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viewtopic.php?f=29&t=59392&p=497201&hilit=Tremolo+depth#p497201

My pedal is in working order. Though the depth nob sweeps the entire tremolo depth range from 1:00-5:00.

As in, no depth until I sweep the nob to 1:00. Then it increases to maximum by 5:00.

Re: above post.
I double checked resistor values and cap polarity and lugs and everything checks out. Has red LED.

The guy in the above post switched to to a B250k pot.

Do you think a similar value would work in this situation to spread out the taper? Or would a different value be more suitable?

Thanks for any thoughts or insights.

That would probably be a good place to start. Something you might consider would be to run three wires from the depth pot eyelets on the PCB after removing the 1M pot and then connect them to pot you want to try. See how the circuit reacts, and then you can easily switch to a 500K or a 100K depending upon how the pedal performs. Once you've found the best performer, you can then remove the wires and install that pot into the PCB.

BTW, a solder reflow of the entire pedal is often helpful, as well, and only takes a few minutes on a simple circuit like the Trem.

If you're still having trouble after those things, please post a good set of photos.

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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

Good idea re:test leads to try various pots.

Yes I've reflowed a couple of different times and rewired the entire pedal with no change. Also addressed lug 5.

Thanks for the tip!
Much appreciated.
Also re:pics. I can't figure out the right settings to get everything to focus at once. Let me know if more detail is needed.

I'm not seeing any misplaced components, and the quality of your soldering is quite good. I'm afraid I don't have any good suggestions for you, but hopefully bumping the thread will keep the conversation going.

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My band, Austin Hollow

For the sake of conversation then ...



Mine does exactly this. I've got a blue LED because, well, blue painted box. I built it a year or two ago and found that clipping a red LED in parallel with the blue one, in an attempt to get the voltage drop at that location in the circuit to be closer to what it was designed for, didn't make a noticeable difference.

I came to embrace the situation, as meaning I had a very nice boost pedal by turning the DEPTH knob down and the LEVEL knob up ...

Some day I may go back and socket the Q3 JFET and try some other samples (seeing as they vary so much), though at this point I'm not sure why it should make a difference. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around JFETs.

ok sorry for the delay,

i have been content using the pedal as is and have been since I built it, but this was the first attempt resolving my pedal build "anomalies." trem depth sweep issue, changing out the volume pot on the silver pony 2 to make it more usable ( there was a thread with davoodooman's suggestion). (actually the sp2 volume pot thread is what make me think of changing the pot on this trem pedal i thought maybe it could be something to it.), and then addressing the unusable tone suck on my analog vibrato. not bad for the number of pedals i built the last few years.

since my last post I swapped out a few different pots with no real observable change other than less depth from lower valued pots. Though I only had a b100k and audio taper 250k and 500k pots to test with. They had the same sweep issue but just different depth range. Though i was not satisfied with my test and had the intention of getting other alternative pots and never did. So I looked back at it again today.

I am a noob when it comes to reading and following schematics. but looking at the schematic and the circuit board.
Is this analysis correct?

Sweeping the depth pot counter-clockwise, sweeps the middle lug of the pot (which is connected to the nearest pin(collector?) of Q3-5457) to the pot lug closest to the center of the pedal which is connected to ground. so grounding out the nearest pin of Q3 results in zero depth = no tremolo.

Sweeping the depth pot clockwise, sweeps the middle lug of the pot (which is connected to the nearest pin of the Q3-5457) to the pot lug closest to the edge of the pedal which is connected to R10 100k. so fully disconnecting the nearest pin of Q3 from ground results in full depth = full tremolo

so thinking this way.
the other day i tested this when i had the pot out with wire leads... but i did not write down my results and do not remember. of connecting wires together if I had it backwards.

so knowing that I couldn't remember my results but wanting to test this theory without removing the pot again(I put the original b1M pot back in)
I turned the depth all the way off, counterclockwise, no trem.

i took a jumper wire and connected first the middle lug to the inner lug connected to ground. no change. then i connected the middle lug to the outer lug connected to R10 and again no change. then connected outer lugs together, no change. this was odd to me i thought if i touched the middle lug to the outer lug i would get full trem but no. user error?

So then while the center lug was connected to the outer lug R10 with the jumper, i turned the depth pot to the center of the sweep thinking maybe that would change something.

Eureka!
when i turned the pot while i had the jumper connecting center to outer lug (Q3 to R10) it worked absolutely normal!? it had full sweep and full depth.

is this the solution. or the problem or just a coincidence?


*****
while the depth pot is installed in the circuit, using a jumper wire connecting the center and outer lug of the pot. directly connecting the nearest pin of Q3 to R10. then turning the depth knob from 7:00-5:00, full sweep. i have a perfectly working depth range and sweep.

i thought this was a very strange result. it works perfectly but does not make sense to me why this results is fixing the issue. i would have thought connecting the jumper wire would have resulted in full trem depth...



any ideas?
should i make the jumper a permanent solution?

ok so put in a semi permanent jumper between the inner and outer(toward outside of pedal) lug. it did not spread the sweep of the depth out, maybe a little. but it shifted the range of the sweep to the beginning of the sweep where before the range was at the end of the sweep...