Nautilus trouble.

[smolder]

New guy here.

So i've built lots of amp and guitars... but I seem to be struggling with pedals. I'm 2 for 3... not including this one.

Here's my dilemma... I built a Nautilus, plugged it in to test it. The power LED works fine (between dc jack and 3PDT)... and I get sound. I hit the switch and the board mounted LED comes on, but I had nothing. Opened up the back and found that I had LED in backwards (doh). Also found that D2 negative side was mounted in the wrong hole. Also, at least part of that blew C14 (turned very dark brown with heat).

I reversed IC1 to the right orientation, fixed D1 and replaced C14. Any chance I've blown other components?

Also, I count 8 holes not in use. Is there a reason for these? And the is the ground near the 9 volt (G/9V) not used (as on the wiring diagram)?

Thanks in advance...

[smolder]

Reflowed and soldered on both sides of the board. Now the board LED isn't always on... so I suppose that is a step forward. Other LED goes on and off with pedal (as it did previously).

Have sound when off... only a low hiss with some static when engaged.

[midwayfair]

We need more information to be able to help. Post voltages and pics of both sides of the board. Have you audio probed to find where you're losing signal?

Also, you could very easily have destroyed that op amp from your description. Replace that as well.

[smolder]

We need more information to be able to help. Post voltages and pics of both sides of the board. Have you audio probed to find where you're losing signal?

Also, you could very easily have destroyed that op amp from your description. Replace that as well.

Thanks... new parts are on the way. Don't have an audio probe, but am familiar with the practice of posting voltage readings. I also don't like the physical way I've built the thing... wires instead of board mounting the switches and pots, etc. I'm going to pull most of it apart, triple check it and reassemble (with new IC's) thsi weekend and will definitely report back.

[smolder]

Ok... so after a rebuild of the physical part (switches/pots/case) I have this up and running. I haven't found a true filter envelope and the sweep I get is sort of around the guitar's tone, not enveloping it... but then there are a lot of controls and combinations.

The one thing I noticed is the that the board mounted LED is either on or off, depending upon which way the 'range' switch is set. Should it not give me an indication of the envelope activity?

Edit: a bit more playing with this... mine acts like a super tone control pedal... certain combinations are very tiny and weak, and the other extreme is very muddy, with lots of stuff in between (obviously)).

The only time I get the envelope effect on the actual guitar tone is when I switch the range... and, that is the only time the LED varies from full on or full off. Much of the rest of the time I can hear the envelope, but it's effect is in the background and not on the guitar sound.

The Gain control is the one know that seems to operate as promised and the opamp definitely delivers super gain at the top end.

[Just for Kicks]

Troubleshooting my own Nautilus build and found this thread.  Mine is doing the exact same thing.  One range setting is incredible, but the conventional filter setting is very thin and in the background.  Some of the settings on the rotary get no sound at all.  I've reflowed the solder and checked for bridges to no avail.  I know from reading other threads that this thing has to be dialed in just right, so I'm just wondering if this is the way it's supposed to sound.

[icecycle66]

I had my vactrols in upside down once.  I got some really weird problems because of that. 

Check out to make sure those are correctly oriented.

my thread:
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=11288.msg101650#msg101650

[Just for Kicks]

Yeah, I read through that thread and it made me check those.  Everything looks good with the vactrols.  The fact that one side of the range switch sounds awesome makes me think the problem lies in the signal chain of the other side of the range switch.  I'll try and measure my voltages tonight to compare them to the ones in your thread.

[Just for Kicks]

All my voltages seemed on par, so I tried my Strat through this thing tonight for the first time. Much better results than my PRS. This thing is apparently much more sensitive than I realized and doesn't like my humbuckers as much as single coils.