I'm gonna give up building soon

[stevie1556]

I'm having a dreadful run of bad luck here. I've built 7 pedals in the last few days and none of them are working! I think a couple of them may be due to my 3PDT board, but when I tried one without it, it still didn't work! One of the boards I know definitely works as I built one previously for a friend. All seem to have absolutely no signal through them, although the LED lights up.

I know my power pack was playing up when I took it to a friends house for him to try a few pedals, hope it's just that.

Also, it would happen when I've finally managed to do the neatest wiring I've ever done on a pedal......


Sent from my thumbs using Tapatalk!

[AntKnee]

7 in a few days? I'm still a newbie to building, but if I went that fast, I would surely have problems, too. Don't give up. Maybe just take a couple days break and when you come back to it, the problem will be more obvious. That happens to me a lot, not just with pedals.

[jkokura]

You're showing a picture of a finished pedal. Have you verified that these work outside of the box without a switch?

The number one recommendation for trouble shooting is always "rock before you box" or, try the effect before you do the wiring. Doing that BEFORE you box up the effect helps you find the issue. If it's on the PCB, you find it before it's in the enclosure. If it's in your wiring, then you'll know because you verified the PCB works fine.

Jacob

[Govmnt_Lacky]

With such little information, Im gonna give a WAG (Wild AZZ guess!!)

What is common in all 7 of the builds? If it is your 3PDT boards... I'd start there 

Also, are you at least getting bypass signal? If not.... DEFINITELY start with the boards.

[GermanCdn]

How many of the have JFETs, and how many of those did you buy from (insert inexpensive supplier name here)?  That's been the common denominator in most of my DOAs as of late, though I haven't bought new transistors to replace yet.

[selfdestroyer]

I have been very frustrated with builds before but having a simple test rig with to test things before I box them has earned its weight in gold. I have even played pedals for weeks with it sitting on my floor hooked up to the test rig just to make sure I want to box it up or to work out any bugs. Everyone has given you some great ideas as far as what to look for. All I can add is, don't give up. Its VERY rewarding to get a box up and running that has been a thorn in your side. A sense of "BOOM! I got ya". I have called circuits names that I would not even call my enemies.. Hope it works out for you.

Cody

[gjcamann]

Yeah... I don't think any of my circuits would work if I was using surface mount. Hang in there buddy. Take a break for a few days and comeback when you're ready. I think it happens to everyone once and a while.

Any chance you've got the workings of the 3DPT switch rotated 90 degrees?

[danwelsh]

Definitely don't quit man.....I had an English sustain pedal that I populated and wouldn't work...I got so pissed I was gonna chuck it, but then I stayed stubborn, left it for a whole year while I carried on with other builds, desoldered the whole board,checked all the traces for continuity, repopulated, plugged in to my testing rig and bang.....fired right up. It was a very rewarding feeling.

[derevaun]

I have a few pigtail 9v battery cables that I soldered up center-negative (and labeled prominently as such) to test with.

I'm an SMD newb and can't visually tell if I soldered an 0805 component correctly, so I still use a meter to check for continuity, etc.

In any case, I agree--that is some neat wiring.

[evildead222]

Yea that sucks man.  I've been there.  I went on a 3 in a row streak of not working boards and I was so frustrated I wanted to stab people with my soldering iron.  I put the builds down for a few days, picked them up later and debugged them.  Sometimes you just gotta take your time, some of the mistakes i found in my builds were so dumb i couldn't believe i missed them.  Like a backward electrolytic or something stupid like that.  So maybe take a little break and come back later, it helped me.

[juansolo]

FWIW I've never made a CE-2 clone that's worked first time. That effect hates me.

[haveyouseenhim]

I was so frustrated I wanted to stab people with my soldering iron.

[Willybomb]

Look... I know next to nothing compared to some of the guys on this forum, but looking at your picture, next to where it says "AM Rad" it looks like you've got a couple of empty sockets for something (transistor? diodes?).  Maybe if you populate that it'll work.

[muddyfox]

Steve have you done any audioprobing on the circuit? Does the signal get past the 3pdt and into the board at all?

[stevie1556]

Antknee - I may have to take a break soon if I can't get the buggers working this afternoon. I found that building the 7 in a few days wasn't too bad, it's just the wiring that takes a lot of time.

Jacob - I always box before I rock. I know I shouldn't, just a force of habit. I really do need to build up a testing rig soon though. I didn't mean to stick that picture in the post, not entirely sure why it's there. But it's a good example of the neat wiring in the pedal, took me ages to do that, normally they look like spaghetti!

Govmnt_Lacky - Yeah, all 7 of them used the 3PDT board. I removed one and wired it to the switch, and put on another board backwards, all the same result. They are all passing a bypass signal though.

GermanCdn - A few of the components on each board were from that supplier. 1-2 caps or resistors as I wasn't placing an order with my normal supplier for a while, but they all tested withing range. On my LofoMofo, the transistor and diode were from a certain cheap supplier, only because that's the only place I could find them cheap.

Selfdetroyer - Yeah, I definately need a testing rig. Normally when circuits don't work, they go into my box of fail, never to see the light of day again! Thing is, 3 of them are new boards and un-verified, so I'm not sure if it's the circuit or the wiring. But even boards that I know are verified are having the same problem.

Gjcamann - I've just discovered I really enjoy SMD, so I'm trying to make all my pedals SMD so been designing some older designs. With the 3PDT board, I've tried it normal and back to front still with the same results. I know I had a problem with it before and had to put it on back to front or something, not 100% sure, but all my pedals with the correct mounting for it my friends have, 1 is currently on holiday and the other is currently living in Spain until the end of the month, so I can't even check!

Danwelsh - I can't believe you desoldered the whole board! That's commitment! I bet you felt on top of the world when it worked!

Derevaun - Same here, I can't tell if a component is soldered in correctly or not. I'm planning on going through them later and checking each one. That's a good idea with the battery clips, I may need to do that one day!

Evildead222 - I know I've already put the M1 diodes in the wrong way as I tested them on the DMM. I've swapped them round and still no luck. I would love to leave them for a few days, but I was awake most of the night wondering what I've done wrong!

Juansolo - Maybe it's a sign you shouldn't build them haha!

Haveyouseenhim - Who is that guy in the video? I swear it's someone from the Sopranos.

Willybomb - Good spot there. I didn't realise it when I took the picture and proceeded to test the circuit, then I stuck the transistor in. When I was testing the pedals yesterday, I either forgot the transistor, for to switch the power pack on, forgot to switch the amp on, or forgot to plug a cable in somewhere. Sad thing is I keep making those mistakes!

Muddyfox - Absolutely no idea. I do need to build one ideally, but I'm planning on testing it with my DMM as much as I can later. Annoying this is it's 3 of the SMD boards that don't seem to work. I'm just hoping it's in the wiring somewhere though.