First successful solo troubleshooting!!!

[camsna]

There's a little bit of a BOO! at the end, but the YAY! is -

I built this little buffer (based on the Beavis Audio Plon Fentar) into an interface for my pedalboard. It's two buffers, actually. One buffers the signal to the pedals, the other buffers the signal after the pedals, back to the amp.

It didn't work at first. No nothin'. I was worried because I tried some stuff not in the layout. For example, I built the two buffers on the same piece of stripboard and powered both buffers from the same 9v source. Additionally, I took some advice from FSB and decoupled signal voltage through the PSU rail -- which I've never done and had only words to guide me. So POOP!

I whipped up an audio probe and took a look at the layout. Had audio in, past the input cap, a resistor, another resistor...looking good...to the IC. Dang - don't know what goes where once it hits the IC. Looked up the pinout and kept checking. Got signal at the IC ins and out...then nothing at the next cap. What in the world?

Cap was in the wrong place. And since I did two buffers on the same board, I put the cap in the wrong place on both of them. Yanked the caps, put them in the right spot, and BANG! Bufferage, baby! WOOHOO!!!

The BOO! is that my multimeter broke somehow. It no longer meters anything and, when I set it to circuit test, it ALWAYS shows short -- even without any leads attached. Bummer.

But hooray for my first successful solo troubleshooting case. Thanks for all the help, guys. I know I can be a pain, but I really really appreciate all the help and support from this (and other) place(s).

[madbean]

Good for you! This is a technique you will use many times over your pedal building hobby (or career).