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Make Your Own Tremolo Effects Pedal

Step 4Thank's For Viewing!

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I hope this project was of use to you, again if you have any questions, feel free to comment.

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5 comments

Feb 15, 2011. 1:10 PMmdog93 says:

so because this has the lm386 in it, presumably you don't need to plug it into an amplifier, just an external speaker?

Dec 24, 2011. 11:17 AMjakebaldwin says:

It depends on how much you'd like to amplify the signal.

Dec 30, 2011. 6:03 AMmdog93 says:

how loud would it be without an amp

Dec 30, 2011. 8:41 AM

spel3o (author) says:

That depends on what speaker you use, and what gain you have the LM386 sent to.

Jan 1, 2012. 5:43 AMmdog93 says:

Ok :P getting beyond my technical knowledge now, without some kind of formula. Thanks for your help. Just another one thing showing my inadequacy of these matters:

Does the LM386 N-1 not have a fixed internal gain, or are we talking about the input voltage that matters? Or referring to putting a variable resistor between pins 1 and 8?

Jan 1, 2012. 4:27 PMjakebaldwin says:

The LM386 has a fixed internal gain of 20, but putting a capacitor and variable resistor between pins 1 and 8 you can set the gain up to 200. The higher the gain, the louder the output. From there, you can use an external speaker, but if you want to reduce distortion, you should keep the gain low and use another amplifier.

spel30 brought up the type of speaker used, and he has a good point. I don't know very much about wattage or speakers, but I know that it at least takes more wattage to drive larger speakers.

Input voltage does matter, but AFAIK, the LM386 amplifies the signal regardless of how high or low it is. I could be wrong on that one.

Jan 2, 2012. 9:50 AMmdog93 says:

Yes I knew about the gain matter. Just slightly confusing because I used the Lm386 chip to make an amplifier, here it's being used and still needs an external amplifier. Or does it not need an amplifier but to get least distortion would be best to use an external amp too.

Jan 2, 2012. 4:16 PMjakebaldwin says:

You can use the LM386 as the only amplifier. Using another amp would only allow you to get louder without crazy distortion.

Jan 3, 2012. 5:37 AMmdog93 says:

yeah, understood.