly very meaty...well done this is a keeper Im going to put two in a box one for drive and one for lead

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  9. Hello, i was searching for the schematic of the eternity kanji version and i've found this. Thank you for sharing your experience with the last TS clone :).
    I've build mine following your schematic, sounds pretty good but is really different from the sound of the "kanji" that i was lookin for, so i decided to raise the 15n cap to 22n (as is in the original TS schem) to get a little of mids out of the circuit, iv'e also used a 500k log pot for drive and a 3k3 along with a 22k res for the gain stage. Now it sounds very close to the eternity version i like (and much more similar to a stock 808).
    Thank you again and apologies for my english.
    Greetings from Italy.
    Emilio.

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  10. Hi there. Finished the build. Sounds great and only took 3 hours and some left over parts...

    Are the Pots linear or Log? I have it working but the Gain doesn't seem right. I assume Both Volume and Tone are linear and the Drive is meant to be Log?? Can you confirm?

    cheers

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  11. You got it, try swapping the wires to the two outer lugs of the gain pot. That will change the direction of the Gain pot's sweep. Might sort out your problem..

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  12. I am not a big builder ( i built a fuzz face...its ok)but i love this pedal and i really need it on my board. can anyone help me out on starting the circuit. i think i can take the rest from there. i just never really learned how to read schematics or anything like that (i know what most of everything means, i just cant bring it to life). thanks, jake

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  13. Hi.

    In the layout diagram where it shows the wire on the top right going to gain 2&3, does that mean the wire goes to gain lug 2 and then jumps from 2 to 3?

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  14. Thanks for providing the details for this pedal. I just finished bread bording the circuit and i love it. I'm gonna take this to the next step and etch a PCB and put it in an enclosure.

    Thanks again

    BTW what size enclosure did you use?

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  15. I built both versions of the eternity and I find the same problem in both: when I dial in full gain/full volume and open tone at pedal 'off' I get noticeable whistle in the signal, that disappers when I remove the 47uf elect in the bias section...but removing that cap also changes the sound quite a bit and for the worse! any idea to solve this?? thanks!

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  16. I put it in a standard MXR sized box. The problems with oscillation are linked to layout - keep your wires short and your layout neat , once you wire it up neatly it'll get a lot quieter...

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  17. Hey Briggs -

    Thanks for all the info.

    I am doing this as my first completely DIY build. I have done a few BYOC builds, but this one is new..

    One question:

    The caps in C1, C2, and C3 have positive and negative sides, but the picture does not show which direction they should go in. Any advice?

    Also - where in the circuit should the on/off LED go? Does it connect to the 3PDT, or somewhere on the board?

    Thanks!!!

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  18. regarding the vero, volume 1 should be volume 3 and vice versa.
    great sounding pedal...best i have made so far

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  19. Cool blog!. I found it by searching for the eternity burst pedal. I am new to the DIY stuff, but someone made me a lovepedal clone for $50. I have to say, it is a GreaT sounding circuit. I am now following your blog. I might start one of my own soon.

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  20. Hi there, great blog!
    Just one question, why are there two ICs at the schematic and only one at the vero?

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  21. there its only IC, the schematic showa the two OP ampliferis of the IC, si there its 8 pin IC power- power+ and the two OP amp...

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  22. So has anyone built the vero board, and if so, how did it work? I see the schematic and the vero are different.

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  23. Just F.Y.I., I did a current draw measurement, and came up with 17.8 ma, so make it 18ma current draw.

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