Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hi all!

This is my first post. I'm hoping that someone will be able to help me with my analog chorus kit. Thank you for taking the time to read this! I have signal when the pedal is bypassed, but when it's on, there's only a loud ticking sound, unless I roll the trimpot all the way down, in which case some signal does get through.

the LED is working, and the same thing happens whether I use a battery or a the power adapter. The speed of the LED does change with the pots. When I installed the IC slots, the instructions didn't say to orient them, so two of them are backwards, but I've read that it doesn't matter as long as the chips line up. I've attached three pictures of the pedal's guts. Do you see any obvious problems?

Thank you for the help!

I'd start by shortening all the wires, since this circuit is known to be sensitive to wire length and cross-talk between the audio signal and the LFO. Take a look at the photos near the beginning of the instructions and compare them to your build. Big difference.

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Thanks for the reply! Yes, you're certainly quite right about the wire lengths. Unfortunately, shortening the lengths didn't fix the problem, but I appreciate the suggestion!

In the photos, it kind of looks like you have the trim pot set to one end of its travel.

Hi Mark! Thanks for taking a look at it. That was after I'd been messing around with the trim pot to see if it made a different. I don't know if this is helpful info or not, but when I turn the trim pot all the way down, the ticking vanishes, and a weak signal comes through, unchorused. As soon as I start turning the trim pot up, the signal vanishes and is replaced with the very loud ticking sound. Thanks again for the help!

There are only a few basic ways to try to troubleshoot. One is to check and recheck. For that purpose, it might help if you removed the circuit board from the case and took pictures of both sides. Sometimes, a bad solder joint or something will be apparent from looking at the bottom. For looking at the top, the more the pictures make it possible to read component values, the more that can be checked.

Besides checking things visually, the other major approach involves taking measurements, maybe with a little signal tracer probe, simple voltmeter, and so on. Taking that approach is easier the more electronics someone knows, although it doesn't necessarily have to be much electronics.

A variation of the second method is to make changes to the circuit and see how the circuit responds to the changes. Such changes could be as simple as different adjustments of the controls, or maybe trying different guitars, or as complicated as modifying the circuit by changing component values or even changing parts of the circuit design. Somewhere in between would be swapping an existing part with a new one to see if a bad part is causing the problem. Normally its best to try the easy stuff first, and usually that solves the problem pretty quickly.

Any resolution to this one? I've got the same issue.

Hi there - in order for us to better help you and keep the troubleshooting threads clean, please submit a new thread detailing your symptoms and covering all of the items asked for in this thread:
http://www.byocelectronics.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=20913

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