I have been troubleshooting this project for several weeks and tried many of the helpful solutions already posted here (reflow, etc) that helped at different stages.
This is my first BYOC build, but I have basic soldering experience with guitars and through-hole electronics. At one point, I had the pedal working outside of the case. Assembled into the case, the volume was always at 100% despite the position of the pot. Otherwise, it seemed to be working properly as the LED was switching off in bypass mode, and distortion (nice sounding OD) was being produced.
Then, as I was trying to troubleshoot the volume pot, the volume function started to be intermittent (i.e. no volume adjustment possible) even outside of the case. So I assumed that part of the problem was my wires being too long or another problem with the wires due to the frequent bending at the connection when assembling into the case, etc. So I decided to desolder and re-connect all of the pots and power plug with shorter, color coded, wires.
After completing the rewiring step, the pedal now has the following incorrect behavior (outside the case):
-Bypass mode - clean sound from guitar, but LED is on (incorrectly).
-Active mode - LED is also on, but brighter - no sound from guitar with pots at 100%
Also, if the instrument is not plugged in, the LED is off in bypass mode.
Fortunately (?) I had a vary similar problem on my first assembly attempt and realized that there was grounding of the input signal to the case, which was easy to remedy. However, I am now getting this behavior outside of the case. I verified that the input signal is getting grounded when the foot switch is engaged using a continuity tester. But I don't know how to find the fault in the switch or the PCB since there is no obvious way (to me) the input signal is finding ground at the "IN" solder points on the board.
Any help or guidance would be appreciated. Sorry in advance if this is obvious. My PCB pictures are shown below.
wire color coding: red = positive, signal or pin 1., yellow = pin 2, black = negative, ground or pin 3.
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LMO_PCB_Front.jpg [ 129.49 KiB | Viewed 1339 times ]
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LMO_PCB_Back.jpg [ 139.67 KiB | Viewed 1339 times ]
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LMO_Connections.jpg [ 76.56 KiB | Viewed 1339 times ]