Zombii LED and voltages. Bad power jack?

[cajone5]

Anyone out there think they can help trouble shoot this?  I dont' want to toss it but it has become obvious it's beyond my knowledge at this point.  i've tried anything I can think of and while it functions, it doesn't function correctly.  I would gladly send it to someone if they think they can get it up and running.  For either a nominal fee or possibly for parts or boards or something.

Let me know if you can save me from my ignorance via PM, please 

[electricstorm]

The stability pot will work either way because it's being used as a variable resistor. If it were a voltage divider (pin 3 connecting to 9volts) it could possibly cause a problem but most likely not. Worst case would be the stability pot wouldn't operate properly.

If I understand this correctly:

1) A fresh 9v battery supplies 9v disconnected from the pedal.
2) Connected to the pedal, it is 0.8v when pedal is on. Pedal seems to work, but LED doesn't.
3) Pedal off, you have 9v.

Your voltage is too low for the led to operate. Don't know why the pedal is working on such low voltage. But you mentioned, I believe, that it is weak after further review.

I would check the board, look at D1 and C5 for correct polarity. If they are correct, D1 and/or C5 may be bad. I would start here.

Let me know what you find.

Jim

[cajone5]

Jim,

Thank you so much, I will give those a try!

I'll start another thraed since my question is pretty general but I actually built up another pedal today, this time with a battery snap as well as the 9v socket.  When working from the battery the LED and effect both work perfectly.  The second I plug in the 9v adapter the LED goes out and the effect stops working.  I am now wondering if I do have bad 9v adapters afterall...

Will report back once I double check polarities.

[cajone5]

Fixed!

You know I looked over the parts, checked and double checked and guess what... diode D1 was oriented incorrectly... 

Also, I realized my stability pot had a fractured leg so that also needed fixing.  Must have been fatigued from trying to get everything to fit in the enclosure.

So now it's up and running perfectly!  Thank you all for your help!!  Hopefully I'll be less of an idiot next time I build a pedal. I have successfully built a tweaked Sonic Titan and Fuzzrite (almost) since then so maybe I'm slowly getting better at this...

Anyway, many many thanks!!!

[hammerheadmusicman]

Congrats dude, glad you got it going I can never decide which is better, the feeling when something works straight away, or the great feeling when you've been struggling with a debug and it finally comes to life!

George

[electricstorm]

 Congrats!!    Glad to hear you figured it out.