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PostPosted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 8:27 pm 
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Greetings. My 11 y/o son just completes building a tremolo pedal Rev 3.1. He has built a Synthrotek fuzz pedal and is familiar with soldering and identifying components etc. He was largely independent on this build.

The basic problem is a very much attenuated output volume. There is some output but just barely audible. The LED lights up, the rate knob works as evidenced by the both the LED and the barely audible audio and the Depth knob works as well. The volume knobs works in that what audio you can hear when it is dimed disappears with when turned counter-clockwise.

I check and reflowed most of the joints and connections. I have gone through and I cannot find any obvious mistakes. I would really appreciate some insight. The dude is bummed.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 8:22 am 
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I know you said you reflowed the solder joints, but several of them look like they are "starved", meaning they could use some more. You want to see the entire eyelet filled with solder. My next step would be to add some solder to any joints that don't look full. From your pictures, I can't see how the joints on C4 (the blue 10uF capacitor under the volume pot) look, and that's right next to the volume pot on the schematic, so I'd want to be sure that one was good.

Others with more knowledge may add more suggestions, but that's what I'd do in the meantime. Good luck!

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:35 pm 
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Solder a wire from pin 8 of the footswitch to eyelet 8 on the pcb and see where that gets you...


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:49 pm 
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mmarsh wrote:
Solder a wire from pin 8 of the footswitch to eyelet 8 on the pcb and see where that gets you...

^ +1000! :mrgreen:

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:55 pm 
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Yep, the footswitch lug 8 to pcb pad 8 connection is what connects the output jack to the rest of the circuit. Without that wire you will not have any output signal. And we all have made plenty of mistakes like that. :mrgreen:

Also, here are a couple of helpful threads that show some best practices with building these things.

http://www.byocelectronics.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6401

http://www.byocelectronics.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=52211

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 2:20 pm 
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Ha, holy cow, how did I miss that—I even remember looking at his photos and going, "Oh, my tremolo used the header pin to connect the footswitch, but this one uses wires."

This is what I meant when I said "Others with more knowledge may add more suggestions"… :roll:

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 2:42 pm 
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Knowledge gained from experience. Not that *I've* ever done *anything* like *that* a million times...seriously, we've all been there!

*EDIT* One more thing: your son should be very proud of his effort! Stellar work, I'm sure you're the proud papa too :)


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 2:49 pm 
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He did a great job. His soldering is good and his focus is better than mine....thanks for the help


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