OK i figured this out with help from a kinda person over at the DIY stompboxes forum…

This is what they said:

“None of the five trims directly control the feedback amount. However, a properly adjusted DMM will self-oscillate, no problem. There are two “gain” trims; they adjust the varying gain levels that BBDs would (or wouldn’t) produce. These allow you to either boost or attenuate the signal coming out of each BBD (usually the later because BBDs have a problem with clipping). And the last key point is that the higher the amplitude of the signal going through the delay line, the more repeats you will get from the feedback loop.

Can’t say for sure, but i would ask your tech if the ‘optimal’ adjustment was dropping the gain through the delay line to keep distortion to a minimum (and ask him if he used a signal generator/ oscilloscope or not). If you do it TOO much, you’re just sacrificing signal level (and as you found out, the amount of repeats). You have to realize that DMM’s are quite prone to clipping, and thats what the external GAIN control is there for.

If you want to bump up the internal gain yourself for the self-oscillation thing, very gradually turn each one, alternating between the two. And sorry, i can’t remember which direction is boost, and which is attenuate, just mark where they are set before you start turning. Pluck a signal through the unit while you adjust, and it should start to self-oscillate like you want.

From your picture, here is the order of the trims (from left to right): post-Gain (BBD2), post-Gain (BBD1), bias (BBD2), balance, bias (BBD1)

Also, be very careful around that power switch in the upper right-corner of the box, thats got 117VAC!”

I adjusted trimpot#1 from the leftside (this is the post-gain BBD2) with little perceived difference so i left it where it was adjusted by the repair tech, so I adjusted trimpot#2 from the leftside (this is the post-gain BBD1) and it only took a very slight adjustment for me to make a difference, it started to oscillate and runaway with a very slight turn CW on this trimpot, so i just turned it slightly more maybe 1/8 rotation from where it was and now i got runaway oscillation at about 75% rotation on the “feedback” pot (this seems to be abit later in rotation in the 3 deluxe memory man pedals i’ve had in my life, most begin to oscillate at about 60% rotation of the feedback pot) but this is just fine for me as it also gives more abit more control the delay repeats and it seems its also recovered some of the delay gain with the blend pot, as some of the delay signal seemed to be missing and overcoming the dry signal. the only problem is that the sound is abit crunchy (clipping) on the delays with a hard attack on the strings, whcih i’ve read is not uncommon on these pedals and can be improved by switching op amp IC chips for a cleaner sound.

just passing this on for anyone else…