Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Hello,

I just completed a Silver Pony (not 2) build and running into two issues. First, everything worked except no overdrive when turning up the gain knob, in fact the level dropped slightly as gain knob was turned clockwise. I pulled the pedal apart checked for loose connections, cleaned up a few cold solders and shored up some wires. Put back in enclosure and plugged in, now I just get squealing. I've had it in and out a few times tweaking, replaced a singed wire, no better. Not sure if it's a bad gain pot.

Thoughts?

Hi, and welcome to the forum. Your problem could be caused by a few things: a component error, a cold solder joint, or possibly a faulty part (although the gain pot is a very unlikely culprit). In any case, we'll need to take a look at your build to help you troubleshoot.

Please post photos, making sure they are large and clear enough for us to see details such as the color bands on your resistors. Please include photos of both sides of the circuit board as well as your wiring. If you need help posting the photos, let us know.

Also, do you have a multimeter that you could use to take voltage readings?

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Hi Scott,
I have a multimeter. The photos are too large to upload here so I created a google album that you can download from. Let me know if that doesn't work for you and I'll try to resize them for upload.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qCHxHAUdXZSjPsvH6

BTW, your band sounds great!

Thanks,
Brett

You probably just need to reflow your solder joints. It doesn't look like you held the iron to the PCB long enough to get proper flow out. Looking from the top of the PCB, very few of the eyelets look like they filled up with solder.

Heat up all the solder joints again and add just a touch of fresh solder for the flux.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

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

Thanks, Brett.

I expect Keith's advice to reflow solder will take care of your problem. If it doesn't, we can do some more troubleshooting, including the voltage readings.

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Thank you both for the quick reply on this. I've done a few repairs and mod kits in the past but this is my first full kit build. I'll to get to work fixing my shotty solder jobs and let you know how it goes.

Progress has been made. I touched up all of the board solder jobs and did a test before putting in the enclosure. Vol, Tone, and even Gain worked properly, but still a little squealing. I put it back into the enclosure to see if that would help and was back to full squeal but did have guitar coming through this time. I poked around a bit more trying to find wires touching or something since it got worse when put back into the enclosure but nothing jumping out at me.

I took new photos and added the to the google photos library. New photos start at PXL_20220614_171444275.jpg

Progress, good!

How are you powering this pedal?

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

I'm powering with a 1 spot non isolated adapter plug. I've been reading through some of the threads on squealing and I did try it with a battery though before responding but got the same squealing results.

OK, I would say it's best from this point forward to do all your testing with a known fresh battery, even though you are currently getting the squeal either way. My Silver Pony works fine on my 1Spot, but we've seen so many reports of problems with that adapter on circuits that use a charge pump that it's better if we eliminate that variable. Once you get it working correctly on a battery, you can plug it in and see if you're lucky like me.

I believe that whoever helps you next (since we're venturing beyond my knowledge now) will want to see voltage readings on the ICs. You mentioned seeing other threads, so you've probably read instructions on how to do that and how to report your readings. But if you need guidance, just let us know.

_________________
Scott

My band, Austin Hollow

Thanks Scott, yep, I've seen the other threads and figured that was next.

I'll plan to sit down and take the readings sometime in the next day or two and post them here unless someone else chimes in with another troubleshooting suggestion.

Update: I had some luck improving things whilst fiddling with wires, so I completely rewired the DC jack and input/output jacks. Finally got it working consistently and sounds great, but the squeal or buzz is still pretty prominent.

A few observations: The squeal is boosted when turning the tone knob all the way clockwise (treble). Squeal is consistent regardless of guitar volume, even all the way rolled off. My next step is to rewire the foot swtich since that's the last thing I haven't redone.

Here are my IC readings. You'll probably see the issue that I'm leaning towards looking at the 76605 chip. "Locations" are with respect to the top of the board view in the Silver Pony directions. I'm sorry I don't have a more accurate or low value range multi-meter. I can post a video to google photos of what the pedal sounds like if that would help at all.

TL072 Top TL072 Top (Swap)
Pin Value Pin Value
1 3 1 3
2 3 2 3
3 3 3 3
4 0 4 0
5 3 5 3
6 3 6 3
7 3 7 3
8 7 8 7

TL072 Left TL072 Left (Swap)
Pin Value Pin Value
1 3 1 3
2 3 2 3
3 0 3 0
4 0 4 0
5 3 5 3
6 3 6 3
7 3 7 3
8 8 8 8

76605 Right
Pin Value
1 8
2 0
3 0
4 0
5 0
6 0
7 0
8 8

Looks like it didn't like my double set of values. Here are the original (not swapped) TL072 values. They are very similar to the swapped values.

TL072 Top
Pin Value
1 3
2 3
3 3
4 0
5 3
6 3
7 3
8 7

TL072 Left
Pin Value
1 3
2 3
3 0
4 0
5 3
6 3
7 3
8 8

76605 Right
Pin Value
1 8
2 0
3 0
4 0
5 0
6 0
7 0
8 8

You aren't getting any "pumped up" voltage from the charge pump. You should be getting +16 ~ 18V on pin 8 of the top TL072 and -8 ~ -9V on pin 4. With the differential between the pin 8 and 4, this give that chip an operating voltage of 27V. This chip is where the "clean boost" of the klon occurs. Your operating voltage is only 8V, so it doesn't have enough headroom, which would explain the fizziness.

The fact that you are supposedly able to get ground at pin 4 of the top TL072 and are getting 0V on all the pins of the 7660 other than pins 1 and 8 is a little weird though. If you're certain you've reflowed all the solder joints, you should contact sales@buildyourownclone.com and request a replacement 7660SCPA.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

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

Okay. Those are the only solders that I didn't touch up because they're under the gain pot. Since both chips have similar values in that same socket I'll try to touching those up and report back.

Any concerns with the 76605 chip values?

In the meantime, I added a video to the google album with the buzzing.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qCHxHAUdXZSjPsvH6

Even with a faulty 7660, I'd expect to see some sort of voltages on all of the pins except pin 3 (which is connected to ground). Even if just a few millivolts. So that's my only reservation in saying definitively that the problem is with the 7660.

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

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

Hello,

I went back and touched up the soldering at the "top" IC socket and took readings again, which are the same as the original values that I posted. I also redid all of hte wiring at the input/output jacks and DC jack. I now have solid signal, no fiddling with wires, but the buzz is still there.

Any suggestions on what might be causing the lack of pumped up voltage?

Thanks,

Do you have any other known good charge pumps on hand that you can test with? If not, you should email sales@buildyourownclone.com and request a replacement 7660SCPA

_________________
*patience is a virtue*

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