Business Card Fuzz (BCF) Failure/Help

[Martial_Sound]

Hello,

   I'm new to pedal building. This is my second build so be gentle! My first pedal was the Woodstork21 which I completed with no issues. Now, I'm building a BCF and here's the run down:

All components installed
I did the following mods per the build PDF:
More fuzz - change fuzz pot to 2kB.
More squish - change Squish to 1MB.
More volume - change 470R resistor to 820R.
I used  2 2n3904 silicon transistors

Plugged in, I get sound when the pedal is OFF. When I engage the pedal, the LED comes on but no sound.
I checked all my connections and I can't figure it out.
What do?
Pics below:

[harryklippton]

The solder joints on the footswitch don't look great. You can reflow them by putting your soldering iron back on them and waiting til you see the solder liquify. Be sure to touch the iron top to the pad on the board and the lug of the switch at the same time

[Martial_Sound]

Yes. My soldering job this time around was atrocious. I realize this now. Thanks for the tip I'll give it a shot first thing tomorrow and hope for the best.

[jwin615]

Soldering is a skill. It's takes practice and mistakes.
If you want some cheap practice, order some perfboard(not strip board). You want 5he kind with full vias with solder pads on both sides. Also order a pack of resistors. You can probably get both on AliExpress for ~$5us.  Practice soldering the resistors in a stairstep pattern. You'll have to bridge one leg of each resistor to the last, which is good practice too(if you get into stripboard layouts especially). Focus on making joints that look smooth and teardrop from the leg into a circus tent over the past. If it looks like a ball, you're not heating the pad enough.  You want the solder to flow through the pad to some extent. You don't have to fill the pad on the other side but it's good to at least see it peak through.  As you get better you'll see it fill into the other side some.
With switches, take your time. Never do multiple lugs on the same pole at once. You will contort the plastic and the switch will fail.
Back to the resistors. You can check your work with any cheap DMM to ensure continuity.
I say all this in encouragement.
Also, good irons and solder make a huge difference.

[Martial_Sound]

Thank you very much for the advice!

[Betty Wont]

Your input (and maybe output, I cannot see in the pics) jack appears to be wired backwards. That would cause your problem. Are you using fluxed solder? I think you might reconsider your soldering supplies.

[Martial_Sound]

No they are wired correctly. Can you be more specific?

Also - I re-soldered the jack as suggested. Still no sound/same issue. This is so frustrating! Its such a small board but seemed like it was going to be fun.

[jwin615]

Did you reflow the footswitch? Some of those joints are suspect. Make sure to take time between them or you'll bork the switch.
Also, check c2 for a solder bridge. Hard to tell from photo but it's close.
If that's all good, I'd suggest audio probing it. If you haven't built one, it's simple.
There's a sticky on the forum. Or, for the time being you can use an old ts cable, a capacitor and a couple of alligator clips.

[jimilee]

I find that the easiest PCBs are the easiest to mess up on. I get cocky and zip through it. Time for an audio probe.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Govmnt_Lacky]

#1: Definitely need to do some re-soldering. Flux and patience...
#2: Is your Output grounded? Looks like the output wire on the main PCB is shorted to ground.

EDIT: Nevermind about shorted output. If it was, you wouldn't even have clean output 

[jwin615]

Martial, ever make any headway on this?
Need any help getting a probe together?