Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hey all,

I finished putting together my 5 knob compressor kit and powered it on, and it worked great. I had enough time to set the trim pot on the back of the board and started to dial in some good settings. Pretty quickly though it stopped working and my attempts at jiggling things or poking things have not revived it. The current state is that it will pass signal fine when in bypass; when the effect is turned on the LED illuminates. Turning the Sustain knob to it's maximum produces an audible hissing noise (just like it did when the effect was working) but no guitar sound when the effect is on.

One piece of information which might be helpful is that I painted the inside of my enclosure as well as the outside, and so it is possible that things were not grounding correctly when I first powered on and was playing with the pedal, although it sounded fine. I've since sanded the paint off of the inside of my enclosure.

I've removed the board from the enclosure and looked over all the solder connections - they all look good. I've plugged the board back in and it still behaves the same way. I haven't spent time double checking all the stripes on the resistors I installed - it would be helpful to have a color photo of a good board to use for this.

Thanks!

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The paint might create a problem, although I would have expected it to present immediately. The output jack is grounded by its contact with the enclosure, and paint can prevent good contact. Scuff the paint away with some sandpaper and see if the problem improves.

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Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

working for 5 minutes is a great sign! My guess is that you probably had a "cold" solder joint that got bumped around and went bad. The hissing output suggests the circuit is working, but not getting incoming signal from the guitar. I'd start at the input jack and trace the signal from there.

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Looks can be deceiving. A bad joint is often not visually distinguishable. I would recommend working through this process: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=52188

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“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

My Website * My Musical Gear * My DIY Pedals: Pg.1 - Pg.2

Thank you all for your input. I will report back once I have tried all your suggestions.

Thanks,

Hey! I re-flowed all the solder joints with added flux and it works now. Thanks for your help!

There are a couple things that I'm not happy with: The input buffer seems to suck - I use a 25ft cable and a passive volume pedal first in my chain, which is pretty much worst case for input capacitance. With a buffer ahead of the 5 Knob Compressor it sounds great, but without it sounds like a tone knob rolled off almost all the way. All my other pedals seem to have a good enough input stage to handle my cable and volume pedal but this one can't hack it. Does this seem typical for this pedal?

Another thing is that I would like more bass with the pedal engaged - is this something I could tweak somehow?

Thanks,

Sounds like you figured it out on your own. With a cable of that length, a buffer is probably your best bet.


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Pedal building is like the opposite of sex. All the fun stuff happens before you get in the box.