Hey everyone,

I'm considering doing a short run of inexpensive replacement boards (fully populated) for people with faulty Say it Again boards / SAD4096 ICs. But prior to even designing a replacement prototype, I wanted to see how many people would be interested in something like this or are in need of one. It is only a matter of time before the remaining SADs out there croak. This would be a plug and play replacement board based on a Digital PT2399 Delay/Reverb IC that has very analog delay/BBD sounding qualities. I've seen others available, but they're usually priced in the $140 range.

EDIT: I see there are already inexpensive boards available. http://www.parts4pinballs.com/product_info.php?products_id=4668

_{Post edited by thedefog : Found replacements}

I'd still be willing to make these boards. Price would probably be about the same, $50+, when all is said and done, plus shipping. The delay design would be a little different than the other approaches I've seen.

If I see more than 10 interested, I'll just etch these and populate them myself, keep the cost down. If there is enough interested past that, I would consider doing a board run and either selling them as kits or populating/selling them myself, but that would up the cost at least $20 or more.

I may need help with some current/voltage readings, as well as a guinea pig eventually as I don't actually own a Centaur to test a design in, but I've built and designed well over 100 guitar effects pedals at this point (10+ original designs), so I'm pretty confident in the audio effect realm.

I think that is enough Ins to perk my interest in building a prototype. I'll start to plan out a design now. I'll post updates as I make progress. I want this to be a community-based thing, so people are completely welcome to etch/build their own. I know not everyone has the time to do so, nor cares to do that sorta thing, which is why I don't mind making a small batch of them. When I have something tested that works properly, I'll post all the BOM and PCB board traces, etc.

Wow, great response.

Honestly it boils down to bucket-brigade Delay ICs not being available anymore. There are clones being made by a company called Cool Audio, however, they produced a different type (Not SAD Reticon, Panasonic MN30XX series). They can be adapted to work with some modifications and many components to plug right into the SAD4096's socket with a daughter-board type adapter. However, the original design is prone to noise regardless, and the amount of components to create a daughter-board adapter works out to nearly as many as just re-creating a new board with modern parts.

I've already made some headway since I posted this. I started laying out the most simple PT2399 delay possible based on the spec sheet for it, I'll have to work on impedence balancing from the original machine, as well as the correct resistor value and wattage to drop the 43v down to around 9v where it can then be regulated by a 7805. Also need to figure out what value filtering caps for the power will be appropriate, when and where it should be filtered, and the right balance of filtering on the delay IC so that it best matches the characteristics of the original without introducting too much noise. I have a decent layout going already, but ended up with 1 jumper already, so will redo once I finish the first version.

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It is good because it is cheap, and for low-fidelity operation has decent signal to noise ratio. It has built-in filtering that rolls off high-end frequency starting around the 2Khz range, so it is a perfect substitute for the SADXXXX chips because they had similar filtering to eliminate noise. And if the PT2399 ever dies, $2 per chip is certainly more affordable than a used/pulled now probably $200 SAD4096 that could crap out at any moment.

I've built several different PT2399 delay designs for effects pedals and one for my analog synth I built. GGG PT delay, Rebote 2.5, Dual Delays, Chorus pedals based off of the PT chip, and some weird/experimental sound mangling devices as well.

I use Eagle if I'm going to do a professional board run. When I'm mocking things up and prototyping, DIY Layout creator is actually a lot easier to work with and allows me to just press-n-peel PCB traces from my laserjet and iron on/etch quickly.

The PT2399 has similar characteristics. It is definitely low-fidelity. If the general consensus is that people want a higher-fidelity delay, that could be done as well, and a filter control added in to roll off the high-end. That may be more expensive though, and would require me diving into some ICs I'm not completely familiar with.

Is he a pinsider? I'd love tocontact him if so and maybe we could collaborate on this. I saw that page as well when I was hunting around to see if it had already been done. The PT2399 wasn't on the market at the time he built that design with the Holtek chip. Unfortunately that IC is not available anywhere. I'm going to need a little design-checking along the way due to the fact I don't physically own the machine. I can re-create all of the voltages though on my bend supply and simulate it in circuit to the best of my ability.

I'm off to breadboard the delay using a 43v power supply to try and figure out just the right resistor drop /wattage to work efficiently with both the 5v regulator/rail needed for the PT2399 and to create a 12v rail for the buffer. And later when I get bored I'll blow up some capacitors.

I got the PT2399 breadboarded and powered on a 45v rail, wirewound flameproof resistor in line to drop the voltage down, then divided for the 12v & 5v regulated section. Probably going to throw a 12v regulator on there as well like the original SIA board did. The tricky part will be isolating the digital and analog ground paths on the board. I'll be slowly working through this and will eventually design and etch a prototype. In the meantime, someone else is reproducing the boards that Clive originally made with his permission that may be able to get them to owners much sooner that I probably will be able to do. I'm guessing it will be a good month before I get a working prototype, time permitting, but I can hopefully fill the remaining need for these boards.

Making more progress here. Got a schematic built that looks good on paper for both the voltage drop/filtering & power regulating without having to use a 12v regulator via a zener diode like on Clive's design. I'm going to begin playing with some layouts incorporating it. Looks like there is plenty of room to allow for a jumper-free design as well while also keeping the board size about 1/2 of the original.

Agreed. I emailed Clive Jones and he didn't seem to have anything to do with the original. However, he seemed like a really nice guy and said when he had a moment he'd take a look regardless.

Hey guys,

Matthess has the original board design Clive came up with, which is a tested and working design, with professional board production and assembly. He'll take care of the need for as many as he produces. If there is any remaining needed, the design I'm working out will be great for a DIY replacement, and I'm also willing to etch and build boards myself, but they won't look as pretty. The price point will probably be near that.

I am about 1/2 way through a my design at this point, in another few weeks I'll have something to etch and run tests on, and once it is verified, I'll post PCB traces and a BOM and parts layout here for the DIYers.

I almost have the layout ready to etch. I won't have much time to work on it over the next few weeks though.

Nice work, they look great.

You can do this with any pin technically. You just have to match impedance and derive a power source from somewhere on the pin to power a delay effect. The PT2399 design I was doing for Centaur could run right off of the +5v power of any pin, but would obviously require some modifications to work in other machines. It would not be able to plug right in. You would have to check your sound board schematic and trace it to where the output of the sound generation is just before it hits the audio power amp. In some cases it would possibly require cutting a trace and soldering wires in between the two points which then feed to the effect.

Congrats on the boards Matthess. I guess there is no need to finish my PT2399 design now.

I can pretty much guarantee that your SAD4096 will be dead within a few years with regular use of the machine. If I were you, I would pull the original board right away (since it is still working and MUCH more valuable), and install this board. You can sell that SAD4096 IC by itself for around $120+. They are extremely rare, and coveted by guitar effect analog delay freaks.

Yep, that is identical to Clive's design using the long obsolete Holtek IC. I hope you got permission from him to use that layout, funny how it didn't change at all. Nice Bally logo on there too. I'm sure you contacted them about using that as well. I'm generally not a prick about these sort of things, but this one is just too obvious, so I'm calling BS. With the PT2399 available as cheaply as it was in 2004 or whenever that one was released, it would make no sense to use an obsolete and more expensive IC to do a board run, not to mention that it needs a separate IC for RAM.

On another note, I'm picking up a Centaur this weekend, so I'll get to directly experiment with the PT2399 design I built. I have a prototyped unit that is plug-and-play ready, so when I'm brave enough, I'll drop it into my machine and see how it performs. If it works well, I'll just release the schematics and BOM to the community, along with a PCB layout & P&P for etching your own board. It is simple enough for pretty much anyone to build, even as a first DIY project. You could even perf board this one or pad-per-hole solder it. My experience with the PT2399 ICs has been so good that I've ditched all the analog BBD ICs and the mojo surrounding them.

You still need a +5v regulator for the PT2399 though or it'll fry.