Issue History
Issue 1 was the irst version and is easily identi iable by its use o the green plastic Omeg E16
pots. During 2003 it was reported that some Omeg pots were ailing in the ield and, indeed,
some had even been supplied to us rom the actory as aulty. During that year we completely
revamped the whole Oakley modular range to use a more reliable and expensive part.
The new issue 2 PCBs were made to support Spectrol/Vishay 248 pots and used our specially
made and somewhat expensive Oakley ‘Spectrol’ pot brackets.
The new issue 2 also corrected the small ault in PCB legending which showed Q2 the wrong
way around. It also incorporated two ‘PAN’ pads to allow or easier wiring to the sockets.
The LFO and LFO-NC outputs which had to share a pad on the old issue board now have
their own bu ered and isolated output signals. Any loading on the LFO output would not now
a ect the depth o modulation to the Equinoxe phaser.
The LED driver was made more complex. The issue 1 design simply relied on a resistor to
control the current through the LED. When the LFO output was very low the LED would
blank out completely. The issue 2 design controlled the LED through a constant current
source. There ore, although the LED will still vary in intensity and colour with the triangle
wave orm output, it never actually goes out. This gives a more use ul and pleasant display.
With issue 3, released in 2006, the circuit board was now ully RoHS compliant and was made
using a lead ree process. The OTA devices were now two LM13700 instead o our CA3080.
The CA3080 was made obsolete by Intersil, ormally Harris and RCA, and in any case was not
available in an RoHS orm. Even with this pro ound change in devices there are no discernible
di erences in sound between the issue 2 and issue 3 designs o the Equinoxe.
Also included with issue 3 PCBs was the ability to make the LFO output inverted or non
inverted. However, this was done by itting certain components and there ore had to be done
at the construction stage. The TUNE trimmer was given a bigger usable range and was made
easier to set.
Issue 4 boards were released in 2009. These were identical to issue 3 but or the addition o
Synthesizers.com power headers.
In late 2009 it was decided to move over to another type o pot. Vishay had pushed the prices
o their old Spectrol range up to such a degree it was not economic to continue to use them.
The BI 260P pot was a use ul alternative but stocks were hard to ind and the log taper pots
had a poor per ormance. Issue 5 boards use the Alpha 16mm pots, which are good quality
clones o the standard ALPS 16mm pot.
Issue 5 also incorporates a jumper to select between LFO modes and eatures a six way header
or expansion to the Deep Equinoxe daughter board.
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