Hit rate only average at the moment...

[Willybomb]

I've been building a stack of projects lately, and my hit rate is somewhat ordinary.

Built a None More Black on vero.  Sounds great, but unusable due to the noise.  Messed around with it a bit with shielded cables and the like with no result.  I've ordered an etch off Keef in the meantime.

Built a Wampler Sovereign on vero.  Sounds great, definitely getting boxed.

Built a BSIAB II on a pcb.  After realising I'd put the switching IC in the wrong way it worked properly but still had the same noise level.  Sounds great, but there's even more noise than the NMB.  Everything seems to check out but it's obviously full of unhappiness.

Built a Pork Barrel on a pcb, had some distortion in the signal, like an overload on a hard strum that disappeared after I put in the rate LED.  Didn't think it would be that necessary, but there you go. 

Built a Rub-a-dub on vero using the long brick.  Works and sounds great.  Whoever came up with this did a great job.

Built Sabrotone's Mutant on vero.  I get voltages but no output.  I must build an audio probe someday and see where things are going wrong.  More than likely I've done something stupid.

Built the Duplex Drive, haven't tested that yet.  It's a big build so it should be an interesting experience.

[wgc]

Just a thought on your dirt boxes, maybe you have something in your chain that's adding a little noise that you otherwise wouldn't notice?  The higher gain stuff can really make it more pronounced. Glad to see lots of builds though!

[Willybomb]

The noise is there while rocking the builds, so the signal path is guitar, effect (unboxed), amp. Powered from a 9v battery, so I'm a bit baffled.

I also built an Englishman and a treble booster from tayda pcbs, and a stank. I've misplaced the pots for the stank though, which is concerning as I had them in a ziplock bag with the pcb...

[Willybomb]

Zen Drive tested and working!

[reddesert]

I've found that some of my overdrive or fuzz pedals were noisy at the testing stage, but that it was due to EFI on the unboxed circuit and is much decreased in a metal enclosure. My work table environment may be electrically noisy, and I typically wire up pots with clip leads to test the board before final soldering, which leaves long unshielded wires.

I found a quick way to test for this problem. I put the entire circuit and test rig in a big metal saucepan + lid and clip the pan to ground. It doesn't have to be completely sealed, so the cables can run in and out.  This has greatly decreased the noise on some boards, so I think they'll be fine once boxed.

[PaulL]

I think it is quite normal for veroboard circuits not to work first time, if it's something that you have planned out yourself. Even simple circuits can get a little confusing so I draw out a plan and then double check it before starting and still can make errors. A bad earth scheme, or a missing earth connection can cause noise and problems like no sound too.

[Rockhorst]

Spent three hours debugging a very basic circuit: the AMZ mosfet booster (my own pcb design). I've used the pcb before and it worked. Checked all resistors, multiple BS170s, resoldered joints...uttered a lot of swear words. Finally, I concluded, it's a fabrication error in the pcb. Transferred components to another pcb and fired up the first time. The things I could've done in those 3 hours

[drezdn]

I had a trimpot on a pcb start on fire yesterday when I was testing it. I think I may have shorted it with the power on.