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Hey there! Hope everyone's doing as well as they can in these strange times. I've taken advantage of quarantine to build the analog delay kit. This is my first time wielding a soldering iron since an electronics summer camp I did as a kid, so I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to get a signal out of it. However, even after calibrating the internal pots, the delay effect has an unpleasant distortion, like an overdrive effect, particularly when multiple notes are played on the input signal. Bypass works fine (clear signal, no distortion). The LED comes on. I'm running it off of wall wart power. It barely works off of a battery; the LED doesn't come on and the signal is very faint; there is no delay effect.

Any help in figuring out what's going on would be much appreciated! I built the signal tester as well, and tried listening at various points along the signal path, but I wasn't exactly sure what I should be listening for or tracing specifically to try and diagnose this issue.

The IC voltages look very good. I think the problem is arising elsewhere on your PCB due to soldering quality issues.

I see two main solder problems:

• You are consistently not applying enough solder to the joints, and I suspect some of them aren't making good contact. Each joint should have a conical shape, like a tiny silver volcano. The entire solder pad on the PCB should be covered with solder, and it should "peek" through the eyelet on the component side of the board. AAMOF, the top leg of the 100K resistor next to the big 220uf electrolytic cap at the bottom of the board doesn't look like it's soldered at all. There is a lot of great info on good soldering technique here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6401
• You should also be trimming the lead ends of your components right at the top of the solder joint and not leaving them protruding. These can lead to signal or power shorts through unintended contact.

Here's a detailed description of the process to work through: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=52188

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

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

Excellent, thanks for those resources! I'll go over and fix my soldering.

I reflowed the board some months ago with no success, and tried again last night. I must have made a mistake somewhere since now I'm getting no sound at all when the pedal is active. Still getting a signal when bypassed.

Did you try going through the trimpot setting sequence again after your reflow?

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

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

The new pic is a tad out of focus. Hard to tell, but it looks like the 4558 might not be properly seated in the socket? Do you have a signal tester? That would be very helpful at this point.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

Please do not PM me. email is prefered. keith@buildyourownclone.com

I just tried setting all the trimpots to noon as per the directions. Still no sound. I played with each trimpot individually as well. Also just reseated 4558D (no change). Clearer picture attached. This may have been a mistake, but I removed three of the ICs before reflowing to keep them from heating up too much (the fourth one was stubborn and stayed in). A couple pins were bent but not extremely and I was able to straighten them out and get the ICs all back in. The voltages on the IC pins are all in the same ballpark as before so I'm hoping no harm done.

Yep, I do have a signal tester. Sounds like the next step is to follow the input signal until I can find out where specifically it's stopping.

I haven't identified where exactly it stops, but the signal does seem to get fainter and fainter as I move across different components. I wonder if the signal is entirely gone by the time it hits the delay circuitry.

Just to clarify, the dry signal when the pedal is on is okay? It's just the wet delay signal that is distorting?

The first place to start with the signal tester is pin 7 of the 3205. This is the input. Pin 3 and 4 are the output. Let us know what's happening at these locations.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

Please do not PM me. email is prefered. keith@buildyourownclone.com

Well, since I reflowed, I get no signal at all when the pedal is on (dry or wet). The dry signal comes through fine when the pedal is bypassed.

At pin 7, the original dry signal is recognizable but very faint and with a lot of noise. Pins 3 and 4 produce a constant high pitched frequency (slightly different between the two) with a little bit of noise.

Well...I suppose if you want a silver lining, figuring out what's wrong with, and fixing the dry signal path is a lot easier to do. And if you do that, you might fix the wet path as well. Please test for signal at the following points:

1. Middle leg (base) of Q1. This is the transistor closest the battery snap eyelets.
2. Emitter of Q1 (leg farthest away from the battery snap)
3. Pin 1 of the 4558 chip.
4. Pin 7 of the 4558 chip.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

Please do not PM me. email is prefered. keith@buildyourownclone.com

Nice! It's cool to learn a little more about the signal path too.

1. Middle leg of Q1: silence
2. Emitter of Q1: silence
3. 4558 pin 1: silence
4. 4558 pin 7: silence