LZX Cadet VCO Vertical Jitters

Hi Everyone! I just completed two Cadet VCOs because the first one I built has some of jitter when in vertical mode. It also looks dimmer / not as sharp as the horizontal, which is stable and sharp. I built the second one later to see if I may had made a mistake in the first, but the second one has the same issues. Did I do it wrong twice?? :roll_eyes:

My first thought is that it might be the self-made flying sync bus cable I made, but horizontal mode and all other modules using the sync cable are rock solid. Both Hsync and Vsync look ok on the scope. However, I can influence the vertical jitter by touching the sync cable. I cannot influence the horizontal. I can’t see any influence from touch looking at sync on the scope.

I have all ten Cadet modules in a Doepfer A-100 LC6 case with PSU3 along with some makenoise modules. I’ve had the VCOs close to and away from the PSU. I’ve taken all other modules out except I II & III. No difference. If I had to take a guess, I don’t think it has to do with the VCO core, as horizontal is fine. Could it be switching / coupling to Vsync on page 3/4 of the schematics here? :thinking:

I made some test recordings and put them on vimeo. The sync switch is off in each case. Take a look. Anyone encounter this behavior? Any thoughts about where things are going wrong? Thank you!

Horizontal:

Vertical:

HSYNC:

VSYNC:

Again, any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks, all!

P.S. I tried to post this to the LZX Community Forum, but accidentally only posted the vco test video and got blocked. I reached out to the moderators, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of traffic over there these days. Waiting to be unblocked…

I went through something very similar a year or two back and I’m a bit fuzzy on the details; it’s kind of uncharted territory. It was running from my diy sync extractor board to vibe with my Syntonie sync generator so I thought it was a me problem for the most part. I think changing the output resistor 1/4W 499r to 1/2W 75r helped with the stability overall but again, I’m a bit cloudy on that. Knowing that you had some interference on sync cable I’d also try to get some shielding on that and see if it helps. I haven’t thought much about video circuits lately but with the dramatically faster sync pulses you could just be seeing interference.

Sorry I’m not as confident on the particulars as I would’ve been a year+ ago.

coming to this pretty late, so you may have already figured it out, but in addition to the LZX community forum, you might have some luck asking on the LZX discord, it’s pretty active. there’s a diy channel that this would fit perfectly in.

I can’t think of why the two would be different, i would think if it’s the output resistor (which does seem to make things sharper) that it would effect both of them.

Thanks @jmsiener and @revjon. I did finally join the LZX discord. @creatorlars said that I should check the 4066 and possibly adjust R113 below. I’ve been focused on other matters, but I will come back and take a look at it again…