So I just got done building the Dinky Drive everything was looking great. I plugged everything in, pedal was off bypassing great, I turned pedal on and got a really low signal through, like barely even there and it was really fuzzy/overdriven. But barely coming through.
I went back and rechecked everything, recheck solder points, connections and such. I had the Treb pot wired backwards, fixed that and now im getting bypass signal but nothing when pedal is turned on. Not even the faint barely there signal like before.
Any help would be great!! THANKS A BUNCH.
pictures
[attachment deleted by admin]
1 more
[attachment deleted by admin]
I can see that your soldering looks pretty good, but you should check them over for bad solder joints.
Jacob
Thanks for the reply... I checked them over and over and then rechecked, I really cant find any problems there. Could it be a wiring issue with how I have the 3PDT wired up?? I wired the slam box the same way and it works great.
Here is what Im doing with the wiring...
[attachment deleted by admin]
Do you have a signal tester? If not you can make one with an old jack or cable, it lets you find where the signal drops/dies out.
http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Debugging
I'd check the joints again. I blowed it up on my screen, and I can see a few of your joints are a little suspicious. I also see that the tranny right in the middle might have a solder bridge between two of the pins.
Jacob
Sounds good, thanks so much for looking and helping! Im still learning and figuring out. Only built a few pedals like this, I used to build loopers all the time but this is a hair more in depth!
Ok did everything and now just barely getting sound again. But something is going through just not much at all. Any other ideas??
i think im gonna take the board completely out and de solder it and start over. I tried the probe and still couldn't figure out what joint was bad. Where I heard it was dropping signal I re solder it and still the same after all testing.
Not sure what else to do. Any other help is awesome! Thank you for the ideas so far!
I took the board completely out and re-solder the whole thing, and getting the same barely any sound passing through. Could it be a bad component???
Any help is great! Thank you!
Yes it could be a bad component. You said you tried an audio probe? Where does the problem occur on the board when you use the audio probe? Start at the input and trace the signal towards the output and tell us where it goes bad.
Jacob
Ok after building the probe and testing the pedal, i came down to resistor R8 (220k). When it leaves the volume pot, hits R8, on the other side of R8 the sound / VOL drops considerably. I changed it our with a lesser resistance and it got a little better but still not functioning properly.
Then, when it goes the the other side of Capacitor C7 (33n) It drops even more, therefore putting my output volume extremely low.
Any Ideas would be soooooo HELPFUL!!
[attachment deleted by admin]
What are you reading on the drains of Q1 and Q2? Have you adjusted them for 4.5v, or close to that?
It could be a bad transistor. The effect should have a lot of output. The 220k at the output serves to dial it down a bit. The 33n is for decoupling, although if you use a cap with a high ESR it could effect the output.
Yeah Q1 & Q2 are reading 4.5 almost on the dot. I was sort of iffy on the 33n I got from mouser, its and oversized yellow cap that is double the size of the normal yellow box caps Ive seen. I did switch out Q1 thinking it was bad when I went across it with the probe, turns out my trim pots weren't set correctly.
Whats a good way to test or check Q2 & 3?
I figured out how to check my transistors with my meter on the diode setting on my meter. Ive got current reading the same as a brand new uninstalled transistor and the transistors on my board. This is the video I looked at top give me the direction to do this. Make sure this is correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VK_4gZU__I&feature=related
Other than that, im still stuck on that R8 resistor bringing down the volume. But that may be completely off.
Ok I got it all working properly, the only thing about this pedal is that its got tons of treble and not enough low end to it. Will the J201 help this at all?
Thanks for the help!
If you don't mind my asking - what was it that ended up being the problem? How did you solve it?
As for the bass problem, I'm not sure that a J201 would be the solution - what transistors did you use? Perhaps lowering C6 to something more like a 10n or a 15n. I doubt going lower than that would be good, and I'm not even sure that lowering it is the right solution as I haven't built it.
Remember that it is a simulation that harkens back to an AC30 - it will be a trebly sound, not a bassy one.
Jacob
Honestly Im not real sure what the deal was. I checked all of my transistors and checked some solder points and finally got the output volume it was supposed to have. The audio probe was a crucial key to figuring this thing out. Im not a huge fan of the pedal, but it could possibly get better if the controls would be a little less harsh. Not really looking for more bass so to say, but less highs, its super brilliant and I love AC30s / british made amps.
The transistors Im using are the 2N5457.
Thank you for your input, i really appreciate it.
Increase C9 to 1n to take out some of the brilliance. The tone controls are interactive, so reducing highs will give more bass. By increasing C9 it will most likely balance out for you a little better.
That helped out a lot, i would still like more range of bass response if possible. What could I do to get more low end and maybe a little less highs?
Thanks for the response!
You can go up to 1n5 or 2n2 on C9 and reduce R5 to 47k.
Have a look at the "Vox" tab on the Duncan Tone Stack Calculator (http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/). You can play around with the values there to get what you want.
Awesome! I'll get on this first thing tomorrow. Im running apple computers so I cant get the tone stacker, but i'll play around with a few different values in the morning. Thanks a bunch!!
This should give you an idea of the difference. Top is unmodded Dinky with both pots at 50%. Middle is modded values at same position. Bottom is modded Dinky with bass and treble at their max and min settings. When both are maxed, the response is fairly flat.
This may or may not be a good thing, overall, but it's worth a try.
[attachment deleted by admin]
So exactly how would I go about knowing how to get less TREB? Like I can't tell you how piercing it is, the treb is all the way down to get a good balance.
Increase C9 until you get the response you want. You could go up to 10n.
I need to pull my build out again...I don't remember having such an excess of treble in mine.
Yeah please do and check it, cause on mine the bass is almost all the way up and treb all the way down and its and good balance. But anything other than that on those two settings is ear piercing!
Let me know what you find out! Thanks man...
Sure, I'll check into it. Keep in mind that this is a very standard Vox type tone stack. But, that doesn't mean we can't alter it into something more useable for you. I will spend some time on it later today and report back.
For sure, I totally understand! Its taught me so much about how to deal with components and what they do in relation to audio. Thanks for checking on it for me!
BTW, Im the one who emailed you about the solder mask a few days ago. Just got your last email about that. I might try a few things!
What boards do you use? the black and red ones? Where do you get them at?
I also built the SHO, it is popping real bad when you turn it on & off. Ive tried the resistor on the input/output jacks and also tried a different switch wiring and still getting the pop. I used the same wiring for the Dinky drive and its fine with NO pop.
Any ideas to fix this? also how to get rid of the "crackle ok" thing on the SHO? (not a fan of the crackle)
Thanks for your help!
The blank PCB material can be gotten from this fellow: http://stores.ebay.com/PCB-Laminates-Copper-Clad?_rdc=1
I've bought from Bill for years and he's terrific.
For your SHO: don't put resistors on the input/output jack! This is a tone sucker because those resistors will always be present in the signal path, even when the effect is off.
I've never had a problem with popping on the SHO, but the first thing I would try is temporarily disconnecting the LED. It's possible that the LED is actually the cause of the popping. If that's the case, you can try a different one, or try using a higher value for R5 and switch to metal film for that one.
If it still popping even with the LED disconnected, then consider replacing C1 with a lower value. You could actually go very low with the input cap and still retain the full range of the guitar due to its high input impedance. Best thing there is to socket that cap and try a few different ones in decreasing value, like 47n, 22n, 10n, 1n.
I don't recommend putting a pulldown resistor before C1 as this will alter the overall input impedance of the circuit, and while it will still work, it may alter it in some small way.
Here's one last brute force method: toggle the effect on and off several times when you first power your pedalboard. This should help discharge the input cap. I have to do this pretty regularly with another boost (Jack Orman's Mosfet Boost).
Last thing: you can't get rid of the crackle. At least not without altering the circuit. There are a couple of designs out there that implement the SHO in a different way to eliminate the crackle. I can't recall the names of them at the moment, but if you search on freestompboxes or diystompboxes, you should find them. I believe one of the designs was done by Soulsonic on FSB.
Brian you're the man... It was defiantly the LED. Since I do my Switch wiring different than what you show in the Build sheets, I normally put a 2k2 on the LED separate from the PC board. Nothing abnormal, but the 4k7 worked and is what I will start using.
Also on the crackle not ok, on the other side of the input cap I took the one leg out of the board and turned it side ways. I went from that leg into a 500k pot back to the board where that leg used to be. Then where the wiring for the pot on the circuit board I jumped that straight to ground and boooommm, it worked. Took the crackle out, so simple and more effective. It gave me more gain and range!
I'll be emailing you tomorrow with another order. Thanks for everything buddy!
Yep, that's pretty much the "Crackle Not Okay" version...putting a series resistance before the gate of the mosfet.
I have yet to try this, but it's probably worth adding in the MOD section of the forum.
Yeah its great.... just put it on the MOD page, feel free to correct my terminology for the parts. Im not good at that stuff!
Okay, I completed MY dinky drive and am having the same problem. The transistors read 4.5v but i have very little output. With all the pots maxed out I am getting distorted signal at the same volume as the pedal bypassed. I am using the 2n5457 transistors.
Any ideas as to why it is so quiet?
Do you have an audio probe handy to trace trough the circuit? That will help isolate the location of the problem.
Josh