Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hello BOYCers!

After a few years off, I’m getting back to my “builder hobby.” One of the kits I built 7 years ago was the Stereo Flanger. It works great in mono and has never worked stereo. I'm trying to debug it now.

So when I try to run it in stereo (with two amps) I get a very loud hum (bad ground somewhere?) in both channels. The "mono" channel still passes the wet signal (along with the hum). The stereo channel only has hum (no wet or dry signal). When the pedal is off, the hum is still present in both channels and only the mono channel passes the dry signal.

I'm wondering if it's something funky with the foot switch - sometimes I get a bit of wet signal on the stereo channel (still with a bunch of noise). Note in the picture that the foot switch PCB is slightly rotated (both the header and socket are not fully flush with there respective PCBs) - could that be related?

There was also something in the directions about soldering the foot switch lugs in a particular order to help disperse heat - I have no idea if I followed those directions back then -- is it possible the problem is a heat damaged foot switch?

Thanks in advance for any help and guidance here. Pictures below

Quick update here - tried removing some of the extra blobs of solder around the little pcb for the switch (looks like there may have been a tiny contact between 4 and 7 on the header solders. Seems to have helped a little. Now I am getting wet signal in both channels (Yay!) but still have lots of noise when both channels are plugged in.

Here's the summary of where I am now

1 amp/mono out only: everything works great, no additional noise

2 amps/mono+stereo out: Wet signal in both amps, high noise level in both amps (both with effect on and off).

So now we're down to possibly a bad/heat-damamged foot switch or some other grounding issue on the Stereo channel signal.

I tested the poles on the foot switch with a multi-meter. It seems to be operating as expected.

SOLVED!!!

So I tried plugging both the Flanger's mono and stereo channel into the normal and bright inputs on my Monotone 5E3. No noise!
The "amp 2" is also a monotone tweed (Princeton).

When I swapped the Princeton for a Factory-built Champ XD, I got glorious stereo with very faint noise (roughly equal to what I was getting with mono channel into one amp).

So looks like there's some difference in grounding between the two amps...