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You should post some pics as well as build an audio probe to isolate the problem area.

Yeah I figured it was better since it was designed to be grounded to the pcb, less separate ground points. And since I don't understand what ground loops really are yet...

Good to know these pots have continuity from the bottom though! I was just drilling the enclosure and the drill battery died. At least the buzzing when touching the pots is much more minimal now.

Thank you, I didn't realize that the 16mm pots with the lug wired to the pot case were also grounded to the enclosure like that. I don't have an enclosure drilled for the pepper spray yet but I imagine you're right. I think bringing the ground pin up to the top of the pot would create a connection with the enclosure.

I ended up doing a sort of floating star ground and covering it in heat shrink. With the star grounding, the buzz is a lot lower. Can't wait to box it up!

Given the Imp's complexity, I'll probably just use the daughter board and wire the tone/vol off of the daughter board.

Cheers

I finished the pepper spray without the daughter board (bat41s sound awesome btw), but I'm getting some loud buzzing when I touch the pots. I think this is a grounding issue but I soldered pin 1 for both pots to the bottom of themselves. Is this not possible with these 9mm pots? For reference, the harm pot's buzz (blue wired) when touched is much louder than the balance pot.

Gut shots

This is Mad Bean's CE-2 clone project running on12 volts via charge pump with a couple of mods. It was my 3rd build and I learned a lot with this one. I think these mods were originally part of the project but were left off in later builds. I found them on another project (Chorale) and compared schematics to get it right. Initially I wanted to do the speed shift, bass, and depth mods. I planned to put the depth mod (C21) on a foot switch but when I wired it up with the extra 100pf it was just way too deep — the range was maybe a semi-tone. So I ended up with just the speed shift and bass response switches.

After the initial wire up, some of the scrap 26 awg wire I used broke off so I decided to replace it with some new silicone 24 awg, which is pretty good (doesn't burn). As you might be able to see, I had some trouble removing the wire and burned the 9v for the led.

The first time I put it together I had the pots soldered directly to the board and everything sounded great. However, after wiring them so they would fit my layout I had some fairly loud ticking from the LFO that wouldn't go away regardless of how I positioned the wires. I ordered some MC1458P op-amps for the LFO to replace the TL062 and that didn't do anything to help. Their legs were also extremely brittle and both 1458 chips I bought now only have 7 legs. I ended up doing some more research about adding capacitors to the op amps. It turns out the 1uf electrolytic across pins 2 and 3 reduced the ticking a great deal. Moving the wires around a bit got rid of the rest, so there's 0 ticking now. Can anyone explain why the 1uf capacitor across the in- and in+ reduced the ticking so much?

The fat lettering is a result of smeared toner from the attempt at an acetone transfer. I had settled at 4:1 acetone to 90% isopropyl for pcbs and maybe I pushed on the text too hard. I have a brother printer so it's been pretty tough. I figured it sort of looks like the letters are underwater with the octopus so I just etched it. I use the copper sulfate method with root killer and salt for enclosures (doesn't work for copper pcbs).

By the way, it sounds amazing. I had been using an old digitech hardwire chorus and when I compared them I was blown away. I'm also a fan of alternative 80s music so this is basically the sound that I'm looking for. I'll probably build a Julia eventually but I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Thank you! I'm only on my 4th pedal so I'm still in early stages of my knowledge.

Looking at the traces/schematics can I assume the empty pads (3rd from left on pepper spray, last on right for imp v2) are ground? That, on the Pepper Spray, the 3rd pad from the left should connect to pins 1 for both harm and balance pots and the middle lug on the switch? If so, someone at my skill level might have some difficulty fitting 3 connections and unless someone has a smart technique I'm thinking of just using the daughter boards. Maybe connect 3 wires to one and shrink wrap?

Thanks again.

I'm currently building a Pepper Spray and an IMP v2. However, I'm not a huge fan of the 1590a sizing due to the knob spacing and I'd prefer to put these in some 1590b enclosures. Is it okay to skip the daughter boards for the pots/switch?

I assumed it would be okay if I followed the traces correctly but wanted to double check if there would be any grounding issues or something I'm just unaware of.

Looking into the pork barrel and found your post (congrats on the successful build by the way). I just happened to read about some bass-specific mods in a build doc for a copy of the pork barrel. In case you are still looking for this or it'll be helpful to future forum wanderers the url is:

https://www.delykpcb.com/product/2nd-chorale-pcb/?attachment_id=1040&download_file=5c5b847a129a9