Aion Refractor Volume

[Flock of Bees]

Hello everyone,

I just finished an Aion Refractor but the volume is extremely quiet. I have to turn the amp up to 11 to barely hear it. Any advice on where I should be looking for the problem?

[Adam_DIY]

I had this with a pedal recently and it turned out I had a cold solder joint on the volume pot once I reflowed those connections the pedal volume was fine.  Could be somewhere to start.

[LateCentury]

Hello everyone,

I just finished an Aion Refractor but the volume is extremely quiet. I have to turn the amp up to 11 to barely hear it. Any advice on where I should be looking for the problem?

I'm having the exact same problem with mine. I used the Silver Pony specs as pointed out on the documentation. Did you try reflowing the volume pot and did it work?

[blearyeyes]

Could be a wrong value resister in the signal path. I've done that before.
Best to use an audio probe (make one) and follow the audio from the input on the schematic.
Also +1 on re-flowing all solder joints.
Good luck.

[darrenw6000]

In my experience having little volume has usually been the signal going to ground somewhere (solder bridge etc) worth a check, get a good magnifier with a light on it and look all over the board.

[Ralfg]

Can you please include some pictures? It would help in debugging.

[LateCentury]

Sorry to hijack your thread, Flock of Bees. Hopefully we'll both get some advice to try.



Since I wasn't really happy with the sound the first time around, I made this mods per the documentation:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4xhwadzx2rxbm8z/aion-refractor-centaur-documentation-v2.pdf?dl=1

R10 = 47R (More gain)
R17 = 10k (Increased volume & treble for the dry signal)
R18 = 4k7 (along with R17 change) Better wet/dry ratio)
R21 = 4k7 (Slight shift in range of Tone knob)
R23 = 1k8 (Slight shift in range of Tone knob)
C13 = 560pf (Slight increase in overall brightness)

[Ralfg]

Hard to tell from the picture, but it almost looks like there is a solder bridge going from the lower left gain pot lug to the nearest resistor. Also if you didn't use any pot covers make sure the tone pot is not shorting any of the circuit.

[LateCentury]

Hard to tell from the picture, but it almost looks like there is a solder bridge going from the lower left gain pot lug to the nearest resistor. Also if you didn't use any pot covers make sure the tone pot is not shorting any of the circuit.

Thanks, yeah, I cover the back of the pots with electrical tape before its boxed up. Theres no solder bridge at the tone pot. I've gone over the back of the pcb many times now in search of solder bridges. I'm wondering if doing all those mods together throws the circuit off. Like, maybe you can't do all of them at the same time? I dunno. I'm pretty new at this and I don't really understand schematics very well.

[sonnyboy27]

If I remember correctly then I did all those same mods and mine turned out fine. So it shouldn't be the mods that are giving you the weak signal. A friend of mine is having the same trouble with his build. Do you have an audio probe? If so then you can go through and see where that volume drop is happening.

Also, Ralfg mentioned checking for a bridge on your Gain pot, not the Tone pot. So give that a go too.

Lastly, like blearyeyes said take a look at the resistors in the signal path. Pay particular attention to those with similar resistor codes (1k, 10k, 100k, etc.). You'll want to double check R1 (10k), R6 (10k), R13 (1k), R16 (47k), R22 (100k), and R25 (560R). Make sure that last resistor is 560 and not something else cause that would definitely lower your volume.

[LateCentury]

Ahhh I figured mine out. I had a 390R resistor on R20 instead of a 390K. Works perfect now.