No Output from Rangemaster

[68Charger]

One quick question, looking at the schematic I see that the voltage will go across the pot which is hooked up to the collector on terminal 3. I ended up using a 50K pot as it was the only thing I had. Could this possibly be causing the low voltage problem?

[mattlee0037]

I'm no expert on electronics or the rangemaster, but I think that could definitely have something to do with it. From what I know the higher the resistance the higher the voltage drop, but that could be superfluous to our situation, so I'm not sure, but it's worth a shot.

[davent]

You could replace that pot you have with a 10k resistor from the power rail => collector and see if it has any effect on your voltages but i think it's probably something else.

Are you certain of the pinout of the transistor you're using?

Would you have a breadboard, nice simple circuit to set up on the breadboard and get working before committing to a pcb.
dave

[68Charger]

Hey guys! Well, I used the resistor method to bring the pot down to approximately 10K and wouldn't you know, the collector voltage came up to spec (wahoo!)

Unfortunately, the output is still way lower than the bypassed signal (but it got rid of the sputtering sound). So I decided to go back and check over my components and you know what? I got my math wrong (stupid me) on converting from n to uf. So I ended up installing a 0.001 for the output cap instead of a .01. With such a small cap, I figured that must be what is killing my signal. What do you guys think?

[mattlee0037]

Bigger caps let more signal through, I'm not completely sure what kind of change will take place, but it will certainly do something!

[68Charger]

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to follow up that I got the Rangemaster working! Afterall the troubleshooting, it turned out it was the caps and the larger pot that was causing my issues. While I am stoke the pedal is working, I have noticed a few of its quirks...

When on the treble booster side, when I turn the pot down, I lose all of my signal. Is this normal? I am guessing so since this pedal blocks a good amount of frequencies anyways...

Also, is this effect sensitive to what position it is in on the pedal chain? I have it 3rd after my Wah and Boss TU-2 tuner.

Once again, thank you all for your help. I have learned a lot in the process of building this pedal.

Thanks!

[billstein]

My favorite use of a Rangemaster is in front of something like a Big Muff.  Makes it sing.