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Cave Dweller, Dwell & Echo pots not functioning.

Started by pegasusIII, May 05, 2012, 05:02:08 AM

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pegasusIII

Hi there,
I am fairly new to DIY pedals, having only modified a few of my other bought pedals.
The cave dweller is my first build from scratch, I printed and etched the PCB myself and have populated it and hooked it up to my testing unit and to my suprise it actually seemed to work first go!
I was half expecting to get nothing first go but it worked.

BUT when i started testing the pots, i realised that while the Time control seems to work perfectly, the other two controls (Dwell and Echo) don't seem to do anything other than reduce the effect to off...
not sure what I have done wrong. At first i had put the pots in backwards, i flipped them and it didnt seem to change anything...

Has anyone had this problem or have any idea what could be wrong?
I will try take some photos of it as soon as i can and post them here.
Let me know any other info i can give to help work this out.

Thanks in advance!

trickpony

Well I just built that one and mine works great...Maybe you could give us a photo of the top and bottom of the populated board, and a youtube video link of it. Just turn the time to mid, and pluck single notes and adjust the other 2 knobs.


pegasusIII

here are some pics, will post video ASAP.
board (looks a bit dogdey i know, but i have checked the traces a few times and everything seems ok...)

Top view, wiring w/ testing unit

Top view

madbean

I would first clean up those solder joints on the PCB for the wires to the pots. There is too much solder there. There might be some hairline solder bridge you can't easily see. Just hit the joints with a solder braid to suck up some of the excess then remelt the joints with your iron to make sure you have good contact.

trickpony

Well its hard to see anything wrong. I can see that you had to add more solder to make the ground connections (I imagine those tiny traces were hard to etch).Have you checked to make sure your pots are working (check the resistance and make sure it's changing as you move them)(;-))?
It's probably just the camera angle but are you sure the bottom joint 2nd from the left isnt making contact with the ground trace to the right(and up)? Also the bottom 3rd from the right and above it looks iffy. There is alot of  copper around that bottom one